Choosing a designer

When you contract a designer and typesetter (which is usually one and the same person), whether independently or through Smartwork Creative, look upon the money spent as an investment. It’s the bit that makes your book look as good as it reads, and, along with the editing, it will go a long way in helping your book stand out from the crowd. Readers expect a book in a particular genre to look a certain way. Balancing their expectations with innovation and flair takes expertise, and you ignore them at your peril. If in doubt, take a close look at the books on your bookshelf; most of them will have been produced by book professionals and trade publishers, and their designers know how to manage time-honoured conventions, such as legibility of type, pagination, placement of page numbers and running-heads (or running-feet), layout of title pages, and so on.
If you choose an independent designer, it’s best to go by strong recommendation. You will need to brief them clearly on what part of the job you want them to do, whether it’s the page design, cover design, typesetting, or everything through to preparing a print-ready pdf file that you can email to a printer.
If you place your book with us, we will ensure you are ‘kept in the loop’ as it goes through the design, typesetting, pre-production and print processes. We will give you a point-by-point breakdown of all the factors you need to consider; we’ll also help you with some of the big early decisions you’ll have to make on format and size.