Detail Work

After my offering of green tea and a slab of sushi, an old friend of mine agreed to do the cover design for my new chapbook. Joe is detail-oriented. Here's an email he sent me yesterday:


A:
What we need to ask/find out from the publisher/you (in no particular
order):

1. Precise trim size.

2. I work in Quark. Can their printer deal with that?

3. The cover design you want won't work without coated and very white
stock. Can they/will they get this?

4. What kind of schedule do they have in mind?

5. Do they want to use a photo on the back cover? Do YOU want to use a
photo on the back cover?

N.B.: You might float the idea of flaps if you don't want your picture
on the back cover. Another alternative is a bio page (with or without
picture) at the very end of the book.

6. A thought: You might contact the Squeezers people and see if you can
get permission to use that dog image as a frontispiece. Assuming they
agree, we'd need a black-and-white glossy from them to scan. The image
on the pack of cards is too small, not to mention red.

7. You need to let me know precisely what text is to appear on the front
and back covers. This includes information about the publisher (plus any
logos), bar code, etc.

N.B.: I won't need actual blurbs yet -- just a rough idea of how many
and how long.

8. Presumably the spine will be too narrow to print on?

9. Please confirm number of colors on cover.

N.B.: Some printers treat black plus one PMS color as a one-color job.
Might be worth looking into.

10. Please confirm what kind of schedule they had in mind.

N.B.: Since you want the chapbook in print for your Fanfare reading,
we'll need to know the latest we can go to the printer and still make
that happen. (I'm sure we'll get to the printer long before that, but we
still need to know.)

11. Have they given any thought to the interior design? Cover and
interior don't have to match precisely, but it would be useful to know,
e.g., font choice and design concept so there's not a wild mismatch
between inside and outside.

12. The proper, American English spelling is "acknowledgments," not
"acknowledgements."

13. Can we do bleeds on the cover? (May not be necessary, but still it's
nice to know if we have the option.)
***
Well, that's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure that, as soon as
I send this, something else will come to mind. If it does, you'll be the
first to know....
Cheers!
J

It's so cool to know that I am in good hands! Also, notice the blurb pressure already beginning to pile up.