When author N.R. Williams asked me to design the cover of her fantasy novel, The Treasures of Carmelidrium, the first thing we talked about was the cover image. This is normal; it's what most people think of when they think of book cover design. We talked about Williams' book, about other books that she thought might be attracting the readers she wanted to reach, and about the challenge of adapting one of the fantasy "uniforms"--rich colors, an essentially medieval environment, and a magical feel--to her book. Adding to the challenge was the fact that Williams plans for this to be the first in a series, which meant the cover needed to be something that could be used to create a series identity by modifying key elements without losing the overall look. Ultimately, we decided to avoid the rich, elaborate, and highly-figured covers common to many fantasy books for the very good reason that by following that formula too closely we ran the risk of disappea...

I was having lunch with an old friend of mine yesterday, and the conversation turned to writing, editing and publishing. This was hardly surprising, since she's a professor of English at a nearby university, and I'm returning to contract teaching after a long stint as a book editor and designer. (I'm not quitting; in my life jobs tend to accrete rather than change. Now I'll be a book designer and editor who also writes books and teaches College Writing.) I had taken along a book published on CreateSpace, and as we talked she flipped through it. "Beautiful pictures," she said. And they were. Furthermore, the type was clean and crisp, the production values of the book (things like overall print quality, straightness of crops, color balancing, and so forth) were excellent. "I have a friend who might be interested in self-publishing," she said. "But it's just text. How does that compare?" I picked up one of the mid-grade paperback b...