Tom Christensen did an informal survey of four book designers to find out how much they’d charge for a hypothetical job.
I was trying to determine a reasonable price for a 320-page hardcover collected poems, interior and cover/jacket design. . . .
According to the 2001 edition of the Graphic Artists Guild handbook of Pricing and Ethics, for an average poetry book a designer might charge $7,500 to $15,000 to design and set the interior plus $1000–$2000 for the jacket. That gives a total range of $8500–17,000. Those figures are seven years old, but several people say the prices in this publication skew high.
Yes, in my experience, they do.
The results? Each different, like a snowflake: $3,100, $8,000, $8,800, and $12,800. See Tom’s post for each designer’s breakdown of charges: rightreading: Book design fees.
Photo: price list by Nick Sherman; some rights reserved.