Here are answers to some questions you might have about Studio XB and how your creative design project will be handled. If you don’t find the answer you want, please feel free to get in touch for help.
See The Studio XB design process.
No, only the parts you want me, as a designer, to handle. If you have other trusted professionals to hand such as marketers, writers, photographers, illustrators, printers, app developers—whoever—I am more than happy to collaborate with them to help you achieve the result you want. I have no desire to muscle-in and take ownership of your whole project—simply to be involved in the part(s) where I can add value and give you the benefit of my skills, experience and knowledge.
Once you have a complete, edited and proof-checked manuscript ready to go, I can take that and create, to a finished professional standard:
a design for the cover; |
text and layout style templates for the text pages; |
the typeset and laid-out text pages. |
Your comments and wishes are taken on board during the process, to ensure you are completely happy with the progress of your project.
When you are ready to approve the finished artwork for the book, I will then provide you with all the necessary files for you to hand onto your printer, upload to an online book printing service, or upload to an e-book vending site.
Once you have your final files you are free to use them wherever, however, and as often, as you wish, to suit your own needs, provided all agreed and invoiced costs have been paid.
Firstly, I need an approximate word count of your complete manuscript. A page count is not relevant at this stage, as the final page count will depend on many factors (see The book design process). If your book is going to be solely reflowable e-book format (for e-readers such as Kindle), pages aren’t relevant at all. Any writing or word processing software will have a menu option that will calculate a word count for you.
Secondly, do you anticipate there being any additional items that need inclusion in your finished book, such as illustrations, photographs, tables of data, etc.? The inclusion, and possibly also creation, of these will have to be factored into the cost.
Although Studio XB does not offer a printing service—there is plenty of choice available to you directly in the marketplace—help and advice are always at hand on technical matters before, during and after printing.
This is not charged extra—it is part of the all-round Studio XB service. You can rest assured that all your questions and concerns will be addressed in a timely fashion as your project progresses. You’ll get the finished result you want, with the minimum of uncertainty and stress!
That depends on the nature and duration of your project. As a rule, shorter projects will be charged in one bill at the successful completion of the project. Longer projects, such as design and typesetting of a complete book, will be billed in instalments (approved design for cover and text, completion of book to print-ready or upload stage).
No, Studio XB is not currently registered for VAT, so if you aren’t either, and you’re resident in the UK for example, that’s a 20% saving for you right there on studio time!
Studio XB is just me—designer Paul Williams—but, quite frankly, with a name as common as mine (just try a quick internet search for it and you’ll see!) I felt it necessary to adopt a suitable business moniker to trade under.
Before taking a break from design for a bit, I had traded under the name Extrabold Design, ‘extra bold’ being both a typography term and something that kind of sums up my robust design style in a succinct way. On returning, however, I wanted something a bit snappier, so I abbreviated Extrabold to XB.
Having said all that, I do have a number of trusted professionals to hand who have complementary specialist skills, and with whom I work on projects if needed—so sometimes Studio XB is a kind of team too.
Far from wanting to sound like a large concern, though, I’d actually rather you know the core of Studio XB is just me, and that you will deal with the same experienced and conscientious professional right the way through your creative design project—someone who will be there to guide you if needed, and help you get a result you can be proud of.
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