Reply To: Is there such a job as Book Designer?

Great to see you here, Scott! Professional Design Techniques is a favorite on my bookshelf, where it sits beside Real World InDesign, InDesign Type and Claudia McCue's marvellous Real World Print Production.

I'd add to your and David's remarks that there's a new and growing niche for book design. Between the shrinking cost of production and the new dominance of online marketing and sales, authors new and established are finding self-publishing an attractive alternative to the conventional publishing process.

At any given time, I almost always have at least one book project in hand that's for a private edition or intended for print-on-demand publication. Self-published works aren't a matter of vanity publishing any more, and, similar to the indie recording and movie scene, I don't see this doing anything but grow. These days, ePub versions are also needed pretty much simultaneously with a print edition, making CS 5.5 a very happy arrival on the design scene.