Reply To: How much to pay an Indesign professional?

I think you may need to differentiate between hiring a “designer” and a “production artist.” Hire a designer if you want him/her to design the book. It sounds like you have already designed it by choosing fonts and layout and just need a production person to take your design and build the book based on it.

Lots of folks can and do perform both tasks – it’s just a matter of communicating upfront what your expectations are.