Hi Jenna,

And welcome to the world of book design! I got my first job out of college as an in-house designer with a publishing house, and have now had about 18 years in that career. I can confirm a lot of what is said above, it can be slogging work and it doesn't pay as well as other areas of design but it is definitely a legitimate speciality, just like magazine design, corporate design etc. And in my opinion book publishers can be quite accepting of designers who don't necessarily have book experience. So I would just start contacting publishers in your area with your portfolio and your dream :-) The great thing too is that if you freelance (as I do now) you can work globally. Having experience and contacts behind me, though I am based in Sydney, Aust, I work for publishers in the States and Europe. I have worked mostly on non fiction, especially cooking, craft, gardening, reference, travel etc. In this type of publishing I have almost always been exclusively responsible for the entire project, including art directing photo shoots and sometimes styling. But my small amount of experience with fiction publishing houses has been as described above – I have been brought in just to do covers and typesetters have done the internals. Not in illustrated publishing though, it's all yours. I find the industry goes in cycles, along with the economy. There'll be a few years where publishers go back to a small in house team and contract out the overflow, then you'll find in house teams are cut back and everything is going to freelancers. I would say that if you really have a passion for this area, do try for an in house position simply because you'll learn more. That doesn't have to be a full-time position, some publishers like freelancers to come and work in house for the period of a contracted project, or at least partly, and that would be a good option.

As I said, I now freelance and have been for quite a few years now. The majority of my clients are still publishers but I have had to work hard to crack some other areas of design to cover the short fall as publishing isn't just cyclic with the state of the economy ( and this can mean a down turn because parent companies are in other countries where the economic climate is different to where you are employed, like any other industry) it is also cyclic in terms of the big Book Fairs that are held internationally each year. This is where publishers sell their wares within the industry. These can mean a flurry of concepting activity before the Fairs and either lots of work if titles are bought or a dearth if few are bought. A couple of years ago, very few Australian publishers made it to the Frankfurt Fair because of the Icelandic volcano grounding flights. This meant a real hole in the industry which was definitely felt by we designers.

So I guess I'm saying – Yes! It's a bigger industry than you might think! Go shop around publishers, it shouldn't be hard for a competent designer to crack in. But bear in mind that unless you're in house it'll be hard to make ends meet all the time through publishing alone, so keep fingers in other pies!

Good luck