Adam Kinney on .NET

Hunting Godzilla in .NET...

Graphic Support for Books

While reading DonXml's post on Why Shouldn’t Authors Self-Publish?, I came across on interesting comment by Darrell Norton. He mentioned that typically graphics and images in books are not always in proportion to the quality of the writing of the book. This makes sense, most programmer writers are not skilled with the likes of graphic design and I can't imagine that it would be cost-effective for publishers to keep too many artists on staff for this kind of work.

As a designer/developer, I'm interested in how this works behind the scenes.  I've noticed the lack of quality graphics in some books, myself.  I wonder how important this is to the success of the book.  Could it warrant a service where the publisher or the author pays an outside consultant to design the graphics (or at least takes them out for a for beer)?

Any input from existing authors?  Anyone willing to pay (or bartering) for graphical support?

[Curiosity killed the cat; or at least gives him to much to do…]

Posted: May 11 2004, 01:10 AM by AdamKinney | with 6 comment(s)
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Comments

Kent Tegels said:

70% of the stuff I do is either code listing (ugh, I hate those) or screen shots. XP and SnagIt make that easy. 20% more is doable via Visio. The idea is demonstrate the concept, not win an art award.

Its that last 10%, though, that would make me brew a beer for a good illustrator.
# May 10, 2004 10:22 PM

darrenford said:

I don't write books, but I do read them, so take this for what its worth; not much.

People either "get it" or they don't with regard to graphic design. If they get it, they will not release a book until it looks good. If they don't get it, no amount of persuasion will convince them its necessary, or that what they have is inadequate. Its like me trying to explain to my friend Shyam that I cannot understand a word he is saying when he thinks he speaks perfect English.

Having said all that, I think you have a good idea, the few people I know who write don't have a much of a budget (read:none) for anything; but I am a firm believer that someone can make a living doing just about anything.

Build yourself a web site that explains with examples of how you can make a book, article, or whitepaper look good. You can target book authors (poor), or internal/external corporate documents ($). Make it extremely painless to purchase your services. Look at this guy http://www.visualpharm.com/links.html, who would have thought someone could do so well with such a specific niche ?
# May 10, 2004 11:46 PM

Dave Burke said:

I'm guess I'm a designer/developer like you, since I find that I've been paid to do a good bit of GD over the years. But as for technical books, it is rare that graphics are needed to make a point. It is rather the code excerpts AND SCREENSHOTS that make for clear understanding of concepts, and it always surprises me how smart, technical people and their editors often handle these two aspects so badly.
# May 11, 2004 12:35 AM

Adam Kinney said:

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I believe I will setup a website offering services as an information designer. I think that graphics, screenshots, code excerpts and layout could all be included in this service.

If anything it will give me an excuse to dress up all of the other websites I have running as examples…
# May 11, 2004 10:27 AM

Minh T. Nguyen said:

Good luck with that thing. Sounds interesting. How much would you be charging though? And would you do this only for computer books or what?
# May 11, 2004 1:12 PM

Darrell said:

Adam, if you're going to offer your services, if you want to collect books you could trade some skill for a freebie book. Or, as always, cash talks! :)
# May 19, 2004 10:50 AM
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