A Day In The Life of a Blogging Book Designer

POSTED ON Jul 14, 2010

Joel Friedlander

Written by Joel Friedlander

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Today was a busy day at Marin Bookworks, home of TheBookDesigner.com. What’s up? After a chilly morning perfectly suitable to winter—oh, wait, it’s July!—it was a full day.

  • Completed photo research for a book cover project about sailing around the world.
  • Finalized 5 cover designs for the sailing-around-the-world book.
  • Answered several queries from prospective clients.
  • Answered comments left overnight on various blog posts.
  • Scheduled a social-media consult with an author for tomorrow.
  • Tried to track down 5 cover variants sent to Fedex/Kinko’s (yeah, I know they changed the name, very foolish) north of here for proofing for a client’s book.
  • Corresponded with another client about a book printing that’s gone sideways.
  • Started photo research for a cover design for a crossword puzzle book.
  • Posted a brief article to the SPANet community site on the Books & Blogs group.
  • Went to the gym, walked the elliptical for a half hour listening to Chris Brogan on blog writing.
  • Did a 5-minute freewrite in the gym parking lot on the iPad.
  • Consulted with the Sears repairman, back for a second visit, about all the new parts he’s having shipped in to fix the nuker. Try to look reassured when he says they’ll be here “soon.”
  • Tried to pick up a package at the mail drop, stymied by the parking lot oiling underway, bright yellow police tape circling the entire strip-mall parking lot, forcing everyone to exit via the entrance. Dicey.
  • Met with a printing salesman at our downtown Starbucks to review press proofs on a full-color art photography book being printed in Canada. Met an indie publisher at the next table who noticed the 24″ x 36″ press sheets hanging over the little Starbucks table, says he’s read the blog.
  • Had a long consult with the photographer of said art photography book about how to correct the one or two minor flaws in an otherwise incredible press proof. Starting to get excited about the book.
  • Set up an editing schedule with a client on yet another nonfiction book. (No novels in the house at the moment. How sad.)
  • Created and shipped off a PDF of the Foreword from a book for another client.
  • Assembled materials for next blog post on article marketing for publication later in the week.
  • Checked my Feedburner, Google Analytics, Alexa, Newsletter subscriber and Twitter stats. Do I have to do this every day?
  • Responded to 72 emails.
  • Failed to answer 7 phone calls. (Who has time to talk?)
  • Sent 13 Tweets.
  • Read 3 blog posts on other blogs.
  • Added 5 items to tomorrow’s “To-do” list.
  • Called it a day. See you tomorrow.
  • Image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, original work copyright by flik, https://www.flickr.com/photos/flik/

Joel Friedlander

Written by
Joel Friedlander

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