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Ampersand Book Interiors: Because '&' means more for YOU.

37K views 133 replies 39 participants last post by  ShayneRutherford 
#1 ·
Hey! Welcome to the official Ampersand Book Interiors Kboards thread!


New year, new name, even more done for you. Because & means more.
Visit my new site at ampersandbookinteriors.com
Get 5% Off when you become an Ampersand and join my mailing list!


Hundreds of authors and publishers have come to me for book interior layout. Why? Because this is what I've dedicated my professional life to: print interior design perfection and beautiful, functional ebooks.

LET'S LOOK AT WHAT SOME OF MY BEST CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY
Thanks for the fast turnaround last week, Colleen. And at such a late hour during Christmas break. Awesome work. If anyone wants to see what I'm talking about, look at the Look Inside of my latest, Rising Fury.
Wayne Stinnett
Author


Just wanted to chime in that Colleen does a wonderful job, and I'll always ask her to format my novels. She's fast yet incredibly detail oriented, and with both of my books with the help of images gave them a very distinct, professional feel. If you want to make your interior stand out, and convert more of those readers who click on the Look Inside, she's a fantastic choice.
Alec Hutson
Author


When you hire someone to design your book interior, design a cover or do anything else to make your book a reality, the very best thing you can hope for is that the designer will truly 'get you.'

Colleen not only 'got me' but was able to turn her understanding of my writing into beautiful and accurate visual representations. Colleen has done the logo for my publishing imprint, designed the interior, and helped me to stay as sane as possible during the process.

I spent twenty years in marketing before turning to writing full time and I feel pretty confident in saying that Colleen is worth ten times her rates and will soon be charging that. I'll be saving my pennies, because I wouldn't let anyone else touch my books.
Dawn McKenna
Author


Another happy customer here - Colleen is great to work with. Cheerful, professional, happy to accommodate weird and detailed requests, and very willing to go the extra yard to make sure the final product is professional. If you're looking for top-notch interior design, look no further.
Phil Tucker
Author


Colleen did a wonderful job on a paperback interior for a three novel, four-story collection that totaled almost a quarter million words and 200+ chapters. Despite this unwieldiness, she got the page count down from 1,100 pages (!) to under the Createspace limit (less than 828) without losing any readability. It reads great, and of course looks super-pro. She's also super friendly, responds to emails fast, and really goes above and beyond with small touches and little flourishes that bring the interior to life. Amazing formatting work, as usual, and highly recommended.
DN Erickson
Author


I have to add my two cents on what a FANTASTIC JOB Colleen did with my emergency formatting! I had gotten back the formatting from another formatter, and was disappointed with the work that had a lot of issues and redos. I needed to see if a Plan B could do a better job. So, I sent a message to Colleen.

Not only could she do a better job, she could do it in a few hours, and for cheaper. She did the entire Createspace interior and ebook designs in a few hours. OMG! I had releasedates and preorder dates set. So, it had to be done that day. She was amazing to work with and was able to help me out. She now has become my Plan A.
Marilyn Vix
Author


If anyone is interested in a peak at some great interior formatting, have a gander at my Ranger Rising book's Look Inside on Amazon. Colleen did all of that and then some. Flawless, elegant, and definitely something worth investing in. She customized the map I provided and even made me my own logo for my publishing arm (You know I'm a huge, one man publishing company, LOL). When I needed a quick update, she was responsive and quick. I'll leave it at that and let the book's interior do the talking.
Salvador Mercer
Author


Colleen was exceptionally easy to work with and went above and beyond to ensure I was more than pleased with the finished product.

I'm a picky individual with a very detail oriented eye. It was a joy to work with a interior designer who shares my attention to detail.

Colleen was responsive and professional. Thanks to her skill and dedication, I have a beautiful book.
A. Z. Anthony
Author


I found working with Colleen to be a delight, and she has a great sense of book design. Very happy with her designs, layout and typography. She is prompt and stays in contact. She's a no-worries designer!
Giles Becker
Author


Hey, we're off to a good start. Next, some of my favorite title pages from 2017!












Ready for more? See more details at my site! Ampersand Book Interiors

See FAQs on my site: FAQs

Prologue: Read this! Explore my design options, how I work, and the most frequently asked questions.

I've tried to answer as many things as I can on this website alone. Don't be afraid to poke around everywhere!

1: Fill Out the inquiry form.

You will find the service inquiry form on the 'Let's Talk' page. Please fill out the form as best you can. I'll be able to provide an estimate faster if every part of the form is answered.

2: I'll answer you and ask any more possibly relevant questions.

There's only so much room on the inquiry form! If I feel like I haven't gotten enough information I'll ask for more.

3: I'll send you an official estimate.

There's a time and place for talking about money. Though it's not a topic I dwell on throughout the creative process, this is the point where we hammer out financial details. I also provide my pricing schedules on each product page so you can have a general idea before you write in.

I tend to stick with the prices on my site very closely. The only deviation I will make is when someone comes to me for non-fiction that has essentially no real non-prose elements. (I see this a lot with memoirs). I frequently will price those with fiction base prices plus a specialized per-page fee depending on the complexity of the text.

4: You review and/or accept the quote.

I have a two-level quote process-an unofficial one where we hammer out details, and an official one that you will accept when...

5: I send over a quote, contract, and the first invoice installment all in one.

Here's where we sign all of the official paperwork, which will then be available to both of us via something called a client portal. (That's just a shared space, which I'll create once we agree that we're starting). It will run through all three at once: quote, contract, first invoice installment.

6: I begin developing designs or cleaning up the manuscript!

Depending on the level of design, I will one or both of these things.

7: You approve the design and first pass.

We'll make a few passes for design and structure until we get it just right. I want you to be excited about the final file, so I'll incorporate as much feedback you give me as long as it sense in terms of design and proper typesetting.

8: I do the full typesetting.

Different price levels dictate different amounts of fine-tuning paid to each page and line of the book. The differences are explained on each service page. Regardless of the service level, I will be going through the file and refining, spacing, reviewing, and adjusting the pagination of each individual page; the Gold Dollar means I do this line-by-line.

9: You review it once more.

I'll just ask you to review it once more to make sure it's right. We will have up to 3 rounds of changes at this stage, and then we'll finalize the file.

10: If we're doing an ebook, I'll do it now.

The ebook process will look a lot like the print process. I'll start this now.

11: I send the final invoice, then deliver the final files.

All files sent prior to the final files will have a watermarks within the pages. Once you pay the invoice, these watermarks will be removed and you'll have your upload-ready PDF and ebook files delivered to your email and backed up in a shared Google Drive file.

Epilogue: You'll upload the final files!

If any technical questions or issues pop up with your distributor I'll be here to address them and fix them, free of charge. Sometimes distributors find things validators, testing, and checking doesn't catch. That's ok! I've been doing this for seven years and have seen almost all of the issues a file can come up with.
 
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#4 ·
CS,

Welcome to Kboards! [br][br]You're welcome to promote your business and website here in the Writers' Café![br][br]Now that you have an official thread, you'll want to add your listing to our Yellow Pages Listing, found here:[br]http://www.kboards.com/yp/[br][br]The listing is free to KB members and is completely self-service; you can add and edit your listing from the page. More information on our Yellow Pages listing can be found here.[br][br]In your thread here, we ask that the same basic rules be followed as we have for authors in the Book Bazaar: you may have this one thread about your service and must post to it rather than start a new thread each time. New threads about the service wil be removed. Please bookmark this thread so that you can find it again to post to. And, you may not make back-to-back posts to the thread within seven days. If someone responds (such as this post), you may reply but otherwise must wait seven days, thanks![br][br]Betsy[br]KBoards Moderator [br][br](Note that this welcome does not constitue an endorsement or vetting of a service by KBoards. Members should do due diligence when considering using a service.
 
#8 ·
Just wanted to pop in here and say that regular prices are up now, but write.DREAM.repeat is still up for business and still affordable! I'm filling up the slots for next week as we speak! Please send me a PM if you're interested, or visit my How It All Works page on my site to begin.

I'm drawing up a Neatly Organized example this moment. They're pretty basic, but they'll get the job done and still be upload ready to Createspace when we're done. :)
 
#10 ·
I love, love, love the job that C.Sheehan did for my book. I was lucky enough to get in on her kboards special, but I'm already in the queue for my other books at her regular prices, which are very reasonable, especially for so much custom attention. I got the "fancy" formatting with loads of prettiness and I can't wait to see it in person.
She even made me the cutest publisher logo for all my front pages for a tiny extra fee.

I was beginning to think I just wasn't meant to have paper books with all the trouble I was having finding a formatter that was both awesome and affordable, so I'm so glad Write, dream, repeat happened when it did!
Thank you!
 
#11 ·
Jnassise said:
Just wanted to drop in and say that Colleen recently formatted two books in my bestselling Templar Chronicles series for me and I couldn't be more pleased. She was a pleasure to work with - responsive, fast, and willing to make minor tweaks until I was entirely happy. Highly recommended!
Thank you so much, Mr. Nassise. It was great working with you, too! Hopefully I'll get a chance to do so again in the future. :)

Lionel's Mom said:
I love, love, love the job that C.Sheehan did for my book. I was lucky enough to get in on her kboards special, but I'm already in the queue for my other books at her regular prices, which are very reasonable, especially for so much custom attention. I got the "fancy" formatting with loads of prettiness and I can't wait to see it in person.
She even made me the cutest publisher logo for all my front pages for a tiny extra fee.

I was beginning to think I just wasn't meant to have paper books with all the trouble I was having finding a formatter that was both awesome and affordable, so I'm so glad Write, dream, repeat happened when it did!
Thank you!
Thank you!! It was great working with you, too! I'm still excited that you're so excited.

Let me know how that book looks when you get the proof in your hands!
 
#12 ·
We've extended our services, simplified our pricing, and have a new website! Please visit us at http://csheehanwrites.wix.com/writedreamrepeat

We now offer:

POD formatting
Ebook cover conversion for your POD book
Custom publisher's logo creation
Custom business card design

Soon:
.epub and .mobi file creation
custom packages

Now accepting slots for next week!
 
#14 ·
Hey Indies,

Colleen did an amazing job with designing and formatting my book for POD. I had meaning to get around to it for months, but the process seemed really daunting and I didn't want to deal with yet another learning curve. Now I feel lucky that I procrastinated, because Colleen did a way better job than I ever could have. She took genre into account, listened to what I asked for, and was really fast and responsive. The book looks awesome!

Highest recommendation!
 
#16 ·
nellgoddin said:
Hey Indies,

Colleen did an amazing job with designing and formatting my book for POD. I had meaning to get around to it for months, but the process seemed really daunting and I didn't want to deal with yet another learning curve. Now I feel lucky that I procrastinated, because Colleen did a way better job than I ever could have. She took genre into account, listened to what I asked for, and was really fast and responsive. The book looks awesome!

Highest recommendation!
Nell! Thank you so much! Can't wait for you to hold that lovely thing in your hands :D

kathrynoh said:
I wanted to add my recommendation. Colleen did formatting for my three book series that I wanted in a bundle. She was in communication with me throughout the process to make sure I would be happy with the finished product. Fantastic work and fantastic service :)
Thank you, too, Kathryn! It's great to hear that you're still happy with it!

Just to let everyone else know, I have 4/5 $25.00 slots left open now. And if anyone would like a business card design, I'm doing those right now for a $10.00 special for three people as well. Some (very few) examples can be found here: http://csheehanwrites.wix.com/writedreamrepeat#!custom-logos-and-business-cards/c12lw
 
#18 ·
Dwallock said:
Do you do poetry book formatting ebook/createspace?
Daniel- I can absolutely do poetry formatting, yes! In fact, I'd love to work on that kind of project. As for ebooks (as in .epub and .mobi), I'm still working on perfecting my technique on those, so I'm not quite ready to offer that yet. I'm getting close, but right now I should just keep formatting to Print-On-Demand/Createspace. Still would love to do that for you, though!

Everyone, I have 4/5 more slots left open for this week's $25.00 Print-On-Demand Fancy Interior special. I hope to hear from you! :)
 
#19 ·
C. Sheehan,

I'm not going to have my final manu ready until about Nov. 25-ish, maybe a few days earlier. Is there any way I could reserve a slot on the deal? It's a 100k-word women's fiction/literary novel. I'm not looking for aything particularly fancy, just nice. I'll understand completely if you can't honor the deal that far out.

Thanks!
Dawn Lee
 
#20 ·
DawnLee said:
C. Sheehan,

I'm not going to have my final manu ready until about Nov. 25-ish, maybe a few days earlier. Is there any way I could reserve a slot on the deal? It's a 100k-word women's fiction/literary novel. I'm not looking for aything particularly fancy, just nice. I'll understand completely if you can't honor the deal that far out.

Thanks!
Dawn Lee
Dawn Lee,

We can reserve a spot for three weeks from now. I'll just note it in my calender (and you should send me an e-mail via my site http://csheehanwrites.wix.com/writedreamrepeat#!letstalk/con8 or at csheehanwrites@gmail.com when you do have it ready).
 
#22 ·
Dwallock said:
I'll contact you... I have no idea how long the editing will take. Maybe two days, maybe a week, maybe two or three.

k?
No problem. I'm pretty chillaxed in the schedule right now, so whenever works for you is perfect.
 
#23 ·
For a 48 poem book and createspace we could absolutely do it for $25.00 (less words, but definitely more design work for the kind of attention a poetry book design would deserve). As for the .mobi and .epub formatting, like I said in the previous post I'm still not satisfied with how my epub/mobi designs are coming out, so I'd like some more time to really perfect my techniques with those. But still, the createspace offer will be good.

So, right now, a simple $25.00. :)
 
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