Panel Recap: New England Book Show Winners' Circle

This week, we gathered in Emerson College's Charles Beard Room to hear from Cate Barr, senior art director at Cengage, and Angela Dombroski, production manager at Candlewick, about the design and production efforts that went into their winning books from this year's New England Book Show. We also welcomed the class of students from Mass Art who will be designing next year's Book Show catalog, along with some familiar and new Bookbuilders faces.

Book Show Winner: Cengage

First up was Cate, who explained the art and design choices and processes that went into the final version of Cengage's winning humanities textbook, Cultures & Values.

Cate Barr, senior art director at Cengage, on winning textbook Cultures & Values 

Although Cultures & Values is a textbook, it's treated essentially as a fine art book because of the art history subject material: it's full of images of paintings, statues, and other kinds of art that need to look good on the page. Cate explained that paper quality has a significant effect on how good the images look once they're printed, so this particular book used the highest-quality paper. This aspect is actually really important to professors who have several options for textbooks to assign to their courses. Professors often look though potential textbooks to see which one reproduces the art the best before making their selections.

How do you check the reproduction quality of the art before the final books are printed? The answer is scatter proofs: a few of the images are printed together on a sheet, rather than where they actually belong in a book.

For choosing the layout, Cate says, she always looks at the competitors and then aims to be better. This book went through three or four rounds of review with the author! Consistent color palettes are also important. This design uses a lot of neutral, earthy colors to support the vibrant art.

Cate shows off the interior layout of Cultures & Values.

And speaking of color, consistent colors are one of the greatest values print can offer for art books--you can't control how the colors will look on the customer's iPad.

Book Show Winner: Candlewick

Zebra Forest cover design

Second, we welcomed Angela Dombroski, production manager at Candlewick. Angela told us all about—all about—the production process, and a bit about how it affected the design, of Candlewick's two winning YA books, Zebra Forest and Kingdom of Little Wounds.

The jacket design for Zebra Forest is a real standout, and it has a special feature: only the small section with the title is glossy; the rest of the jacket is matte. Angela went into a lot of detail explaining how the press achieves this effect (it involves UV!). There are all kinds of other effects books can have, but they tend to be limited by the budget. To opt for a fancy effect in one area, it's common to have to sacrifice something else, like paper quality.

Because color is so important to Candlewick and because lamination has a huge effect on color, even the proofs are laminated in the same way the final jackets will be. There are many different options for laminations.

One of the keys to laminations and coatings, she said, is the scratch test. This was especially relevant for Candlewick's other Book Show winner, Kingdom of Little Wounds. This book has a matte finish, but matte film can scuff very easily, making new books look used right away. It has lots of other effects on the cover, too, but its most noticeable effect might be its stained edges. That is, the edges of the pages are stained red, a process that's expensive and a little tricky because it's done manually.

To show us the immense range of production options for book covers and jackets, Angela brought a whole bag full of samples for the audience to see and feel. There were different kinds of paper, colors, coatings—a lot of options.

The audience got to check out lots of production samples.

We wrapped up with a few questions about the design process. Why might an initial cover design be rejected? At Candlewick, it's often because it doesn't fit the book's age range. It could also be too similar to other current Candlewick books. "We might just have too many covers with pensive-looking girls on them right now," Angela said. And some of the hardest books to design are those about sensitive issues, like disability. It's important to approach those with a lot of tact and sensitivity.

Next Time

We all learned so much from this panel that it was basically a crash-course in book design and production. For even more, you can catch up on our tweets from the event.

In October, we'll be discussing a big topic in the industry right now: innovations in editorial workflows. We'll announce the details soon.

The Winners' Circle: 57th Annual New England Book Show Is This Wednesday!

Join us for the first workshop of the fall! Attend a lively roundtable discussion with speakers from Cengage and Candlewick, winners at the 2014 New England Book Show. We'll learn about how some of the best-built books from New England publishers were designed and produced.

Wednesday, September 24
6–8 p.m.
At Emerson College
Charles Beard Room (mezzanine level of the Little Building)
80 Boylston Street in Boston

Our workshops are free and open to the public. RSVP here.

If you can't make it to the event, follow @BookbuildersBOS for live tweeting via the #bookbuilders hashtag.

Please note: A valid photo ID is required for building security to check you in to the building.

We hope to see you there!

2011 Workshops Kick Off Strong

About ninety people registered for the first in the fall workshop series, and over sixty attended. There is a capacity limit on the room, so please be sure to register for the events tomorow night, next week, and at the beginning of November.

Jennifer Urban-Brown covered  acquisitions and editorial topics. At Shambhala, she actively acquires titles, reaching out to potential authors to fill needs in the list. Unsolicited manuscripts, foreign works, and agents provide leads as well, but publishers often have to be proactive in order to meet the specific goals that they have set for new titles. 

Jennifer discussed the difference between developmental editing--in my experience, often kept in-house--and copyediting, which is often outsourced.  The in-house team that works with an author must be sensitive to the author's needs and also effective in communicating the vision for a book to other departments.

Becky Hemperly, a Bookbuilders scholarship recipient, has had a wide range of experience across publishing departments. This led her to recognize that a book's contract should be forward-thinking and cover as many considerations over the life of the book as possible--not only royalties and complimentary copies, but the needs of production, sales, and marketing as well.

Lastly, Joanne Wyckoff of the Carol Mann Agency spoke about her personal publishing journey. She worked as an editor at Random House in New York for thirteen years, where she negotiated all her own contracts. On the flip side, as an agent, Joanne now spends a good deal of time editing: polishing a manuscript before it is presented for consideration by publishers.

The Q&A session was lively, with the following highlights for Joanne:

What was the most difficult situation you've encountered?
Hint: Author relations.

How do you evaluate agents?
Think: networking.

To work as an assistant at a literary agency, how important is it to have editorial experience?
Surprise: Business acumen is as important for those pursuing this career.

Thank you to the Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group for sponsoring this workshop.

October 2011 Events

October is always a busy month for Bookbuilders. Our monthly casual networking event takes place this coming Wednesday (October 12) at OM Restaurant in Harvard Square. Also, we have a full slate of Back to Basics workshops beginning this Thursday.

The first workshop (10/13)  focuses on editorial, rights, and acquisitions processes. Speakers are Jennifer Urban-Brown, editor at Shambhala Publications; Becky Hemperly, Vice President of Contracts, Rights, and Royalties at Candlewick Press; and Joanne Wyckoff, a literary agent with the Carol Mann Agency. For complete speaker details and to register, see the Bookbuilders website. The sponsor for this workshop is the Maple-Vail book manufacturing group.

  

Next in the workshop series is Design, scheduled for Wednesday, October 19. Speakers are Erin Hasley, Senior Designer, The MIT Press; George Restrepo, Designer, Rest Design; and Cate Rickard Barr, Senior Art Director, Cengage Learning. Erin designs books and book covers, George is on the board of directors at AIGA Boston, and Cate has designed for academic, college, and professional lists. Lehigh Phoenix sponsors this workshop.

All workshops are held at Pearson, 501 Boylston Street, Boston (9th Floor Cafeteria). The time for all workshops is from 6:00 - 8:00, and refreshments are often provided.

Note that the workshops are free, but registration on the Bookbuilders website is required. There is security at the venue, and attendees names must appear on the reservation list. Photo ID is also required.