I like that you approach the launch of your creative enterprise with a business sense. This is quite exciting. I have never used a book designer (probably why my books never took off), but I never imagined I would make money. I just had to write the books. From beginning to end I formatted the books and published them. For only one book (a memoir) I hired a graduate student to created a cover...$50. It was a lovely cover but didn't make a difference, and eventually I decided to take that book down. It was too personal for the world the read.
My Chinese art/history book was a real challenge formatting. It had color illustrations. At the bottom of each page I had a small picture as an accent. Included were also Chinese characters. Oh my, what a headache. But, the finished product looked great :)) Because I never expected to make money, I didn't want to abuse the family budget by paying for services.
Good luck! Your writing is great. The thoughts you express in your poems relevant to all our lives. I'm sure the book will do well.
I didn't always used to be that way. : ) I've never used to enjoy the marketing but I've grown to view it as a challenge now. The first book I used a professional designer for was The Perfect Pause—once I did I was hooked. It's saved me so much time, especially when dealing with things like photo/file formatting issues with Amazon. I still do some of the initial conceptual cover design but then hand it over to Lubosh as his starting point. We've worked together on so many projects now that it all unfolds naturally and effortlessly. Thanks so much! I'm rereading the second draft of the entire manuscript this week and making notes. It was tough picking out the eleven stories that will be included from all the stories I've written but any more than that I felt like would be testing the limits of the modern attention span. : )
It takes courage to write, to put ourselves out there for others to judge. It takes another level of courage to ask people to buy what we have produced. I don't think I have the second level :) It takes the fun away when people say no. Only once in my life did I ever ask for a raise at work, despite the many jobs I held and the fact that my employers valued me. I just don't like, "NO". I admire your enterprise and confidence.