One of the questions that I hear, fairly often, is really a complaint—a complaint from author-publishers that they can't get a cover designer on the phone, or that they can't get on the horn with their book designer, or the person formatting their eBooks.  In this day and age, there's a pretty simple reason for that—it's money.

A decade ago, an affordable print layout for a 60K-word romance novel ran about $900.00 USD, and that didn't include cover design or eBooks.  The more-typical pricing was $1500-$1600, for a novel.  When that was the going rate, sure, it was far easier to get a designer on the line.

But now, since the advent of Createspace and other services based offshore, the pricing for print layout, etc., has dropped like a homesick rock.  Cover designs, which used to run a thousand dollars or more, just for the front cover (the cover for Obama's book cost $8,000!), now typically run $150, or thereabouts.  Print layout that used to cost a thousand dollars now sells for $300 or so.  eBooks are typically formatted for under $200!  The reality is, most of the good folks working away in these lines of work can't afford to get on the phone and gab with their clients, any longer, because there's simply not enough margin in the work to pay them to do that.  What they are doing is running a business, and they have to keep their costs down so that your pricing stays low, too.

At Booknook.biz, we still have phone calls, of course—but please keep in mind, when we refer you to a cover designer, that s/he is probably doing everything s/he can to keep prices low.  Use your email, so you can both be happy.