Handmade typesetting and cover designEstablished 2013
Novels, story collections, memoir and narrative nonfiction, typeset and given their covers by hand by master book designer Tracy R. Atkins, one book at a time. No AI is used in the making of your book: not on its pages, not on its cover, and never with your manuscript.
Our promise
Your book is made entirely by a person. No artificial intelligence sets its pages, designs its cover or reads your manuscript, at any step, for any reason. It is the reason the studio exists, and it is a promise we make for every book.
Your interior is typeset by master book designer Tracy R. Atkins, page by page. No AI layout tools, no automated typesetting, no generated pages. Every line break, every space and every chapter opening is decided by a designer’s eye.
No AI-generated images, ever. Your cover is designed by Tracy, with photography and illustration made by people, licensed from human artists or commissioned for your book.
Your manuscript is read by Tracy and no one else. It is never uploaded to an AI tool, never used to train one, and never kept on this website.
AI can produce pages and pictures in seconds. It cannot read your book. It cannot feel where a scene needs room to breathe, which line should close a page, or what your cover should promise a reader before they open it. That judgment is a craft, learned over a working life, and it is what you are paying for here.
More readers, reviewers and booksellers want to know how a book was made. For the design of yours, the answer will be simple and true: every page and the cover were made by hand, by a person.
What makes the work different
A novel or a memoir asks to be read for hours at a time. Every choice on the page serves that reader, and every book is designed around its own voice.
Your text is set exactly as you wrote it. The studio does not edit, rewrite or polish your words, so your voice reaches the page untouched. Please have your manuscript edited and proofread before it comes to us.
Chapter and part openings with presence, scene breaks that let a story breathe, and epigraphs, letters, poetry and maps set as their authors meant them. Every spread is checked before you see it: awkward breaks, running heads, page numbers and notes. The small things are the work.
You work directly with Tracy R. Atkins, in close collaboration from the first email to the final files. More than a master book designer, Tracy is your book shepherd, an attentive assistant and a trusted advisor on everything self-publishing asks of you: trim size and paper, ISBNs and imprints, Amazon KDP, IngramSpark and Lulu, and every decision in between. Your notes go straight onto the page, not into a queue.
Services
From manuscript to print-ready files, with your designer at every step.
An interior designed for your book alone: the typefaces, page size and margins, chapter and part openings, scene breaks and running heads, and every element your manuscript calls for, from epigraphs and letters to poetry, maps, photographs and notes. Composed by hand in Adobe InDesign for the finest type, or in Microsoft Word if you would like a file you can keep editing with the tools you have at home.
A cover designed by hand for your book, that tells readers at a glance what kind of story they are holding and works full size on a shelf and as a small image on a retailer’s page. You receive the front cover for your eBook and a full print wrap, with front, spine and back sized to the specifications of Amazon KDP, IngramSpark and Lulu.
An eBook built by hand to match your print design, so the reading experience carries across phones, tablets and dedicated e-readers.
Guidance on everything self-publishing asks of you comes with every book, from ISBNs and imprints to trim sizes, paper and distribution. When your files are ready, we help you set your book up with Amazon KDP, IngramSpark and Lulu, and we are here for the questions that come up along the way.
The process
Six steps, with you the whole way: in writing first, and by phone when your book needs it.
Every project begins by email. Send the form below with your manuscript attached, as it stands today, and Tracy reads it and replies with questions, a design direction and a quote, so every detail is in writing to refer back to. When your book calls for it, we follow up by phone or on a conference call.
We design sample pages from your own manuscript: a chapter opening, body pages and the special elements your book needs. You see your book before we set all of it, and we refine the design together until it feels right.
With the design approved, the complete book is set by hand, front matter to back matter, one page at a time.
You read the proofs and mark your changes. Every correction is made by hand, each page is checked again, and you receive a fresh proof.
You receive professional, print-ready PDF files built to the specifications of Amazon KDP, IngramSpark and Lulu, and your eBook when it is part of your project.
We help you set your book up with whichever of them you choose, and we stay on hand as a trusted advisor for the questions that come up after it goes on sale.
Selected work
Photographed in print. Each of these openings was designed by hand for its own book and no other.
Investment
Every book is quoted individually, once Tracy has read the manuscript. Handmade work takes weeks of a master designer’s time, and these ranges reflect it.
$1,500 to $5,000
depending on the book
Where a book falls in the range depends on its length and on how much it carries beyond straight text: photographs, maps, notes, letters, poetry and other special elements.
$1,500
for print and eBook
A cover designed alongside your interior shares its typography, so the book feels like one object from the outside in.
Also available: eBooks and upload help, quoted with your project. Guidance on self-publishing comes with every book. The studio does not offer editing or proofreading.
The studio
Established 2013
Every book at The Book Makers is typeset, and its cover designed, by hand by Tracy R. Atkins, the studio’s master book designer. Tracy co-created Book Design Templates with the late Joel Friedlander, the book design templates that more than 70,000 authors have used over fifteen years to lay out their own books, and brings the same eye to every page of yours.
Tracy works the way the studio always has, in close collaboration with each author through the whole process: a book shepherd, an attentive assistant and a trusted advisor on everything self-publishing involves, from the first email to the day your book goes on sale.
The Book Makers was founded in 2013 by Joel and Tracy to make fine books for independent authors and publishers: books designed with the same care, and to the same standards, as any from a traditional publisher.
Joel brought more than forty years of book design and production to the studio. He began his career in the 1970s at the letterpress and spent the decades that followed designing books and teaching authors how good books are made. He was a master craftsman, and his standards are the heart of the studio’s design DNA: pages that serve the reader, and respect for the traditions of the printed book.
Today, every book is still made one at a time, by hand, on the principles the two of them built the studio on.
Request a consultation
Every consultation begins by email, whatever your book needs. Attach your manuscript as it stands today, add a few details, and Tracy will read it and write back personally with questions, a design direction and a quote. If your book calls for a conversation, we will follow up with a phone or conference call.
It goes to Tracy by email and nowhere else. It is never stored on this website, never uploaded to an AI tool, and never used to train one.
We take on a limited number of books each month, so every one gets the attention it deserves. If you have a publication date in mind, write early, and we will tell you plainly whether we can meet it.