Every page set by hand
Your interior is typeset by 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.
Handmade typesetting and cover design
Fiction and literary nonfiction, set by hand.
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
All human. No AI.
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.
Every cover designed by hand
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 stays with people
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.
Why it matters
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
Made by hand, for long reading.
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 words, exactly as you wrote them
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.
Designed for fiction and literary nonfiction
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.
Your master book designer
You work directly with Tracy R. Atkins, from the first conversation to the final files. Your questions are answered by the person setting your pages, and your notes go straight onto the page, not into a queue.
Services
Typesetting and cover design, by hand.
From manuscript to print-ready files, with your designer at every step.
Handmade typesetting
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.
Cover design
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 your printer’s specifications.
eBook
An eBook built by hand to match your print design, so the reading experience carries across phones, tablets and dedicated e-readers.
Upload help
When your files are ready, we help you set up your book with your printer and retailers, such as Amazon KDP and IngramSpark, and answer the questions that come up along the way.
The process
How a book comes together.
Six steps, by email, with you the whole way.
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Consultation by email
Send the form below with your manuscript attached, as it stands today. Tracy reads it and replies by email with questions, a design direction and a quote. The consultation happens in writing, so every detail is there to refer back to.
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Design proposal with sample pages
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.
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Composition by hand
With the design approved, the complete book is set by hand, front matter to back matter, one page at a time.
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Proof rounds
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.
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Print-ready files and eBook
You receive print-ready PDF files built to your printer’s specifications, and your eBook when it is part of your project.
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Upload help
We help you set the book up with your printer and retailers, and we are here for the questions that come up after.
Selected work
Pages from books we have designed.
Photographed in print. Each of these openings was designed by hand for its own book and no other.
A selection of books we have designed
- Anni Moon
- The Art of the College Essay
- Avoid Social Media Time Suck A Blueprint for Writers to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write
- Best College Essays 2014
- Comunicación rentable en marketing Seis pasos en la era de las redes sociales
- Divorcing Smartly
- Farmer’s Son
- Farming Soul
- Kids Kicking Cancer
- Nappily Entangled
- Padre! A Place Whose Rules Rearrange Your Own
- Repped 30 Days to a Better Online Reputation
- Snakes A Novel
- Vera
Investment
What a custom book costs.
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.
Handmade typesetting
$1,500 to $5,000
depending on the book
- A consultation by email and a careful read of your manuscript
- A design proposal with sample pages from your book
- Composition by hand, front matter to back matter, with no AI at any step
- Proof rounds, with every correction made by your designer
- Print-ready PDF files built to your printer’s specifications
- Your choice of Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Word
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.
Cover design
$1,500
for print and eBook
- A conversation about your book, its readers and its shelf
- Cover concepts, refined with you into the final design
- Imagery made by people, never generated by AI
- The front cover, sized for your eBook and retailer pages
- A full print wrap: front, spine and back, sized to your printer
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. The studio does not offer editing or proofreading.
The studio
Master book designer Tracy R. Atkins.
Founded 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.
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
Send us your book.
The consultation happens by email. 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.
Your manuscript is safe here
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.
A limited number of books each month
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.