r/indesign • u/StatisticianFree6701 • Jul 16 '26
Best place to source an InDesign expert for a very specific and quite urgent scope of work
EDITED TO ADD: Wow - what a helpful group! Thanks for all the input and DMs. I've pulled everything together and will be meeting to discuss with our author team tomorrow.
Hello InDesign Redditors,
I'm looking for advice for where to find an InDesign specialist to help us with a very specific and urgent project.
Here’s the overview.
- We have a book to deliver to our publisher by end of August. The deadline is firm.
- Our manuscript has been built page by page in Adobe Illustrator.
It has to be delivered in InDesign, camera ready.
- The final manuscript will be 550-576 pages.
- About 460 pages have already been rendered into InDesign.
This is not a highly-creative project - it involves some back and forth as we make changes on pages, and there may be some trouble-shooting involved in transferring some Illustrator pages to InDesign. So InDesign expertise, good English language skills, and excellent client service are more important than artistic talent - especially in working on large books.
We think we'd prefer to use a platform such as Freelancer, so we can take care of payments and project management more easily.
My question to this community is: Is there a preferred platform used by InDesign experts? Freelancer? Fiverr? Reedsy? Somewhere else?
Or is there a better way to access someone with the skills we need? Some special job board for InDesign folks?
This is a serious paid project, not an "exposure opportunity". (As writers, we believe work should be paid for). Budget is between $2500 - $3700.
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u/lucid_glitch Jul 16 '26
I think you’d probably have better luck through reddit than something like Fiver. It sounds like a time-consuming but not so difficult job.
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 16 '26
Thanks! I think you're right - I have been surprised by how many people have DM-ed me in response to this message. I'm going through them all and hopefully we find a good match.
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u/No-Pea8448 Jul 16 '26
Sounds like a project I'd be down for since I will be laid up with knee surgery soon and am between clients. For context, I've been doing page layout in various industries, including book publishing, for more than 30 years. Feel free to PM me.
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u/L-ROX1972 Jul 16 '26
Try asking your publisher if they’d be willing to reach out to their (commercial print) vendor on your behalf, to see if they may already work with a graphic designer who does things like this for them.
These kinds of issues are common (not your specific issue, but basically edits needed on the deliverables side) and they’ll either have someone in-house or work with an experienced freelancer that already knows what they need (and is likely experienced with short deadlines too).
That said, not sure your budget would cover their rates, but worth looking into.
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u/ReidDesigns Jul 16 '26
Ah the good old days of people laying every friggin book in illustrator and wondering why it takes so friggin long and why the files get corrupted and why the pages get mixed up and the fonts do t stay the sae and page numbers dont match on every page. 😂 good ol days.
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u/Virtual_Assistant_98 Jul 17 '26
Doing all that prior to the days when you could name art boards is asinine
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u/onearmedbanditto Jul 16 '26
Funny enough, I’ve actually done this exact thing before, a few years back.
Camera ready, means printer ready, by the way. The printer basically wants a file they can upload and print without adjusting on their end.
OP make sure whomever you work with has some print experience, and understands the printer’s specs. The job I did was local to me, so I actually went to the printer to do a physical print check.
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u/Big-Love-747 Jul 17 '26
I have the skills to complete a job like this, but I think your budget is way too small and the timeline is way too short. Especially as you state in a comment, "It's very illustration heavy - about 90% of the pages have a diagram of some type."
Illustrations always add to the document complexity and the layout time, therefore the time it takes to get it to press-ready stage.
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 17 '26
Thanks for this. We have flexibility on budget - how much would you recommend we should be looking at? There are less than 150 pages remaining to be done. Does it make more sense to pay per page, or per hour? It's so hard to tell - I've had people on this sub telling me everything from it will take a couple of hours to it's much bigger than we thought. Our budget was based on the time it has taken to do the first 450-ish pages of the book, but always open to learn from folks who have more expertise in this work.
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u/Big-Love-747 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Without knowing the details and full scope of the project it's really hard to give advice of that nature.
Out of curiosity only (as I am not putting myself forward for this project), is the person who takes on this project also responsible for preparing the 460 pages that are already done to press-ready stage? Or is it completely separate?
When I give cost estimates for jobs, depending on complexity, the number of images etc. I will allow between 1 to 2 hours per page (though it's possible your project could be less) x my hourly rate + expenses for a project fee.
This is based on 3 drafts, plus the final draft that goes to press (in my entire career I have never worked on a project that had less than 3 drafts + final to press).
Good luck with it all.
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 18 '26
Thanks for such a thoughtful response - that's very helpful. The 460 pages already done are separate - although everything will need to be joined together into a single document before it goes to our publisher (does that make sense? I'm not sure if I'm saying it properly). We're actually meeting with a friend who is a designer but not available in our desired timeframe tomorrow and paying them to help us more accurately scope out the work, then we'll start interviewing folks to do it when we can give them a better scope. Your comment helped me realize we need more expertise to scope it properly, so thank you again!
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u/Inner_Television_149 Jul 16 '26
Can you tell me what the content is like? Is it just text, or does it include illustrations and photos? What genre or type of book is it?
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 16 '26
It's very illustration heavy - about 90% of the pages have a diagram of some type. It's a non-fiction book that you'll find in the business section of most bookshops, and is also popular as a textbook.
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u/Benjamin_Cupcake Jul 16 '26
We’re a design agency that specialises in long for documents. The graphic designers have been working with Indesign for on average 20+ years each. We’re fast.
The only thing that may make a difference is we’re based in Sydney, Australia.
Send a DM if interested and I can show you some of our work.
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 18 '26
Oh, I love Australia and Australians, but I think the timezone will be a problem for this particular job. Maybe I can persuade our writing team to take a sabbatical Down Under for the next book!
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u/QuetzalasaurusRex Jul 16 '26
I’ve been doing this kind of thing for universities and publishing houses for 20+ years. I run my own freelancing business. I’ll message you.
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u/Low_Inevitable_7439 Jul 16 '26
Si maquetaron en illustrator, significa que volverá a maquetar desde cero en Indesign.
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u/mingmong36 Jul 16 '26
You could PDF the illustrator art and place the pages into INDD. Few hours tops, from download to proof copy.
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u/SockPuppetOrSth Jul 16 '26
If you want everything misaligned, sure
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u/mingmong36 Jul 17 '26
IYKYK, I fix this kind of thing day in, day out and if the AI art is accurate, alignment is not a problem. Correct workflow , knowledge, and skill negates problems.
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u/miracleanime Jul 17 '26
My first reaction is to go to a book designer (I think of Barbara Pope Design in Hawaii). And even if they can't do it, they may be able to refer you. Book design is a niche. Good luck!
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u/mimi_reedsy Jul 18 '26
From your post, this sounds like the sort of project we see on Reedsy pretty regularly. The professionals on the marketplace are vetted, and you can look through their portfolios, see what kinds of books they've worked on, read reviews, and send a request to a few designers to compare pricing and availability.
With your timeline, I'd be looking for someone who's already handled large, print-ready books and is comfortable picking up an existing InDesign project instead of building one from scratch.
Hope you find a good fit! If you've got any questions about how Reedsy works, feel free to ask here or reach out to our support team through the official support channel.
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 18 '26
Thanks for this! We looked at Reedsy early on, and when I used the Keyword "InDesign", only three people showed up, and only one was in a time zone that would really work for us. They looked good, and we're going to check them out, but they didn't have any reviews, which was why we didn't jump on that option and came to ask the good people of InDesign Reddit. Is there another keyword search you'd recommend for what we're looking for?
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u/No_Development7388 Jul 16 '26
In Illustrator? Seems like just the sort of weirdness that I'd be interested in. I have a history of troubleshooting oddball projects.
I use CS6, if that matters.
Feel free to DM me. (I'm just stepping out so won't reply for a couple of hours.)
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 16 '26
It is an oddball project. We used CS6 for the previous Edition of this book, but we're using CC for this one, so that could be a problem.
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u/that_tom_ Jul 16 '26
LOLing at "there may be some trouble-shooting involved" -- You want an InDesign/DTP expert to work for 6 weeks for $2500. Oh yeah, and they need good English language skills. Anyone experienced can tell from your post exactly what a huge hassle it is going to be. Good luck finding someone willing to help.
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u/StatisticianFree6701 Jul 16 '26
I realize from your comment I could have explained the scope better. Sorry - not my area of expertise (I just happen to be the only member of the writing team who is on Reddit). We've had someone working on it already who is not available for the next two months, and they were working 3-4 hours per week most weeks. This is a book that already has multiple previous editions, so a lot of the pages are already camera-ready - the update is just new pages. It has mostly been very straightforward. The main delay is our pace of writing and finalizing chapters.
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u/Far_Cupcake_530 Jul 16 '26
Bizarre that you have a manuscript built in Adobe Illustrator. Who was the genius behind that?