Interview with a Book Designer: Jordan Wannemacher—Part One
Making Freelance Finances Work in New York City
Introducing Interview with a Book Designer: a new series from A Book Designer’s Notebook!
Last month, I sat down with the wonderful and talented Jordan Wannemacher, an award-winning graphic designer in Brooklyn, New York. Previously a Senior Designer at Barnes and Noble, Rodale Books and Columbia University Press, she is also an occasional contributor to Spine Magazine.
I’ve admired Jordan’s work for a while now on Instagram, so it was a special treat to meet and chat—for more than two hours—about books and design. We met at a café in Brooklyn for a wide-ranging conversation over lunch and delicious basil lemonade.
In this part of the interview:
Jordan’s path to book design
Book design pricing
Designing interiors vs. covers
Salad Sprinkles
Making freelance finances work
This interview has been edited for clarity, and anonymity.
Before I began recording, Jordan asked me how I got into book design. If you’d like, you can read a bit about that here.
Nathaniel: Your turn. How’d you get into this? Of all the things you could design, why books?
Jordan: My story is boring, because it’s a straightforward path. I went to art school at Savannah College of Art and Design. And I knew I wanted to work in publishing somehow. I wasn't sure if it was going to be in magazines or books, but I knew I wanted to do some sort of publication.
My mom has these notebooks from when I was in middle school or high school. I would get these notebooks, and then buy magazines. And then I would make my own magazine. I would be like, “Well, I only want these articles.” So I would cut them out and lay out new pages and make my own. I loved doing that. And then it became this hobby I would do for myself where I had these stacks of notebooks that were just, like, my own little paste ups, you know?
At SCAD, I studied graphic design, and I minored in creative writing. I loved to write. I don’t call myself a writer anymore, but at the time I did.
I saw that on your website. How does that impact your practice?
I don’t really write anymore. At the time, I applied for a lot of different writing jobs, as well as design jobs when I graduated. And I only got interviews for design jobs. So I said, “Okay, I guess I’m a designer, not a writer.” But it was so black and white as a 22-year-old, I just didn’t see. I have started to dabble since then. I just feel so out of practice, and if I have the free time, I’d rather read than write. My love of writing came because I like to read, you know? So I’d rather just read.
But I would say the Creative Writing minor really helps me be a better graphic designer. I took so many literature classes for that minor. I learned a lot about analyzing texts, understanding symbols, and thinking about books visually. In the liberal arts classes at SCAD, for every Final Project, you have to do a visual project based on your major. I made book jackets for the whole class.
So, I knew that I wanted to do it in college, but I was very discouraged from it. Web design was what everybody was doing. Most of the people I graduated with are now UX designers for tech companies. But my favorite part about graphic design is materials. I like fancy effects. I love printing. I love paper and the tactile elements of design. So that was something I didn’t want to lose.
Tell me about your post-college experience in book design.
When I graduated, I applied for like 100 jobs, just spamming job applications for weeks that summer. I got one interview at Columbia University Press, and I got the job. It was a part-time design assistant job. They said, “We can’t really pay you to move here. And we can’t pay you that much in general.” But I didn’t care. I moved straight after college. And I’m so glad I did because the six years I was there was like a Masters in book design. I learned so much. And it was the best place to have a first job because at a university press, you do everything.
When I started, I was just doing art analyses and cast offs; analyzing the manuscript. That was my job for three or four months before I was even allowed to start designing. So I went low and slow, and took every step. By the time I left, I was the person designing the most books out of our whole team.
I left Columbia to go to Rodale Books, which was the books division of Rodale magazine publishers. I started working there the first week after Labor Day. Around September 23rd, I found out the company was for sale. And less than six months later, I was laid off. Never got to go to the photo studio. Never got to to do any of that.
They gave everybody six months severance, six months health insurance. And everybody always told me, if you want to be full-time freelance, you need six months' cushion to start. Right. And I was like, “Oh, okay, here’s my cushion. I’m going to jump, I’m going to do this.”
I’m really interested in whether book designers just do covers, or if they do interiors too. Why do you like them?
I love interiors. I’m creative, but I’m very type A—I’m not, like, a painter—I’m a creative thinker. But I’m also organized and I’m really into organizational design. So that’s what I love about interiors.
I really resonate with that. I think that’s why I liked doing newspaper design for a while, because it’s structurally creative. The creativity is the puzzle. With covers and interiors, you kind of take turns activating different parts of your brain.
Yeah. Interiors have rules, and I love rules. It also helps to have them when there is pushback on a design choice.
I will say though, the unfortunate thing is that they don’t really hire as much for interiors anymore, because so much is template design now. That’s the part of book design I feel like is being lost. Because there’s not as much thought put into it and it’s an easy place to save money for a publisher. One of the things I love about them is they pay a lot better.
Like, I make $4–5,000 from a university press interior if I’m doing a trade title. I did a 132-page exhibition catalog for a University Museum and got paid $7,000. And granted, each page was pretty detailed and it was a lot of art and checking, but it didn’t take me that much more time than I put into some covers, you know what I mean?
But they do often end up being a lot more work than you think, because you have to do so many corrections. So I usually give a higher quote because those are the ones where you can get really fucked if you under-bill yourself.
Let’s talk some more about money. What’s the lowest you’ve ever been paid for a cover? The highest?
The highest base rate was $2,500. I have been paid $3,000, but it was because it went on for so long they took pity on me [laugh] and paid me more.
That’s great they honored that scope creep! You don’t always see that.
I mean, I had to advocate for myself. It was getting ridiculous, and they didn’t have time to go with someone else. And this was a for-profit trade publisher. With university presses, I have never been paid out of scope.
I would say my lowest was probably $500 for a university press. But it’s hard to quantify, because different clients ask for different things. I have one client, I swear to god, they’re fired [laugh]. I joke, but they pay around $800, and ask for quite a bit. I would say that’s the lowest I’m paid because I do the most work with the least money on that.
[Some off-the-record client gossip here]
I have one client, I swear to god, they’re fired.
But money is important to talk about. It helps you know your worth when other people tell you what they’re billing. I had dinner with one of my book design friends on Thursday, and we were talking about one of my clients that I do a lot of work for, who just got acquired by a Big 5 publisher. And without skipping a beat, she said, “I hope you're charging the Big 5 rate now.” I was like, “Oh, you’re right. I can do that.” Because they only paid $1,500. But, yeah, now that they’re part of this big publisher, the payment rate is $2,300. Now that’s the minimum. So next time, they’re getting that.
I think our industry is so interesting, because in my experience, and maybe this is just university presses in particular, but they tell you what they’re going to pay you. I’ve had a few folks ask my rate, and I have an idea of what I want to make, but often they don’t ask, they tell. And sometimes I’m worried about scaring off those folks who do ask with a rate that’s too high.
Yeah, I usually say $1,000 minimum. Because it’s so much work. And it is so much time with the client management, filling out the purchase order paperwork for them, and doing all that invoicing. But that’s for new clients. Some are grandfathered in at lower rates, because I’ve been working with them for a long time. Or it’s a non-profit press or one working with a very set budget.
Yeah. And you like university presses, and want them to keep publishing. I feel that way too—like, “Pay me well! But also still exist.”
I don’t feel icky about it with a big trade publisher. Like, you are a profit machine. And you are only profiting by exploiting me. My politics are coming out but like, [laugh] I deserve to be paid what I’m worth. You just paid this author a $10 million advance, do not nickel-and-dime me over $500.
How do you make freelance finances work? Book design isn’t exactly lucrative, and New York City is an expensive place to live. How many covers do you do in a year? You’re a certified yoga teacher—do you teach yoga to supplement your income?
Oh my god. I mean, I fill it in in a lot of ways. I have what is basically a part-time job working for a Big 5 publisher. I’m not on staff. I’m just a freelancer. But it’s consistent. I like doing mindless production work to try to fill the gaps because I can do a lot of that, and it doesn’t exhaust me or drain me in the way creative work does.
Like, I can do a mechanical1 with my frickin’ eyes closed. I also like doing mechanicals for other people because I learn a lot about design and looking through their files.
I love looking through other people’s files. It’s always so fascinating. That’s sort of analogous to what I want to do with this interview series, digging into your process like it is a Photoshop file.
I’m a certified yoga teacher, but I don’t really do that. That pays less than book design [laugh]. But I share that because I get a lot of yoga books and spirituality stuff. I like getting that because that is something I’m passionate about and enjoy and have a lot of knowledge about.
That’s what I love about book design, and graphic design in general. I can touch so many of my other interests. If you set yourself up right, you’re working on books you really care about.
As far as number of covers, I probably do around 30 per year. A lot of them are rinse and repeat ones, you know? I might post 70% of them. A lot of them, I’m just like, I did this for the payment.
Recently I did a logo project. I occasionally do other types of graphic design projects to fill in the gaps. I love—and I’m trying to do more—food packaging, because I have my own food brand. And I really love the packaging that I did for that. It was very one-to-one with book design for me. When I’m talking with my co-founder about our label, I’ll say “the back flap,” and she says “there’s no flap, Jordan. It’s just a round bottle!” [laugh]
You’re leading me to another of my questions! You haven’t said the name of your food brand yet. What’s it called?
How did we get to Salad Sprinkles? It’s new, right?
It’s new. It’s a year old now. We didn’t officially launch until the fall—we didn't really know what it was going to be until the fall. It’s my best friend from art school and I; She works in advertising. So she's just good at naming things and has that kind of brain.
This is the kind of depressing thing: I’ve been like looking for what my other options are outside of publishing. Because as much as I love book design, it’s hard to see a sustainable path forward as just a freelancer for the type of life that I want for myself. I definitely feel frustrated financially by freelancing and graphic design, even if it's always something that I want to do.
That’s why it’s so great you have a full-time job with benefits. Because right now I can’t contribute to my retirement. I don’t know how to make that work financially. I pay my own health insurance. That’s $500 a month. And that’s not the best health insurance—it’s decent. $500 a month is tax deductible, but still. I pay $130 a month for long term disability. Because like, god forbid, something happens to my arm. I’m fucked!
Sometimes I worry about that with my eyes. What if I get stabbed in the eye, or lose my sight otherwise? What do you do as a designer?
Exactly. But as a freelancer, you don't have that benefit of long term disability. Like if you had to leave a job, because that happened to you, and you worked at Penguin, you get paid your Penguin salary for the rest of your life on long term disability. But I don’t get that. So I have to pay for that. I pay for my overhead of Creative Cloud, Dropbox. All of that shit is like $120 a month.
Oh, pro tip—if you go through the motions of quitting Creative Cloud, they try to lure you back and offer you a plan for like $32 a month. I did this after they emailed saying the rate was going up.
I thought about that, but then I’m like, “would they believe me?” They'd be like, “No, bitch, you've been doing this for 10 years. You’re not gonna quit.” [laugh]
It’s just a lot of overhead. Like, it’s very expensive. So I’ve been making it work. I was making it work. When I was in a relationship with someone else and sharing a home with that person, and living at a lower cost of living, I could have done it for the rest of my life. But it was more like what I wanted for my life change. And I’m like, okay, so then how do I afford that? You know, I want to live [in Brooklyn], I want to have a certain lifestyle. How can I afford that? We want to build Salad Sprinkles and then sell it. And that’s like my 401k right now [laugh].
I cooked dinner for someone a couple weeks ago and I made a salad with Salad Sprinkles. And they had never had them before. And I was like, “What do you think?” and he said they were really good. “Enough to bet my entire livelihood on?! Because that’s what I need to hear right now!”
“I need to hear that this is the most incredible salad you have ever had.”
Exactly! But it has also been fun to do something else outside of publishing, to stretch some other muscles. Because I used to joke and say “Oh, well, I don't have any other skills. And I really should get some.” So the packaging design was like a really nice extension. I got to do fancy effects and some nice foil paper. I’ve been learning art directing and producing my own photoshoots for it. And that’s something I always wanted to do in publishing and like never was given the opportunity.
So it’s like, even if this does not work out, all of these things that I’m doing, it’s kind of been like an independent design exploration for me. Then I can, like, pitch myself. We’re going to Fancy Food Show in June, and I’m bringing two sets of business cards, one for my design business, because I would love to help other startup founders do branding.
I used to be like, I just want to be a book designer, I only want to do books. And then the publishing industry just changed so much that now, I don’t think that there’s still a way to do that. But there’s just fewer people, you know, it just feels like publishing has given me a kind of scarcity mindset. And I don’t want to live in that.
What are some of the advantages you’ve found in the freelance life?
I am single and childless. I can fully express that freedom—like last year I did a nomad journey where I lived in a different place every month for six months. And like because I’m a freelancer, I could do that. I can go to Pilates at like 11 o’clock during the day if I want, you know? I love having control over my day. And look, I don’t think it’s for everybody. It takes a certain kind of person. And I’m extremely type A. I’m extremely organized and disciplined. Those things work well to be a freelancer, like that plays to my advantage. Whereas I think some people need the structure of in-house employment.
But—being transparent—I’ll show you how stressful it can be. I come up with what I need to make—what my budget is for the year. Because it’s inconsistent. So it’s like, “okay I need to make an X amount this year and average this amount per month.” I keep a spreadsheet of all my invoices.
[at this point, Jordan shows me her spreadsheet on her phone]
This was April. And I was spiraling out that half month of April because I submitted $11,000 invoices in March. But only $3,400 in April. I was like “fuck, but what if May is not different?” And then already in May, I’m at $5,000. And there’s another week where I can submit invoices. So you know, the inconsistency—it’s definitely taken me like a long time to get comfortable with that. And to not panic and know when it’s slow, to say “Hey, enjoy this. Take a breath. Take a breath. Use this time to swap out your summer and winter clothes.”
Thanks for reading! This was part one of my interview with Jordan Wannemacher. Stay tuned for part two, where we talk about some of Jordan’s favorite projects, the necessary evil of external validation, and designers that make us say “I wish I did that.”
Read Part Two
Mechanical is an industry term for the file that contains the entire book’s cover: front, spine, and back cover.
Loved this interview and the vulnerability Jordan and you both share in being transparent about what this career path takes to sustain. I met her many years ago at a Book Jacket Night in NYC and found her to be the most affable and approachable of all the cover designers there. It was a real pleasure to be around such a welcoming community. Thanks for writing this up!