Re: Who's Job is it to Layout a Book?

[Melonie Holliman <melonie -dot- holliman -at- TXEXMTA4 -dot- AMD -dot- COM>]

Howdy,

We have had the generalist vs. specialist discussion many times on this
list.
When you have the budget and the workload, separating out the tasks is a
great idea. Most companies do not have the budget for it, though. And,
personally, I love doing "all of the above". I would hate to only be able to
write. I need the variety. Am I wonderful at all of the tasks? No. Am I good
at
all of them? Yes. And I save my company a heck of a lot of money being
able to do so many things.

I agree with all the folks who say, "it depends". It depends on the number
of
workers, the amount of work, the budget, the type of talents available, etc.

Figure out which kind of working situation you want to work in and choose
that one. Neither specializing or generalizing is better than the other.
Neither
is wrong. They both work in different situations.

Melonie R. Holliman
Technical Writer
CPD Marketing
Advanced Micro Devices

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Knopf [SMTP:david -at- KNOPF -dot- COM]
> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 1999 4:08 PM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      Re: Who's Job is it to Layout a Book?
>
> This process allows each team member to do what he or she does best. Our
> approach allows writers to write, designers to design, and production
> specialists to handle production. Not only does this lead to better
> results,
> it also reduces costs. It makes no sense to pay a Senior Technical Writer
> to
> do production layout work. We ask our writers to write, our designer to
> design, and our production people to handle production. We also use
> illustrators and ask writers to produce only rough sketches of any
> illustrations that are needed. I know that some writers wouldn't enjoy
> working here because they wouldn't have the chance to apply their skills
> in
> all these different areas. However, in my experience, our process leads to
> the best possible results at a reasonable cost.
>
>


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=