I can't speak for others, but from me you would not find the cost reasonable.

My suggestion is that you buy a copy of TypeTool 3 for $99 from FontLab (www.fontlab.com). The documentation should be sufficient to help you make the fonts yourself since you can already do the art. There is a demo version you can download from the same page and try before you buy to help you make a decision.

Works copyrighted in the US since 1978 are protected by copyright for 70 years after the death of the author. I don't know what the laws are in the European country the book was published in, but the author being dead for 20 years does not guarantee that the work is in the public domain.

Are you thinking of paying somebody a high amount and owning the results, or paying somebody a low amount and sharing the proceeds from retail sales?

BTW if it only took $99 to be able to make good fonts many of us would be in serious trouble. :-)

hhp

thanks for the advice. it seems like the Typetool option would be reasonable for me to try and then see what comes of it.

assuming the copyrights were clear, is there money to be made from selling the fonts, after haveing them professionally 'finished'? they seem very appealing to me, but there are SO many fonts out there. have you had any success with that?

is there money to be made from selling the fonts

Of course it's pretty impossible to predict retail performance. But in any case it's rarely significant money, unless it's exceptional in some way. You could show it around to gauge interest, but if the source is easy to obtain you'd be risking copy-cats.

hhp