This is an interesting topic as to me it speaks of the difference between the right and left brains, and integrating them. As it is said artists are more right brained, and writers more left brained, I can see how these tasks are so often divided.
I've done the art, and the books both full size and LWB for two decks now. And did most of the editing myself too. Which they say is a bad idea but I think I did not do too bad as while I have found a few of my own errors after printing (always a "doh!" moment), I have found more errors in many "professionally" published books with whole teams working on them!
I am a weird case in that I can toggle between right and left brain with relative ease. I am not claiming to use my "whole brain" (though it makes a good joke "I am still a half-wit" haha). I think it is my consolation prize for being forced to make a living in a left brain field for decades, when what I more easily related to was the right brained way. With a Mercury-Neptune conjunction, I am great at floating around in the aethers thinking about connections. Some good aspects from Saturn and Mars help anchor and direct that because otherwise it would be a bad thing.
I did have an affinity for both sides of the brain to begin with though, I just would have chosen the arts and instead got stuck with left brain work. A sad story, but maybe there was a reason. I lifted lots of weights with that left brain for a long time and it got stronger, then I rebelled and said f*** it and made my first deck and started pumping iron on the right brain.
The first deck I did I would paint every day after work, and on the weekends most of the day. When I got so tired I thought I'd get too sloppy to paint, I'd run a bath and take a pad of paper and a pen and a glass or three of mead and maybe a few favorite books and get in the tub and write about the card I was working on. Don't laugh, Mercury-Neptune thinks best around water and wine.
As a result I ended up with several waterlogged notebooks with cryptic notes on each card and a bunch of my favorite books ended up ruffled and waterlogged. I took those notebooks and made them into the text for each card and then wrote the introductory chapters on the various structures like astrology off the top of my head after transcribing the rest into something coherent. That part was easy as I was an odd child and started reading astrology texts at five, no kiddin'. I can spout off about that stuff at will, lol. (Though I don't in person.)
All that to say, I knew the book I'd written in Microsoft Word needed to be formatted in InDesign. I got an older copy of that program and after a few hours looking at it decided life was too short to do that part myself too and hired someone to format it. That book was maybe 60K in words, I forget now. The LWB for that deck I did in Word, and it was pretty crappy format wise but I did not know any better.
The second deck I did, I wrote the books after done with the deck. I did the LWB formatting in Publisher instead of Word, which was a so much better looking end result, and cranked it out in a frenzied, weirdly fueled (no comment) and obsessive 11 hour stretch off the top of my head.
The full size book I wrote in Word off the top of my head, just looking up the relevant quotes, and hired the same person again to do the InDesign thing as I maintain that life is too short for me to learn InDesign too.
I wrote that book, about 80K of words, in an odd frenzy after the deck art was done, over a 2-3 month period, during which I was also working a job (still am), doing a Kickstarter, and my only and close sibling died unexpectedly and I had to plan his funeral. The Kickstarter met its goal the day after he died, and I was in so much shock I could only pretend to the backers that all was well and thank them - I was not able to do the celebratory thing. But in spite of being in shock and grief I wrote the book, completed the Kickstarter, did the editing myself, got it all printed and shipped and on the exact day I promised too. I do not know how; I was a mess. This was my only brother and he up and had a seizure and croaked on "World Tarot Day" and the next day my stupid Kickstarter met its goal. Yeah. I have no idea how that book got written or how I got everything done and shipped on time. My house was torn apart and under construction too. It was a terrible time. And I work full time so it was not like I had my time to myself.
Here's to actual angels, who assist in mysterious ways.