I\'ve been getting into more web development later and talking to people often I

Question

I've been getting into more web development later and talking to people often I'll get "Can you make me a website [for my book]?" types.

"Yes. But.... Well, what do you want from it?"

"I want it to look nice and attract people and people will want to buy my book."

"..."

What all does making a website for somebody really entail from the designer/developer end?

How responsible are we for graphics? Are we expected to make them a nice header with their name/logo and pretty like?
Color scheme? Overall feel of the site? (I mean, do we decide by ourselves or have some back and forth with the client?)

Specific wording of content (such as homepage flavor text. Obviously we wouldn't be expected to write the About the Author section.)?

Additional functionality that we think the user may appreciate?
Ideally you'd talk to the client and figure out what they want, but really--do clients ever really know what they want?

What is expected of the client in order to be able to make a website for them?

Are web-designer and web-developer essentially interchangeable in casual speak, or...?

I guess this question really stems because I'm learning I don't like doing most of this. I don't program to be a designer. My artistic skills are probably better than the average programmer, but that isn't the point. I would actually prefer it if a client came to me and said "I want it to look like this" and handed me a paper copy, which I could then duplicate. What does interest me is more of the behind the scenes functionality of websites. Is it smooth, functional, does the user have to navigate all over or rely on 'search' to find what he's looking for?

Please shed some light on this perceived division of tasks for me.

Explanation / Answer

It really depends a lot on what you are advertising.

There are three main aspects to anything web based, and two only really apply to web applications. All of these roles can be combined into one person or separate people, and how you combine them depends on your skills.

It should be noted that if you advertise a full featured website then you are most likely responsible for everything the client wants done.

Database
Whatever you are using to store and retrieve data. This could be an API, a database, collection of flat files, whatever.

Application
Any logic that is handled. User management? Check. Manipulating data? Check. Login / logout / authentication? Check. Interactive JavaScript? Check.

Presentation
Markup and style. This would be all your CSS, HTML, and applicable "design elements" that make up what a visitor sees.

Myself I can handle everything

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