Services
Book Design Services
… for self-publishers and authors, by Nancy Starkman and team. Nancy is at Star Print Brokers offices in Bellevue, WA.
Book design services for authors & self-publishers.
Get book design services or start with a discussion about layout for interior text pages. Great book design can mean increased sales … it is that important. Books should be designed with Adobe InDesign. InDesign is not easy to learn quickly, even if you have experience with other software.
Professionals use Adobe InDesign.
Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator are quite useful for brochures, but are a not meant to be the work horse for book design. The industry standard is Adobe InDesign.
Look for designers who have designed books before. Books can be a challenge for even the most experience designer. It is not the same as creating a brochure.
Professional book design services … reasonably priced.
We understand the importance of professional graphic design as well as high-quality book printing.
- Book layout including use of correct title page, copyright page, page placement (recto versus verso), page numbering, indexing, acknowledgements, table of contents, foreword, and preface.
- Color reproduction as it appears on a monitor versus color booth, digital proof, press proof or printed signature.
- Cover design that sells the book.
- Interior text page design that is appealing to the reader.
- Process color versus spot color and when they are used, and how it affects the printing quote.
- CMYK mode versus RGB and when to use either.
- File formats and which is best for book printing versus monitor viewing.
- Resolution and why we can’t use your 1 inch x 1 inch 300 pixels per inch photo on a full-page.
- Typography and why a quick read on typefaces is not a substitute for knowledge and experience specifically with typography and type pairs.
- Color theory and how to incorporate it successfully into a quality book.
- Indexing is best when expertly done by a professional indexer.
Guidance for professional looking books.
We will provide guidance to prepare files properly for prepress, but do not provide step-by-step training in InDesign or Photoshop.
However, if you are doing a photography book or any book with high-quality photography, you will want to use a professional book designer. You need a cover that sells in addition to well-designed text pages.
Graphic designers that routinely do production work for brochures, sell sheets and the like, and often are not far enough down the learning curve to design an entire book.
Great book design can mean increased sales … it is that important.
Book design is an option, and if chosen, it is an additional cost to book printing.
We work with authors or their graphic artist.
Why use SPB for book design?
Nancy Starkman wrote the book on book design. You can buy Book Design: Simple & Professional or simply hire Nancy Starkman. Few schools teach book design which prompted her to write the book. For more information about Nancy, please also visit her personal website NancyStarkman.com. You can request a book design quote on either her site or Star Print Brokers.
She and her team provide great book design services and have solutions to fit most budgets. If you are designing a book yourself or using your own designer, please see our prepress guide.
Alternatively, you can send us a novel in PDF form, made from a Microsoft Word document.
Please consider using us to design as well as print your book. We have the best book printing services. See some gallery images of our book design.