About Author Book Studio
Author Book Studio and Star Print Brokers, Inc.
Our parent company incorporated in Washington state in 1999. Author Book Studio is a division of Star Print Brokers, Inc. Nancy designs many books for self-publishers, gives advice, or fixes design or layouts that are not working. Sometimes books have technical issues or need a new design approach.
Welcome! Learn more about us at Author Book Studio!
About Author Book Studio
Author Book Studio is established to offer book covers and interior book page design. All files are in Adobe InDesign, the standard for book production. Books with great covers and interiors sell at a higher retail price.
About Nancy Starkman
Nancy Ostling Starkman is the founder of the Author Book Studio, and is the co-founder and president of Star Print Brokers, Inc. this site, AuthorBookStudio.com, is about book design. NancyStarkman.com is more about Nancy and shows some of the custom books she designs.
A book designer with decades of publishing, printing, and color experience
In the 1970s, the Ostling family and other executive team members began publishing Whole Valley Catalogue, an advertising newspaper out of Walnut Creek, California. At its peak, the newspaper was serving 330,000 readers in the San Francisco East Bay Area.
Nancy’s experience includes publishing, printing, color reproduction, color separations, graphic design, and book design. Her experience spans several decades and includes founding Whole Valley Graphics. This division grew out of her successful newspaper. She worked in every aspect of the newspaper including publisher and art director.
She’s designed thousands of ads and hundred of books. Nancy and her staff also designed collateral materials and ads for advertisers in daily, suburban, and metro newspapers, and magazines. She won several design awards and attended Diablo Valley College.
Moving from the family business …
After a decade, Nancy was hired at Lesher Communications at the Contra Costa Times, in Walnut Creek CA, as an account executive in major accounts. She worked with about 20 major account advertisers. Nancy chose to pursue sales versus design because at the time sales paid more, and she was supporting her two teenagers. Target, Mervyn’s and Good Guys were among those on her account list. Her job meant selling advertising and inserts into six daily newspapers, a dozen weekly papers, a magazine, and direct mail programs.
Moving to Bellevue, Washington …
Nancy began selling color separations, printing, direct mail, and fulfillment services. She was the display advertising manager for a Seattle Times owned newspaper. Nancy also created a major accounts department for a chain of community newspapers in the Seattle area. After meeting Edward Starkman, together they launched Star Print Brokers, Inc. in 1999.