First Proof, Disappointment, and Starting Over, Part 1

If you follow Covenant on Instagram, you probably remember that a few weeks ago the first proofs of Covenant were on the way! I genuinely couldn’t believe that after months of creating, I’d be able to hold my first book in my hands. I couldn’t wait to leaf through the pages and practice writing in it. I wanted to take pictures and share sneak peaks with the world. The day that I was dreaming about would finally be real.

I’d spent weeks researching printers, trying to find someone who could print according to Covenant’s needs without breaking the bank for a start-up company. At the end of it all, I felt like I only had one option but it seemed good… until I went to “like” their Facebook page and found an avalanche of horrible reviews: missing products, double-billing, damaged products, absent customer service. It sounded like a nightmare. If this company didn’t work out, who would I print with? Where would I even try next?

But the order had been placed and all I could do was wait. So, like everyone who orders something online, I stalked the tracking link (and watched with anxiety as it arrived in my city… and then left the state) and waited with bated breath until it showed up at my door. 

What I didn’t tell anyone was I was also incredibly nervous to see it in person. Even though I was excited, a bigger part of me worried that I would'n’t like it at all. I put so much of myself into this, doing everything by myself, coming up with the aesthetics on my own (as someone who isn’t an artist), and I was still afraid it would look like I threw it together the night before on a Word document. 

And then the day came. I wasn’t even expecting it because last I had checked, it was still out of state. But here it was, on my porch, waiting for me to open it. 

Part of me wanted to call someone to do a big unboxing and excitedly flit through the pages with company. But I also felt like this moment was private, something I didn’t really need to share with anyone else. So I held my breath and tore open the shipping box and held my proofs in my hands for the first time. I touched the soft matte covers and went through it page by page. 

Immediately, I found print issues. The pages were supposed to be bright white to show off the artwork, but compared to the flyleaf pages, they looked like sad gray-blue. I tried to push that aside — it’s really not so bad! — as I got deeper into the book and realized the margins were totally wrong; the further in you went, the harder it was to read. Was that my fault? Had I not been paying attention to the printer’s guidelines? 

And then I saw the final nail in the coffin: the pages were never actually attached to the spine of the book. The coding that the printer used to identify my cover was visible to anyone who opened Covenant, making it as ugly as it was unusable. I had ordered 2 proofs — one clean copy and one to write in — and they both had this issue, so I knew it wasn’t just a mistake. It was how this printer finishes their books. 

I shared pictures with my friends of what a bad experience this was turning into started a support ticket with the printer. I immediately went into fix-it mode, all while trying to ignore the greater issue creeping up through my stomach and into my heart. I stifled my feelings while I tried to solve all these problems; it was time to find a new printer and make a new game plan. 

But eventually all I could do was sit back and admit the horrible reality to myself — the one that I didn’t want to share, the one that I didn’t know how to solve. I had to own and try to accept what I had been feeling from the first moment I opened the cover, what I had pushed away and tried to ignore by focusing on the printer issues. By myself, before anyone else could say it, I had to acknowledge the truth about my planner:

I hated it. 

I couldn’t sell it like this. 

I couldn’t put my resources, time, energy, and name into something that looked like this.

What do I do now?