That’s right, the next step of Book Progress has been made.

To save time and money, this company ships their proofs unbound. Which means it’s less “a book” and more “a stack of loose paper.” But gosh, it’s some good-looking paper.

(Any blurriness in these photos is a failure of my photography skills, not the printer!)

After all that stress, I’m really happy with how the cover came out.

Colors are vivid, artwork is at a pleasant scale, finish is shiny but not too shiny.

And all the work I put into the fine details of layout and placement has paid off — the interior pages look great. Nice clean spacing, margins that don’t look amateurish. That bonus art came out pretty snazzy too.

I’m going to sit with this for a few more days before pulling the trigger on full production, just to be sure I don’t miss anything.

(One change I’m dithering over: brightening some of the colors. I was a little worried the nighttime strips would print so dark they’d be hard to read — turns out they’re not! But maybe it’s worth brightening them anyway, just for the aesthetic? Choices, choices.)

And then, at long last, your books will go into Actual Print!