When Olivie Blake reached out to me to create a special, unique edition of Alone With You in the Ether, I was a bundle of emotions—honored to have been approached by one of my very favorite authors (of both fanfic and original fiction); ecstatic to have been told I’d have full creative freedom; and touched, because she would pay me for my labor.
I immediately drew up sketches of how I wanted the book to look. Every step of the process was meticulously planned—from the goatskin leather that I hand-dyed myself to the glow-in-the-dark cross stitch title. Picking the rights fonts also took a couple hours of testing.
It was also nerve-wracking to finally pull out my $2000 brass pallets that had been gathering dust, so I could hot tool the leather. Gilding was a bust, but I’ll nail that finicky gold foil next time.
When I edited the original document from Olivie, I noticed that Chapter 1 started on page 6, which fit the hexagon vibe of the story. However, when I pointed it out to her, she told me that that wasn’t even planned! I added more hexagonal motifs to the book, trimming the margins to achieve a borderless look.
