My wife’s copies of Sovereign Knight Volume 1 and Volume 2 arrived.

I put them next to each other.

And immediately saw it.

Look at the spines.

UGGGG.

Volume 1 and Volume 2 are supposed to be a matched set, but somewhere during the endless process of formatting, resizing, uploading, correcting, re-uploading, and getting two very large books into print, the spine designs ended up noticeably different.

Is it catastrophic? No.

Does the average reader care nearly as much as I do?

Probably not.

Did I notice it immediately and stare at it thinking, How did I miss that?

Absolutely.

This has probably been one of the biggest surprises about publishing my first novel. Writing a 600-plus-page book was only part of the job. Then came editing, formatting, trim sizes, bleed, spine widths, hardcover specifications, paperback specifications, ebook files, different printers, and a seemingly endless collection of little details that don't become obvious until an actual physical book is sitting in front of you.

So I'm fixing it.

Because when Sovereign Knight Volume 1 and Volume 2 are sitting together on somebody's bookshelf, I want them to look like the set they were meant to be.

I'm still incredibly proud of these books.

I'm also going to keep staring angrily at those spines until I fix them.

Welcome to indie publishing.