About The Creation Process
A couple of days ago, I shared some of the packages that are going to be available this coming Wednesday, when the It's All Worth Living For preorder goes live. (If you haven't gotten a chance to take a look at it yet, please do, here.)
Today, though, I wanted to tell you a little bit about what it was like to create a book like this for the first time.
And I do mean "create."
This thing wasn't just, "write the words and hand them off to a publisher."
I guess it didn't make sense to me — after doing this thing independently for ten years — to not finish the decade out that way, too. And I am not using Amazon to print and drop-ship the cheapest option possible.
This is an art book—a proper piece of art in and of itself, more in the realm of coffee-table books than a flimsy-paged and staple-bound collection—and I am treating it as such.
It is a memoir, of sorts, featuring ten-plus years of poetry, prose, journal entries, illustration, artwork, photography, commentary, critique, essays, handwritten-interjections, dedications and the literal blood, sweat and tears that have gone into capturing what the past decade of this life-worth-living-for has entailed.
Each book is 140 pages long, 8.5" x 11" large, full color and printed on the highest-quality paper that I could (risk to) afford.
In order to create it, I had a lot of learning to do.
I reached out to my designer friends to ask for direction.
I took took Adobe and InDesign courses so that I could learn these programs and understand exactly how to accomplish what I envisioned (and then I basically spent hundred of hours more beating my head into dining room tables in an attempt to avoid setting my laptop on fire while trying to implement those directions).
I poured back through fifteen years' worth of journal entries.
I scanned original, handwritten pages of the poetry you've grown to love into the pages of this book.
I thought through and detailed perspectives that have changed since the time of my writing them.
I poured over photography that had been captured throughout the years.
I even snagged hundreds of photos of us, together—most of them at the thousand-plus shows I've played over the course of the past ten years—and created an entire spread dedicated entirely to you—the fans, followers and friends-become-family who have made it possible for me to keep creating for the entirety of my twenties.... a whole, dang decade!
I'll tell you this much: my appreciation for designers has increased exponentially since starting this process. I knew that if I was going to put a proper cap on the past ten years, I wanted to learn and implement my learning with a hands-on conclusion, but my gosh, in case you weren't already aware—those people are worth what they charge.
(You can bet they're worth what they charge to your spouse, as well, who won't have to listen to you lose your mind on the daily if and when you simply hire the work out. Haha.)
Anyway... one thing I do know, on the other end of this process, is that I am proud of the work that is represented here.
It's not just a year's worth of effort...
It's ten years' worth of work, and relationship-building, and hundreds of thousands of miles, and a thousand-plus homes-away-from-home, and tile-floor-sleeps, and gas-station-bathrooms, and flights, and languages, and cultures and people and people and people and people, all represented, all worth living for.
Levi
P.S. Preorders are already live for members of The Fraction Club. If you’d like to hop on that, sign up here. If you want to be one of the very first people to have a chance at purchasing one of the limited preorder packages for It's All Worth Living For, and don't mind receiving text-messages, send a text to 505-209-8347, as well.
Sometimes it's just easier to get a text, you know?