Hit 300 books bound last week and I'm not sure it matters as much as people think

Honestly, I've been tracking every book I've bound by hand for the past 4 years and just crossed the 300 mark last Tuesday. I see folks in here celebrating big numbers like it proves you've mastered the craft, but half of my early books have crooked spines and glue stains I'd never show anyone. Do you guys actually look back at your earlier work or just focus on the count?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jenny1mo ago

You ever crack open a book from your early days and smell that glue and feel secondhand embarrassment for your past self? I still have a cookbook I bound back in 2021 that looks like a raccoon tried to hot-glue it together, but the spine somehow held better than my later "perfect" ones. It's a reminder that numbers don't fix bad technique, they just make bad technique look more consistent.

jenny5801mo ago

Used to be all about the numbers myself until I flipped through my first batch from 2020 and saw how bad the glue was. Now I keep a shelf of my worst ones just to remind myself how far the actual quality has come. The count is cool for motivation but the real win is seeing your skills grow over time.