My First Official Paperback Is Under Review

The Rule of the Keeper is a full-year devotional journal created to accompany The Keeper’s Lantern

I’m pleased to share that my first official paperback is now under review:

The Rule of the Keeper: A Voluntary Rhythm for Those Who Tend the Light

This book was designed to go hand in hand with The Keeper’s Lantern, and in many ways it grows directly out of that work. Where The Keeper’s Lantern lays out the spiritual and reflective framework, The Rule of the Keeper is meant to be lived with — not just read once, but returned to daily.

At its heart, this is a devotional journal.

It is built to guide reflection throughout the rhythm of life: morning, afternoon, evening, weekly, and yearly. It provides structure for self-examination, for quiet thought, for spiritual attentiveness, and for the practice of actually writing down what one is learning, noticing, carrying, and praying through over time.

This is not simply a blank notebook.

It is a guided journal designed to help people reflect on their days, their weeks, and their longer journey, while also giving them room to make notes, record thoughts, and respond to the prompts and rhythms laid out within the book itself.

That is what makes it important to me.

It was always meant to stand beside The Keeper’s Lantern as a companion work. In fact, it was originally supposed to be released on March 17, alongside The Keeper’s Lantern itself. But because this is a paperback, the process proved much more technically demanding than I had first expected.

Formatting a print book is very different from formatting an eBook.

There were a great many production details I had to learn along the way — especially involving page counts, margins, interior layout, cover measurements, and the way print specifications change depending on the final length of the book. With paperback formatting, the page count affects everything, and that means you cannot properly finalize certain elements until the structure of the book is fully settled. The cover itself also becomes a technical exercise, since its measurements depend on the thickness of the finished book and have to be calculated correctly.

That learning curve was real.

And because I was also working on The Keeper’s Lantern, the special edition material, the foundation for the Definitive Edition, the audiobook release, and the growing body of music and audio work, this journal necessarily had to wait longer than intended.

But now, with so much of that audio and publishing work brought to a stronger place, I finally had the time to return to this project and correct the formatting problems properly.

That part of the journey matters to me too, because this book was not outsourced into existence. I had to learn how to do it. I had to work through the errors, understand the requirements, and figure out what the print process actually demanded. In the end, I was able to take the technical guidance, simplify it into a practical set of formatting instructions, and use that to bring the book to a proper state for submission.

As of April 17, The Rule of the Keeper has now been submitted for review.

At the moment, it remains under review, and if all goes well, I expect it to be approved within the next few days.

When it becomes available, it will be sold on the Canadian store for $39.99 CAD.

I understand that for some people, forty dollars for a journal may sound expensive at first glance. But this is not a minimal black-and-white paperback. It is being produced in full colour, with artwork on the exterior and additional visual content on the inside as well. It is also being printed on higher-quality paper, because the full-colour presentation requires a higher production standard. That means the print costs are significantly higher than they would be for a simpler paperback.

So while it is priced higher than a basic journal, it is also being made as something far more substantial and beautiful than a basic journal.

This is meant to be a full-year companion.

A book to return to every day.
A place to write.
A place to reflect.
A place to order the rhythms of morning, afternoon, evening, weekly, and yearly self-examination in a more intentional way.

That is the value of it.

And because it is my first official paperback, that milestone matters to me personally as well. So much of my work until now has lived digitally — as eBooks, music, audio releases, and related material. This paperback represents something more tangible: a work meant to be held, written in, carried, used, and returned to over time.

That makes it a very meaningful release for me.

There is also the possibility of a hardcover edition in the future. That is something I may pursue once the paperback is approved and available. If I do move forward with a hardcover, it will likely come at a higher price point and may include some further refinement to the presentation and artwork. But for now, the paperback is the immediate focus, and I wanted to announce clearly that it is now in review.

So this is the official announcement:

The Rule of the Keeper: A Voluntary Rhythm for Those Who Tend the Light is my first official paperback. It is now under review. It was created as a devotional journal companion to The Keeper’s Lantern, and it is designed to help guide daily, weekly, and yearly reflection through a structured rhythm of writing and contemplation.

And very soon, it should be available.

Joshua Eaton