"Oh.  Um... no, unless it's weird if I didn't?"

"It's not at all weird to claim you didn't, but - it'd go a long ways toward explaining why you might be valuable to me without being the standard explanation, and since it's creative work, it won't strongly incentivize anyone to try to steal you, everyone knows it's very hard to get creative work out of slaves unless you manage to somehow maintain a good relationship with them."

"...I guess we could pretend I was writing the other three, if we wait to copy them.  They aren't really anything like each other, except for being good.  Maybe that doesn't matter."

"I'm going to have to translate them all myself, that'll cover some style differences."

Beau attempts to discover whether the spell lets him mentally translate Leagues quotes he has memorized.

About as easily as he could translate it into Spanish if he were really good at Spanish.

"Because I need light and don't have it, or because I would do a worse job of translating it?"

"Because you don't have the cultural idioms, though you could be helpful for sure."

He nods.  Maybe things won't be quite as horrible as it looked like they would be five minutes ago?

"It'll take a long time to Scriven enough that I'll want to start selling them anyway, so they'll be spaced out pretty naturally - once I sell any copies somebody else can undercut me."

"How many is enough?"

"I'm going to go with a print run of maybe twenty-five or thirty for the first one, at which point I need to start making back what I'll be spending on the blank books."

"...I'm thinking about the printing press again, now.  It was originally released serially, not all as one book.  So we could do big runs in pieces if they would sell."

"...huh! That's a good idea. Just by chapter?"

"I think so."

"Yeah, I think that'd work! And I could adjust how many I did each time in case it's more popular than I expect - neat!"

"Are there any spells that would help with carving out the letters?"

"I actually think the serialization idea works fine with Scrivener's alone, though the printing press does sound fun. If they don't have to last long or be very precise I can make stuff with Prestidigitation." She demonstrates, making a little alphabet block with drow letters on it.

Oh.  ...Well, it's still good to have had one helpful idea, if not two.  "- Woah," he says of the appearing block.  "I think it's better if it's precise and lasts, but it might work anyway?"

"You can make stamps like this - get the basic shape, cut off some bits. The press is like a big stamp, right?"

"Yeah.  If paper's the most expensive part, we want them as small as possible."

"It is, yeah, every page of it stolen from upstairs."

"But maybe wood to make tiny letters with is expensive, too," he wonders.  "If you don't have any mushrooms like that."

"You can make a stamp with mushrooms but it wouldn't hold up to very heavy use."

"Hmm.  It would be good if we had tiny letter blocks made out of stone, but... I can't think of a way to get them.  Unless there's magic for it."