Publication Project - Request Denied

I emailed the printers to see if it was possible to get proofs of a couple of spreads, mainly so I can check that the photos are bright enough and that the silhouetted character vectors stand out against the black backgrounds. I also asked for a blind dummy, whereby an unprinted book is made up and bound using the exact paper stocks I have chosen, just so I can get a feel for the finished publication.

They told me this could of course be done but unfortunately they would have to charge me a setup fee of £20 for the proofs and £15 for the blind dummy. I can't afford that at the moment so I will have to just have faith in my decisions and hope for the best. I have sampled quite a few paper stocks and also proofed the questionable spreads on various printers at home and uni, so there is every chance they will be fine.

Obviously if I was doing a much larger print run then I would go ahead and pay for these as they would only be a tiny fraction of the overall cost. For twelve copies at £125, an additional £35 is just too much.