The making of my own cookbook

[Smithy]

Who knew?! Thanks so much for documenting this process; it's very different than I (and, I'll warrant, many others) had expected.

[gfron1]

I asked a question about photo requirements, and the larger question of - when do we talk to designers...

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We don’t have any direct back and forth between designers and authors/photographers, typically. Instead, any of your concerns (or theirs) would come to me and I’d forward it to the appropriate person.

 

If we have the time to take this step-by-step, that’d be best, but if you guys aren’t going to be able to work together/changing seasons make it difficult for certain pictures and we need to rush to get you answers, please let me know.

 

From here, we’ll be putting together our sample materials (5 spreads, max) and I’ll be able to show you an example of the interior of the book. It won’t be final, and you’ll have time to give me your thoughts on it and we can make revisions.

 

Then in February, I’ll start editing the text and we’ll indicate where the photos should be placed. In those notes, we can include instructions such as “do not crop” or “make half page” or “crop so that X is the focus at the center of the page” —anything like that. Then we’ll see how the typesetters and production editors put the pages together, and we’ll see which photos are issues for us and which may need to be reshot, edited, etc. At this point it’s too early to tell how anything will look on the page, so all I can really give you is info on trim, file size, and format.

 

PS: I got approval to do a half jacket today, so I’ll be sitting down with my creative director next week to see how we can communicate everything we want to the designers and the printers! :)

 

 

[gfron1]

The PS on the bottom refers to my requesting a 1/3 or 1/2 dust jack ala North and many other books that have come out recently. I don't know what the financial impact is, but she approved it so we're going to have it. The other design ideas I've requested that are not too mainstream 1) Photo reference in the index and 2) 2 page photospreads with with text/recipe overlay. Haven't heard on those yet.

[gfron1]

and from my agent:

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I'm surprise they sent part of the photography amount before photography is fully delivered (usually they pay when the book is final and accepted). Any new updates on how the editorial process has been?  We haven't received our check just yet, but I'm sure it's en route and we will confirm accuracy.

 

Although you are working directly with the team (as all authors do), we're still here for questions as they come up, whether about the process or the writing itself, or to help handle any issues that arise (it sometimes helps to have that buffer). Although I hope you won't have conflict with your publisher, if you do, we'd typically step in and try to help mediate, speaking for the business side of things (advocating) so you can really stay focused on a good, collaborative process with your editor and so on.

 

Have you received any early feedback? Do you have any questions or concerns? While I don't want to be all up in your business (technical term, ha!) time to time reports will help us track the progress and catch issues before they arise (once in a while we'll have an author who is working so well with the publisher that they don't think to bring us in or even update us until things have gotten way out of hand). 

 

I know your location is changing, but the biggest thing I can encourage you to do right now is to simultaneously work on building a platform that isn't anchored to your location. Build up your twitter following by posting on popular hashtags and so on. I know you know your way around that, but if you'd like any pointers, let us know. For example, if you start posting a lot of #foraging posts, you'll start to build a new following that won't have had to be at your restaurant to be fans and ready for the book. It would also be worth setting up a RobConnoley.com page so you reserve the domain if it isn't already taken and even just putting a one page bio and book coming soon notice with a mailing list capture. 

 

I know you're juggling a million other things, but if you can keep these in the back of your head, they will prove to be extremely helpful down the line and will be as important as the writing and editing you're doing.

 

[Smithy]

That's interesting advice about the Twitter feed with a foraging hashtag bringing in new people, and reserving your domain now. It sounds sensible.

[gfron1]

Put up a dummy page today. I found Wix.com super easy to use. HERE

[Tri2Cook]

Looks good. I'm looking forward to that pre-order button going live.

[vogelap]

14 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

Looks good. I'm looking forward to that pre-order button going live.

I was able to pre-order today (order #10001)... Was that a fluke, or did it go live?

[gfron1]

Ha! Not a fluke but I wasn't going to advertise it til the publisher tells me its sent to the printer. I emailed you just now with the same message. I'm still working on the site but I'm super glad to know it worked! And note the small incentives I included with the purchase  Congratulations purchaser #1! 

[gfron1]

I want to say again - holy cow is Wix.com easy. I've had a long standing fear/hesitance to do web design because of the early days of having to code. Now its so logical and easy. I added ecommerce functions, newsletter email grab, navigating buttons that weren't part of the original template. So friggin' easy! 

[IowaDee]

Am I number two?  Glad you accept PayPal!  I love having something like this to look forward to!  

[gfron1]

I'm just cracking up. You're actually #3 and orders keep popping in. I hope at some point the publisher wants to see the manuscript

[curls]

1 hour ago, gfron1 said:

I'm just cracking up. You're actually #3 and orders keep popping in. I hope at some point the publisher wants to see the manuscript

Build it and they will come.  :-)

[Kerry Beal]

I'm in!

[gfron1]

...and another photoshoot. Easier to motivate my photographer now that he has his payment.

[gfron1]

Starting to get pics back from the shoot yesterday. This is a recipe I hadn't made in years but that I put in the book. I forage Russian olives, pickle them, then work them into an orange almond cake.

[huiray]

Hmm. Russian olives are now classified as an invasive species in the US....

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/russolive.shtml 

[IowaDee]

I think he's doing a good thing by picking the olives.  He's taking away the possibility of that many more trees.  And the end result, a tasty cake makes for a win-win situation. 

[MelissaH]

Russian olives don't grow where I now live, but once upon a time, they made me sneeze for a couple of weeks each year. Hands off, if you're able to reduce their numbers!

[gfron1]

2 hours ago, huiray said:

Hmm. Russian olives are now classified as an invasive species in the US....

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/russolive.shtml 

so eat 'em up!

[gfron1]

BTW, the substitution on the recipe is kalamata which are really great in that cake too. Every recipe has substitutions for every foraged ingredient.

[Tri2Cook]

1 hour ago, gfron1 said:

BTW, the substitution on the recipe is kalamata which are really great in that cake too. Every recipe has substitutions for every foraged ingredient.

I like that you're including the substitutions. It's one of the features of your book that I'm excited about because I doubt I could forage much where I live that you can forage where you live. I'll definitely be trying that cake. I started looking at olives in a different light after making Sam Mason's kalamata cobbler with almond ice cream many years ago. I went into that one extremely skeptical and was pleasantly surprised that they could work so well as a major component in a sweet setting.

[gfron1]

I'm spending my day working on more savory recipes. The book is heavy on pastry right now, so I need to put all of my new stuff on. Just finished my rolled root osso bucco.

 

[huiray]

On 12/27/2015 at 5:16 PM, gfron1 said:

I'm spending my day working on more savory recipes. The book is heavy on pastry right now, so I need to put all of my new stuff on. Just finished my rolled root osso bucco.

 

I hope there are a decent number of recipes that do not need an oven, and which are done simply on the stove top!

(I'm one person who rarely uses the oven, and can't really remember the last time I did any baking of any sort – probably a pie/tart shell for a chocolate ganache tart maybe a few years ago)

Edited December 28, 2015 by huiray (log)

[gfron1]

5 hours ago, huiray said:

 

I hope there are a decent number of recipes that do not need an oven, and which are done simply on the stove top!

(I'm one person who rarely uses the oven, and can't really remember the last time I did any baking of any sort – probably a pie/tart shell for a chocolate ganache tart maybe a few years ago)

I've not thought of my recipes through that lens yet but my kitchen is so small that my survival revolves around dispersing the workload between the oven, the stove top, etc.  Just added Orlando to my tour!