WHAT WAS I THINKING???
If I had a nickel for every time I asked myself this over the past few months, I'd be able to solve the national coin shortage.
Check it out! The print ARC just arrived!!!
No doubt you've seen me post about this endeavor somewhere (probably here) and heard the high pitched freak out in my voice at least a little.
Now, I'm not new to self-publishing. I got the rights back to some books and actually put one up a million years ago. I also decided to try self-publishing some romcom novellas this year (which has been easy peasy lemon squeezy) but I had never published a non-fiction work in my life, traditionally or otherwise. Despite the title, putting this book together was no fairy tale...except for the people who worked with me to make it one.
So, here's what I learned, specific to this cookbook.
1. Hire a professional baker/food photographer. I was fortunate that the assistant Christie Conlee who I hired long before the cookbook was okayed by the powers that be (meaning I was allowed to do this on my own) is actually a home baker and has mad photography skills. Thus, she is also the co-author of the book as she baked, tweaked, and then photographed every recipe in the books. Seriously, I call her my magical unicorn and I'm not even kidding. (BTW, this was her response when I asked her to get on Tik Tok - LOL!).
2. Hire a cover artist who "gets" you. I was fortunate enough to have a cover artist for the romcom novellas, Lyndsey, from Llewellen Designs who is a dream to work with and whose cover (as you can see above) matches the vibe of the cupcake bakery mysteries to perfection. She also nailed my brand on the novellas. She's currently working on It Happened One Christmas Eve and I can't wait to see it!
3. Expect it to take a million times longer than you think it will. To get this sucker loaded on IngramSpark (the publisher I chose) I had to learn how to craft a word document that included pictures - LOTS of pictures - and then convert it to a pdf, embed the font (what?), make the trim sizes work for a 6 X 9 pbk book with all of those pictures, do some rewriting, tweaking, cutting, inserting, yada yada yada. Expect delays and rough language, I'm just sayin'!
4. Know when to walk away. Ebook platforms are not friendly for cookbooks (pesky photos) and every one of them is different. I really hope readers choose to go hardcover on this because after almost throwing my computer into our swimming pool over formatting issues, let's just say the hardcover is better :) Doubling back, let me repeat, know when to walk away. LOL.
5. Let go of perfectionism. IT WILL NEVER BE PERFECT. Much like those delightful readers let you know when there's a single typo in a 75,000 word book that has been through seven edits by five pairs of eyes, anticipate that there will always be an error in your manuscript somewhere. Accept it. Embrace it. Consider it the WTF wrinkle on the face of your work.
So, how about you, Reds and Readers? What task did you take on that was more daunting than you anticipated? How did it turn out? (Looking for some positivity here - LOL)!
