Hi, everybody! I’m back with another update on the publication process for my upcoming cookbook, the extended edition of A LITERARY PICNIC. I planned to do an update much sooner than this, but some big variables took extra time to finalize. I decided to wait until I knew for sure what those things would look like, and now I do! So here are all the juicy details:
- THE ROAD SO FAR. I’m finished with all the recipe testing and photographs. I typed the recipes directly into my formatted Canva document instead of transcribing it from Word like I did with my last book, so that saved me a LOT of time. Right now I’m just tweaking the design and doing final edits before submitting my final manuscript for print. Check out this cute little strawberry fool I made for my Jane Austen menu:
- HOW BIG WILL THE EXTENDED EDITION BE? The final recipe count is 45 recipes. This includes the original 25 recipes, plus 20 brand new ones. One of the reasons I took so long to share an update was because I was still in talks with a publishing company about licensing permissions. Most of the books I make menus for are in the public domain, but this time there was a copyrighted book I wanted to include. The publisher said they’d get back to me with a quote, but it’s been several weeks with no word. As much as I wanted to include a menu for that book, I decided that delaying my publication date past summer would hurt book sales too much. So at this point, even if they get back to me with a quote, I still plan to move forward without adding that additional menu. Maybe I can include it in my next book!
- PRINT FORMAT NEWS. In addition to distributing my book through IngramSpark, I will now also be distributing through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. This will allow me to price my book more competitively for individual sale on Amazon while still making it available for purchase through the Ingram catalogue for bookstores, libraries, and schools. A LITERARY PICNIC will be available on Amazon first, then 2-3 weeks later on Ingram (it will take me some time to reformat the document to Ingram’s specifications and get it approved).
- MY PIE-IN-THE-SKY SUMMER DEADLINE. It looks like I’ll achieve my crazy dream of not just a summer publication date, but possibly an EARLY summer pub date! Those copyright permissions falling through was a blessing in disguise, because it significantly cut my writing time. My goal is to have my final edits finished by Monday next week. After that, it’s just depends on how long it takes Amazon to approve the manuscript and if I need to make any changes after seeing the proof copy. If the approval process is slow, my publication date will likely be July 1st. However, if things move fast, I can publish as early as June 17th. I’ll let you know the final date ASAP!
- UPDATED COVER. I toyed with the idea of hiring a cover artist, but it’s just not in my budget at the moment. Plus, I genuinely love my original cover. I’m keeping the cover design mostly the same (because I adore it), but I want the cover for the extended edition to be noticeably different from the original. Hopefully, this will cut down on confusion between the two editions. I inverted the border and center colors from the original cover, which I was nervous about at first. However, I think I might actually like it better than the original! Teal is my favorite color, so I like having it front and center. Plus, having a darker color behind the text makes it easier to read. Here’s a rough mockup of the design:
- That’s it for now! I’ll close out with a pic of this sweet little rabbit who came to hang out with me while I took pics for my Peter Pan menu!😆
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