My cookbook has been on a JOURNEY. First, people were asking for my cookbook and it wasn’t even available online. Then, I translated the cookbook and released it as a PDF, but everyone wanted a physical copy. After I self-published it, the price was over $30! Not even I, the author, would spend $30 on a cookbook. Now, for the first time ever, a physical copy is at a reasonable price.
I have to say, I’m proud of myself 😁. Today, I found a really great company called The Book Patch. They are AWESOME. They would be willing to print my book on demand for only six dollars! I mean, that is 5 times less than previous estimates. Even better, it’s available for anyone to purchase, not just me!
I was like “screw finals, homework, whatever.” I literally focused all day on translating my 10×8 in cookbook into an 8.5×8.5 in format. It was hard, I gotta tell you. They wanted me to use a software called Adobe InDesign, so I signed up to a $19.99/month student membership that I’m going to cancel ASAP. Not only did I have to get used to a new software, I wanted to finish it today (I was not going to work on it tomorrow, I got stuff to do!), so I rushed it as well.
The quality is not that great. I mean it looks like something a 5th grader would create. However, I’m still proud of myself. It’s $6.38!
I remember panicking when my cover photo that I spent 1 1/2 hours on failed to upload to their website 😂 Turns out they don’t do well on Firefox, so I had to use Microsoft Edge. Phew.
I’m mad that I’m probably gonna have to pay for another month for the Adobe subscription, because I’m most likely going to go back and refine the cookbook. I’m even more mad that I have so much stuff to do and now I’m distracted by the cookbook 🤷♂️ Oh well, that’s life. I bet the care team would love to hear about this. I’m meeting them tomorrow (oh, today? huh, it’s that late). I’m so excited! But also sad, again, lol.
The hard part was translating the cookbook in the PDF, I have to admit. I remember in the summer of 2019 staying up really late typing out all those words and arranging those pictures so that we could at least have something. This only took a day, but wow, that was difficult. So things could’ve been worse.
One of my biggest regrets was not publishing the cookbook when the Tasty video was released. There were so many people that were asking for a physical copy, but I was so focused on that other thing. Well, it actually wasn’t a waste of time; it was a valuable learning experience. We can’t be perfect.
Because, The Book Patch is very clearly made for written novels and not picture books, I’m unsure of how it’ll turn out. It obviously won’t be as glossy or laminated as Blurb. I hope they don’t reject it because I use a lot of ink. Oh well, we’ll just have to wait and see. At least I’m doing this for fun, if I was an author trying to make an income out of this, I would be biting my nails (this would be way worse). Thankfully not (at least for right now)!
Again, I’m so proud of you, Justin!! 😍
