Launching 'Soy Sauce, Sugar, Mirin'.

10 years ago, I read a ‘self-help’ book - The 4-hr Work Week.

Let me sum up the book for you: the secret to achieving a 4-hr workweek life is to outsource everything to India.

Also, the secret to retirement is to game the system.

According to the book, this is how you become a light-weight fighting champion: be medium-weight and not drink water for 5 days so you qualify as a lightweight during the weigh-in, then just destroy everyone during the real fight.

Anyway, like all self-help books, it’s not about self-helping, it’s about selling the author.
It’s also very capitalist American, very means to end.
(Apple just moved production to India, coincidence??)

However, there’s one thing that stuck with me regarding e-commerce.
The book said you don’t really need to have a real, finished product to sell a product.
Unlike a brick and mortar store, e-commerce simply relies on photographs.
The buyers are willing to accept the risk of paying upfront, then wait for the product to arrive months later, simply by browsing and clicking on JPEGs on the internet.

So if you want to test whether a product would sell, you can simply create a website (made in India, of course), upload a product, and label it as ‘sold out’. Algorithms will show you the web traffic - people who actually added them to cart, are potential customers. You can then manufacture your products based on the demand while gaining SEO advantage. So the next time you see an ad for vacuum cleaners, throbbing massage guns, yoga mats with thorns, remember: you’re not looking at a product, but simply a video clip, or photographs of a product.
Very Foucault, much simulacrum. Also, basically Kickstarter.

This is a very long-winded way for me to explain my risk management to launch this book.

As of 26 October, I have 300 emails on the waitlist.
Factoring 30% drop rate (because signing up to a list is different from paying cash) I’m comfortable in selling 200 copies of the book. I might push to print 4-500 because I’m in contact with bookshops and website to promote it. Plus, Christmas is coming. A mum just asked me to set aside 6 copies so it’s making me more hopeful than usual.

And this is where production is important because quantity dictates the price.
To print 500 copies, I need to be sure I can sell 200 to break even. Let’s not forget the e-commerce fees, taxes, GST. The design, photography, writing fee which I’m fortunate to save.

I’m also very fortunate to be encouraged by the SAC Facebook group. I remember Broadsheet popping champagne when my ramen post broke 1k likes. Now my egg sandwich recipe is at 1.5k. Who knew Asians foodies around the world is bigger than the whole Melbourne hipster culture ey?

So now that design is done and I’m sending the books to print(once I proofread the darn thing again), I have to figure out launch. When I say ‘launch’, I mean the promise I made that 'early buyers will get something extra’. Initially, I thought of a secret recipe in a DL brochure format people can stick on their fridge next to their takeaway menus.

Then last week I dropped off my daughter at kinder and saw a tea towel fundraiser. I remember thinking to myself ‘I don’t know how a tea towel is relevant to early childhood education, it’s probably a better promotional tool for a cookbo-OMG.’

So, this is how I came to the idea of a tea towel* giveaway.
Again, maybe 200 just to make sure I sell all 200 copies to break even.
The tea towel is more expensive than the book.

And since I’m not a celebrity chef with a publisher and PR representative, every new idea means more work. Quote, liaisons, design, logistics etc.

But that’s enough to get me excited.

Perhaps I can print more versions, with different pro tips, and sell them. Venture into merchandising.

Victoria recorded 0 cases today, so maybe I can give out the book in person near a cafe too.

Happy days.

*Once again, remember: you’re not looking at a finished product. This is just a mock-up.