“ Can’t believe you just made a book like that,” said Chika, as she flipped through the mockup.

“ So easy, maybe my business should make a book too. ”

I felt my blood pressure rising.
I wanted to argue it was anything but ‘easy’, but I manage to ‘woosha’ that energy away.
Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe from her point of view, I had fun making it.
Because the alternate comment could be “ you spent all the time and energy for THIS? ”

So, woosha.

Having a physical copy in hand is useful.

Now I can test and see if it could fit within one of the 400 padded envelopes I bought for shipping. They should arrive tomorrow. Just as I was marvelling at my own bulk-buying genius, I realised, if one were to order 2 books and above, then I’d have to find a different padded bag. Darn.

The current book weighs around 250g. 4 books will weigh 1 kg and that will affect shipping considerably.
I think my e-commerce function has a ‘ship by weight’ option. Need to sort that out.

I’ve switched printer since the original printer could not make the promised deadline. So I’m still waiting for a digital proof from printer no.2. The waitlist is currently at 398, I’m increasing quantity to 450.

I have emailed a couple of publishers to see if they’d like a copy. I’m not sure what I’m aiming for here, but I was allowing 10-15 in my mind as a folio to sell myself as a writer, photographer, designer in one.

I approached a few food writers I like to see if they’d like to review them. I’m not telling you who just in case I jinx it.

Broadsheet has not responded since our initial email, I guess they’re busy reviving the hospo industry now that we are 12 days into 0-0 cases.

I also thought of pitching this book to SBS food, but I don’t know. I think they’re after ‘my dad survived a concentration camp to pass this recipe to me’ kind of story.

Books for Cooks says they’re interested in having a look at the actual book. So I might drop in Friday.
I might shoot an email to Readings, Happy Valley, Metropolis etc. But then we’ll have to enter a consignment agreement and discuss pricing vs x number of books etc.

I’m not really after fame, recognition or money here. All these random ideas are just old habits of an ex-adman.

There’s this Japanese artist who burns down all his work after every exhibition. That’s probably closer to my current state of mind.

As I picked up the book from printer no.1’s office, I noticed they also do tote bags. For some reason, people walking around with a ‘Soy Sauce, Sugar, Mirin’ tote bag amuses me.
I asked for a quote.
If I can get them in orange colour with white reversed text that’d be awesome.

Again, every idea simply means more work to do. More money to burn.

If not for the bride who confirmed their wedding date next month, and a couple of shoots scheduled next week, I’d have forgotten my identity as a photographer.

This dummy copy book also has that ‘newspaper factory’ smell. That’s why I bought a secret perfume, attempting to mask it. I did a test run mixing some methylated spirit with the perfume oil. I think it works? Or does it smell like food in a newspaper factory? Will it be enough for 400 copies? Will the scent survive a trip to America?

I really like the ‘uni student’ look of the book. I wasn’t expecting the wiro to be so thick - the reference I provided was a lot skinnier, but it really adds to the geekiness of it. Then again the wiro might look different with the new printer.
I asked for a white wiro, but I think it has to be black now.

Also glad I went with the spot UV varnish for the image on the cover. It really says ‘I am a front cover‘. The downside is probably my greasy fingerprints.

I’ve been reading up on how to export the book into epub (ebook) format.
Man, I honestly thought it was a press of a button. I mean, it kinda is, but I wanted the titles on the content page to jump directly to the recipes. That took one solid night of YouTube tutorials and neglecting my daughter. There’s no point to leave margins for inner pages now as readers simply scroll through ebooks. Page numbers are irrelevant too. And since I’m not really bound by page count now I can add more recipes.

Amazon has different commission systems for selling ebooks. The 30% commission caps the book price below $9.99, and you don’t get to control if they ever want to put it on fire sale. If you want to sell your book above $9.99, then they will take 70%. So, for the same $7 profit, you need to price the book at $23.

Bezos also charges $0.15 per mb as a ‘delivery fee’. I might have to convert all images to black and white to reduce file size. I can even export the file as a ‘reflowable’ epub, disregarding all the layout and make it into a wall of text to save space. That explains why most kindle ebook just look like bootleg static adult movies during midnight free TV in the 80s.

So the general ‘tactic’ is to soft launch the book at a lower price to get favourable reviews, and hopefully, that will trigger the algorithm to be on the ‘top seller’ list or gain positive response for readers to buy them at a higher price later. Everything is easier said than done.

Maybe I can bribe the netizens of Subtle Asian Cooking to give me a good review with a chance to win an orange tote bag.

OR I could sell the ebook on my shop directly. But then I lose the sweet Amazon monopoly, I mean, distribution power.

In the meantime, more proofreading to do. I swear, the more I read the book, the more spelling, grammar, punctuation mistakes just appear out of nowhere.

The tea towels are here, all 100 of them. People are saying they’re huge. I’m not sure if it’s Hana’s tiny hands that created the optical illusion. We compared to our tea towel and it’s only slightly wider. I suspect people who commented don’t really cook / use their tea towel.

Anyway, the end is nigh.
Low expectations, low disappointments.