A Publication Date is Set

As more and more people learn that I’m writing a cookbook, I’ve noticed that I’m having more conversations that sound something like this …

Friend: Hey, I hear that you’re writing a cookbook?

Me: Yeah. I’ve been working on it for a couple of months now. I’m discovering some really delicious breakfast recipes and learning a lot about the cookbook writing process.

Friend: That’s really exciting! I’ve always wanted to write a novel. What’s the title of your cookbook?

Me: The Joy of Breakfast. It will have 50 or so delicious breakfasts that you can prepare in 20-minutes or less. It’s for …

Friend: [Interrupting me] When can I get a copy?

Me: Ummm, huh? Oh, wow! [Beads of sweat start to form on my forehead and my mouth gets dry. It’s difficult to speak.] Look at the time! Nice talking to you, I gotta go. Bye.

Then I blurt out some lame excuse about picking the kids up before making a hasty exit.

I hate not having the answer to that question, “When can I get a copy?”

As the author and publisher I need to remember that I am in control of the entire writing and publishing process – I am self-publishing my cookbook.

After some close examination, I think I’m falling into two common cookbook writers’ traps here. First, there are always going to be more recipes to be developed and tested that can be added to the cookbook. The cycle of developing, testing, tweaking and re-testing a recipe can go on forever. I have to decide when enough is enough. And I need to decide it sooner than later, or, I’ll never get The Joy of Breakfast to the printer and ultimately onto bookstore shelves and into your kitchens :). So, I’m setting the number of recipes in The Joy of Breakfast to 75. There, that’s settled. Any additional recipes can go into my next cookbook.

Many writers share the second common cookbook writers’ trap I’m falling into, and that’s paralysis of perfectionism. Thinking, either, “If I can’t do it perfectly, then I won’t do it at all,” or, “That’s good, but I can do better.” I fall into the second, “I can do better,” group. Sometimes I, we, just have to realize that good, is good enough. If I keep trying to make The Joy of Breakfast perfect, whatever that means, it will never be sent to the printer and will languish here on my hard drive in sort of a cookbook purgatory waiting to be made perfect. Let me tell you, perfect ain’t happening. I got to move forward with this cookbook and remember that good, is good enough.

The best way I’ve discovered to overcome these two obstacles is by setting a deadline and sticking to it. And, one way to practically guarantee that I stick to my deadline is to let everyone know about it.

So, after putting pencil to paper and doing a little backwards planning, The Joy of Breakfast, will be published on or before June 11, 2009, with the “official” release date being July 11, 2009. Some book reviewers like to have read and reviewed a book “before” it is released. To accommodate them I set the “official” release date one month after the actual publication date.

I know, that’s less than three months away, but as my mentor Jim Rohn often says, “With one bold challenge, the impossible becomes a reality.” And, sitting where I’m at right now, this looks a bit on the impossible side. Anyway, that’s my goal and I’m sticking to it.

How am I going to gather and test 75 recipes, finalize the manuscript with editors, proofreaders, graphic designers, photographers and food stylists? File for a copyright and negotiate with printers and select cover stock, binding and fine-tune the layout of The Joy of Breakfast? I’m not 100% sure yet. In fact, I’m not even 10% sure. But as Seth Godin says in his post, In Search of Dolphin Leather, “Don’t choose your dreams based on what is certain to happen, choose them based on what’s likely to cause the change you want to occur around you.” Writing and publishing this cookbook will, “cause the change I want to occur around me.” It is foundational to several other goals I have. I can’t move forward with those goals until I’ve successfully completed this one.

I’ll let you in on a secret … not only do I want to write and publish a cookbook; my ultimate goal is for The Joy of Breakfast to become an Amazon Bestseller. I’ll talk more about that later.

So, the cat’s out of the bag. If you’d like to follow my progress and either cheer with my success or jeer when I fail, you can follow me on twitter, subscribe to my RSS Feed or sign up for my newsletter. Whatever you decide you won’t be disappointed and I think you’ll learn some valuable lessons about writing and publishing a cookbook. I know I am.