Books Now Available At www.pamelareiss.com

It's been an interesting week and a half.  Last week I sent over 40 review books out to media -- we'll see if anything comes from that.  The books have been selling out of the store and I've received interest from other stores/distributors in the US and Canada.  It's very exciting to see them going out.  Today the first wholesale order was shipped out and I'm expecting some more wholesale orders from other cities to come in.

In other news, it looks like I'll be having an official book launch in a few weeks at a great independent book store in Winnipeg. It's the same store where I launched my first book five years ago and it'll be nice to have the second one there.  I'll post more information when dates and times are confirmed.

Finally, we've now got an updated website up at www.pamelareiss.com.  If you click on the "books" link at the top-right, we're set up to accept book orders.  Shipping in Canada and the USA is free and to other countries it's $10 for one or two books, $15 for three or four books.   If you need a quote for wholesale pricing, please get in touch.

Thanks to all of those who have already picked up a copy (or multiple copies) and for all of the great feedback!

The books are here!

I spent last night tossing and turning. The books were due to arrive today and I was anxious. I was scared to see the books.  It was a completely irrational fear because I knew about all the work that went into them.  Months of recipe testing and writing was followed by edit after edit. When that was done, it was time for proofing, a little more editing and then more proofing.

First thing this morning, we cleared out a hallway at work. Chairs and tables leftover from our restaurant days usually reside here, but they had to make way for the books! And then they arrived.  And I'm so happy with them.


Again, my irrational fear was that they wouldn't look like real books. I can't really explain this, because it makes no sense, but this is my first attempt at self-publishing and I was scared they wouldn't look as good as Soup.  They look great! I'm thrilled with how they turned out.

So that's 254 boxes of books, to the left.  It's a whole lotta books. Good news is they all fit in the hall. I was concerned we'd have to fill the storage rooms and that we'd have rows of boxes stacked in the store aisles.  At the moment it's not a problem, but we have to start moving some out soon.  As we approach Passover, we turn the entire store over and sell only Passover foods -- and we need every inch of space we can get.

We sold 3 books out of the store this afternoon and I have orders that need to be shipped out tomorrow.
I also have to start packaging up the press kits and sending them out.  We're on our way -- just another 5990-odd books to go!

If you're in Winnipeg, books are available at the store (Desserts Plus) for now, with more stores to follow.  They're also available at amazon.com. We hope to have www.pamelareiss.com set up for book orders by the end of the week.

The books are coming!

Happy new year!

I took a much needed break over the new year, getting away to the States for a week. It was the first week off from working on the book since Passover 2009. I had a great week, lots of shopping and relaxing and general road-trip fun.

My parents also went away and were out of town for another week, so when I returned to Winnipeg I had to deal with the 5-door freezer that broke down in our store while we were all gone. (The freezer was full of meat. Interesting fact, the zoo won't take meat that's been thawed. It all had to be trashed.) That, along with other fun things at work kept me running around in circles.

In the middle of the work mishugas, I had to approve final proofs for the book and get some items checked off the book-business to-do list (bank stuff, GST numbers, etc.). I'm also trying to get my website revamped with all of the heavy lifting being done by my sister. But stuff had to be written and organized for that.

While it's been a bit stressful since I've been home, it's also been exciting. I got my first orders from Amazon.com and have corresponded with some Jewish book distributors who are interested in handling my book. On Monday, my printers told me that they were printing the cover and text. The image insert pages were due to be printed later this week. Today the books were set to be bound and I should be receiving them next week.

I'm excited and nervous. First issue: Where will I put 6000 books? But that's a small issue that's easily resolved (just involves a lot of schlepping). I'm nervous because this time, the experience is much different from the Soup experience. With that book I tested, wrote and edited my words but everything else was done by the publishers. They had people doing the layout. They hired a food stylist and photographer to do the photos. The one thing that is consistent is the printer. Both books have been printed by the same company. The biggest difference may be that I have to figure out how to get them all sold.

So less than a week and they'll be here. I can't wait.

Have a great weekend.

What a week!

Happy Chanukah! I can't believe the holiday is almost over and I haven't posted anything. It's been a crazy, exciting week, so maybe it's not that surprising.

On Monday, the files for Passover a Kosher Collection were due at the printer, so every spare moment leading up to Monday was spent proofing and worrying and making small changes here and there. We've had some problems with colour management -- the colours as they appear on my monitor are not the same as the colours as they print on my laser printer, which are different from the colours that print on my ink jet, which are different from the colours on the proofs from my printer (which, btw, are different depending on which printer they use - high resolution proofs versus lower resolution proofs). So I've spent a lot of time tweaking colours.

I knew I'd be receiving a proof of the book soon, but I wasn't expecting it until next week. It arrived this morning! It is extremely cool to see it printed in a way that's close to what the actual book will look like. There are a few issues -- the images in the book were printed using a low-resolution printer, so the colours are still off. I'm now waiting for them to send me some copies of the pictures done with the high resolution printer. Some of the words on the cover are the wrong colours -- it's not bad as it is, but it's not how it was designed. And the whole thing has to be proofed one more time.

The thing is, it was really exciting when it came today. It looks like a book. Obviously it was designed to look like a book, but it's really different when it shows up on the right size paper with the pictures in the right place and looking like a book.

When the Soup book was printed, I didn't see it until I was in a town car in Toronto at 5 AM on my way to do my first live TV demo. I wasn't involved in the pictures and the design -- my work was done after all the edits were made. This experience is completely different. I've been involved from start to finish and it's amazing to see it at this point.

Enough of my excited rambling, here's a picture of the proof on my desk: