
Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook - wnm
https://medium.com/@nickkokonas/why-we-are-self-publishing-the-aviary-cookbook-lessons-from-the-alinea-book-e89236ab6ca1
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nkurz
The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their
cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to
print:

"Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who
actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me
precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time
retailed for $50 and had won every award imaginable, cost $3.83 per book to
print, shrink wrap, and ship to the US. I thought he must be mistaken and I
said so. “No way.” He replied, “well that was the first edition, I’m sure the
cost has gone down since then.” He thought I was implying that $3.83 per book
was too high!"

One implication of this is that the cost difference between digital and
physical publishing is probably much less than most people think. While a
weighty tome may literally feel like it's worth a hefty premium, this is due
more to consumer psychology than anything inherent to cost of production.

~~~
ipqk
But that's the cost of just getting the books to your warehouse. There's the
additional labor cost of unpacking them and individually shipping them, which
is probably more than $3.83/book.

~~~
nickkokonas
actually that part is easy. You can use a fulfillment company and the costs
are known and passed to the consumer. We are using www.Blackbox.cool to do it
this time around. Last time we used Warepak

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austenallred
The publishing industry is slowly going to unravel.

If you write a very successful book with traditional publishing cut you might
make 30-40k. Average is lower. There are power laws at play, but as few as 5%
make it past six figures.

So when I wrote a book about step-by-step user acquisition
([https://secretsaucenow.com](https://secretsaucenow.com)) I self-published.
Made $60,000-ish in presales, sold another $60,000 while I was finishing the
book. And now pull in 4-8k/month.

If I signed a deal with a publishing company selling the same number of books
I would have made ~10k. Instead I found a freelance editor and typesetter
($400), printed the first 100 ($700), and sell the vast majority as eBooks.
It's done well, but not earth shatteringly well, and I'm up above $140k in
profit.

There is very little reason nowadays, IMO, to not self-publish.

~~~
puranjay
There's one thing you have to factor: the near-instant credibility a physical
book published by a big-name publisher gets you.

This credibility can often turn into some very lucrative gigs.

I wouldn't mind publishing fiction myself, but if I was doing non-fiction, I
would want to go through traditional publishing.

It doesn't really matter whether people like, say, Malcolm Gladwell made any
money off their books. The credibility their books earned them pays off in the
longer run.

~~~
philsnow
> There's one thing you have to factor: the near-instant credibility a
> physical book published by a big-name publisher gets you. > This credibility
> can often turn into some very lucrative gigs.

Does success with a self-published book (or multiple books) translate into
making it easier to get books published by big-name publishers on more-
acceptable terms?

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mark_l_watson
Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing!

The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-
Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the
advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I
wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff
is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpub.com.

I encourage people to write a book (or books). It is a really fun process. I
would suggest using a publisher for a book and then also try self publishing
using leanpub.com or some other platform. Decide for yourself with you prefer.

~~~
howfun
When you you self publish can you stil sell kindle edition on Amazon?

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MrMorden
The big caveat is that Amazon wants you to enroll in the Kindle Unlimited
program—and they'll require exclusivity. This is, to be extremely generous, a
bad idea for the author.

~~~
tomcam
It is not a requirement of Amazon

~~~
MrMorden
Not a requirement that you participate in Kindle Unlimited to sell Kindle
ebooks, but Kindle Unlimited requires Amazon exclusivity. (I could have worded
that comment better.)

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nickkokonas
Always exciting to get something up on the hacker news board... weekly reader
here for a long time.

Happy to answer any questions you may have.

\-- Nick

~~~
kevinmchugh
What drove the decision to forgo a recipe tester? Is it at all driven by the
target audience? Will the new book have a professional tester, or does the
subject matter make a tester even less necessary?

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Mikeb85
Why would you need a recipe tester for recipes from an award winning
restaurant? The audience likely isn't regular home cooks, rather professionals
and serious 'foodies'.

~~~
dragonwriter
Recipes intended for home cooks from a restaurant are generally, as I
understand, not the preparation methods actually used in the restaurant,
because home and restaurant equipment is different, and restaurant cooking
relied on par cooking and other techniques to optimize order to delivery time.

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designium
I'm in the process of writing a book about FinTech industry holistically and
I'm interested to know if someone has any tip of publishing business-
technology book. My target readers are students, professionals either in tech
or finance, entrepreneurs and investors.

If anyone could share a bit more about the cost of self publishing would be
great.

For some reason, I'm more worried about the copy editing at this point than
anything else.

~~~
nickkokonas
You can easily hire a professional copy-editor. In fact, in many instances
publishers hire outside third-party experts depending on the subject of the
book.

Publishing a text-only book with no or minimal pictures is shocking
inexpensive.

~~~
designium
That's a great insight. I am planning to add some graphs but theycanbe black
and white. Maybe that doesn't add much additional cost?

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logfromblammo
I'm actually surprised that printed cookbooks are still economically viable
using _any_ kind of publishing model.

They remind me of those books from the 1980s filled with printed copies of the
source code for computer programs. You would input the text from the book
using your keyboard, and compile/interpret the program. That was how many
programs were distributed, because a printed book on a truck had higher
bandwidth than any other readily-available channel. And then there were also
books about _learning to write your own programs_ that may also have included
some source code. I think that cookbooks filled with recipes are like the
former, and books about _learning to make your own recipes_ are like the
latter.

Those recipe books simply became obsolete with ubiquitous Internet access.
Countless recipes are open source and freely available. Barely anything in a
recipe book is eligible for copyright protection. You can basically rewrite
instructions in your own words and make your own drawings or photographs, if
any, and that boxed spaghetti with canned marinara recipe is now printable as
part of your own cookbook.

So it is very smart to--as with the book in the article--load up all your
recipes with copyright-protected photographs, rather than leaving them out to
cut print costs. But even so, that book as described seemed more about
trademarks and brands than content. It might be useful for franchisees or for
professional imitators. When I am cooking at home, I rarely even refer to a
recipe, and when I do, it is just one of the thousands of results from an
Internet search.

Does anyone here still bother buying cookbooks? Would it not be more useful to
simply learn how to cook without referring to recipes? Who needs that level of
restaurant-style uniformity and consistency in their own kitchen?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Does anyone here still bother buying cookbooks?

Yes.

> Would it not be more useful to simply learn how to cook without referring to
> recipes?

They aren't mutually exclusive ideas; if you have a basic understanding of
cooking, recipes are great points of departure.

> Who needs that level of restaurant-style uniformity and consistency in their
> own kitchen?

Consistency is not the only reason to buy a cookbook.

~~~
dllthomas
Yeah, I buy cookbooks as sources of inspiration.

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baby
Kind of off-topic on-topic: I went to that restaurant/bar in Chicago to try
their cocktails and it was one of the best experience I went through there.
Way better than the Milk room (haven't tried Violet hours though). I wish
there was an Aviary where I live now :(

They do "experimental" cocktails (or artistic cocktails). Cocktail in a bag,
Smokey cocktail, bubble tea cocktail, cocktail in a tea pot, ... and they
taste amazing as well.

If you read that blogpost I suggest googling or checking on TripAdvisor/Yelp
for some visual pictures :)

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FLGMwt
Had a chance to do the kitchen table at the Aviary.

Pretty unforgettable experience despite how much booze they give you. I'm
definitely more interesting in this cookbook knowing it was self-published.

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barking
Mr OT here. IMO the best cookbook ever written was the one my mother had in
secondary school. I don't know the name of it and I'm sure it's long out of
print. She swore by it, used it all her life and was a marvellous cook.

~~~
pjmorris
I'll go OT with you. Is there any attribute of 'the best cookbook' that you
can remember that'd help us figure out which one it was/is - example recipes,
cooking style, memories of the food made from it, or the book itself? Is the
book still in the family?

I once had a copy of the Alinea cookbook, it's a wonderful object. For mere
mortals like me, 'The Way To Cook', by Julia Child is the cookbook I refer to
most often and suggest most often to those looking for 'the best cookbook.'

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barking
All I can remember is that it was hardback with a plain red cover (if there
had been a dust jacket, it was long gone) and she'd have used it in home
economics class in 1950s Ireland. It was mainly what I'd call wholesome simple
British/Irish food, beef steak and kidney pie and the like but the sweets and
cakes are what I most fondly remember, queen of pudding, bread and butter
pudding, eve's pudding, dundee cake, shortbread, lovely dark soft gingerbread,
sponges, madeira, buns etc etc. Look at what we've lost!

~~~
pjmorris
Hmm. Thanks for the description. I'll see what I can dig up.

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Taniwha
Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook?

too many birds ...

