How Books Are Made:
Before I began writing my culinary guidebook to Budapest and Hungary, and even during the process of writing it, I had no idea how much work really went into publishing one single book. (My book, by the way, has turned into two separate books somewhere along the way). Since there are still several more steps to go before my book will be live on book store shelves, there’s probably even much more left to do that I don’t know about. Before I immersed myself into this world of publishing and book writing, I gave little thought to how many people in addition to the author are involved in bringing a book to life.
I knew that it would be an enormous amount of work on my part, and after I signed the contract with my publisher I became pretty anxious that I wouldn’t actually be able to pull it off (especially since I had a new baby). I knew all along that if I was going to finish this book (and produce something useful that I could be proud of), it would take over every spare moment of mine until it was done. I wasn’t so naïve as to think that I would just write a brilliant manuscript (pictured above), be done with it, and it would then somehow magically appear a few months later with a pretty cover and gorgeous illustrations. But, I didn’t take into account all of the hard work that the editors would have ahead of them (and who by now must be so sick of reading and re-reading my manuscript), as well as the proof readers, the designers, the illustrators, the photographers, and the publishers. While some writers happily go the self-publishing route (something I never even considered) and take on the responsibility for arranging all of this themselves, it has been clear to me that there is no way that I would have wanted to do that when my publishers are so good at what they do.
Happily, my research consisted of some of my favorite things: eating at restaurants, sipping espresso at cafés, sampling pastries at cukrászdas, and wandering the streets of Budapest in search of specialty food shops. And despite the hard work and discipline that writing this book took, I can honestly say that I enjoyed the whole process. When I was done, I even missed the idea of not waking up in the morning knowing what I would be writing about that day (maybe I didn’t miss the week or so before my deadline of staying up and writing until 4am).
My process has probably not been the typical one since I am now concurrently working with two separate publishers, one Hungarian and one American and my original manuscript will result in two pretty different books. The process is far from complete, and I have to say that it has been exciting–even though the wait to see the book in print has been longer than I though it would be. You can expect to see the American version on the shelves in May 2008, and the Hungarian one a few months sooner (no specific date has been set).
Check back here, I’ll be writing a series of posts about the process behind my book, from the idea and the proposal to the contracts and the editing (and everything that is still yet to come).
