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Asian Tofu
Release date: Feb. 28, 2012
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September 27, 2011Asian Tofu Update: Second Pages and Photo Proofs!
On Monday afternoon I sent back the second round of proofs for the Asian Tofu cookbook to my editor at Ten Speed Press. It’s a part of the process that always puts me in a low-grade state of panic. The first set of proofs seemed like a cakewalk because I knew that there would be a second one. But the second pass on the book pages is more or less the last look.
You may ask: What happened with the first set? Why does Andrea keep re-reading stuff? Why isn’t Asian Tofu out yet?
Well, just because you write something doesn’t mean that your words are printed verbatim. Publishing is akin to fine tuning a car or sanding a piece of wood. You keep tweaking – adjusting the screws until things hum smoothly or making a few more passes with sand paper until the wood feels silky. At a certain point, you’ve done enough and move on.
That said, after I sent back corrections on the first set of page proofs, Editor Melissa Moore reviewed them and combined them with her own edits and that of a proofreader. (Before I got the first pages, a copyeditor and I had already made an initial round of edits to the manuscript.)
In addition to making changes to the text, Melissa and I decided to move several photos and recipes. We wanted to tinker with the layout to ensure a nice pacing of images and text. Though the text and photos fit just right in the number of pages we calculated, we wanted to rearrange a few things to craft a more engaging cookbook.
Among the changes was the new title page that you see at the top of this post. It’s different than the one you saw in the post on first pages:
I like the new one because it’s upbeat in color and captures the vibe of the subject. The first photo we tried was stunning and artful, albeit the pewter background on the title page seemed severe for the "Welcome!" part of the book. Plus, a door is a great opening metaphor for a book, don’t you think? (If you recall, we made a similar call on the book cover.)
The new title page was part of a PDF file that Melissa sent along with the second set of page proofs. It was terrific to review Asian Tofu on paper and on screen.
In the past, I’d only had the printout to work with, but with the electronic version in hand too, I could review the colors of the images and recipe flow to best approximate the reader’s experience. I scanned and read the book to catch typos and make another round of edits.
My go-to resources and tools for reviewing proofs included:
Notebooks of interviews and recipes details (I filled two big ones and two little ones)Style sheets and style manuals to keep me consistent on the nitty gritty and prevent me from going crazy. For example, it is “moderately hot chile,” “moderately-hot chile,” or “medium-hot chile”?Foreign dictionaries to verify terms, such as the pinyin (Romanized form) of Chinese characters. List of correction symbols so I can use shorthand to indicate edits on the printout, such as: “ital” = italics, “#” = insert space, “^” = insert A mechanical pencil and Magic Rub eraser in case I change my mind on an edit, which happens often. The eraser functions as my delete and backspace buttons.
If I had been on the fence about something, the second pages gave me another look. Late Sunday night, I said to myself, “That’s it. Let go.” And I did.
Photo Test Proofs
But then on Monday morning, I woke up and thought of one last thing to check. There’s always something to check on right? As I was leafing through the printout one last time, the doorbell rang. It was FedEx delivering the photo test proofs.
Melissa said that the test proofs had arrived early from Asia (where many publishers print these days) so she let me take a look. I don’t normally review the images after we shoot them, and leave it up to the editor and designer to make the technical calls. But Melissa wanted to keep me in the loop on the process. In exchange, I promised to send them back with the second page proofs!
I cleared the dining table, opened up the tofu printer proofs, and laid them out. There were two sets of 16 images total. Half of them are printed upside down. If you turn the proof sheet, you'd see a row of images as they would appear in the finished book.
The proofs were tests that Melissa and Art Director Elizabeth (Betsy) Stromberg did to make sure that the studio shots turned out looking gorgeous on the coated paper that they’d chosen. Betsy deemed the photo test proofs to be very good but she and Melissa wanted me to check them out too. Being privy to this part of the book making process was totally cool.
Ten Speed Press makes books the old fashioned way, with each publication being individual. A publication’s finished size (called “trim size”), choice of paper, and binding are all part of the decision making process. Most readers are unaware of those factors when they open up a book and the pages gracefully fall into place. For old- school publishers and book lovers, those little details are among the marks of a book crafted with extra care.
I’d seen the Asian Tofu images in so many ways: At photographer Maren Caruso’s studio, in black and white on the printout, on screen via a PDF. Seeing the photos as calibrated, full-color images on paper was awesome, not only because they were spectacular but also because they represented a couple of years of work and a big team effort.
Having checked the proofs and looked at the images, I was satisfied and ready to send everything back to Ten Speed Press. Onwards and upwards!
Related posts:
Asian Tofu Update: Cover EvolutionAsian Tofu Update: First PagesBehind the Scenes of the Asian Dumplings Photoshoot (with photographer Penny De Los Santos and stylist Karen Shinto)
Creating Ethan Stowell's New Italian Italian Kitchen: Interview with editor Melissa Moore (for more details on how cookbooks are made) Posted in
Asian Tofu,
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Amazing! Looks gorgeous. Congrats!
Posted by:
Monica Bhide |
September 28, 2011 at 09:56 AMLooks gorgeous. Haha, I had that same tiny Chinese dictionary for YEARS. Saved my butt in classes.
Posted by:
Tami |
September 28, 2011 at 11:12 AMEverything looks so awesome, Andrea. It makes me realize the process doesn't end with the manuscript;)
I'm looking very forward to your finished book!
Posted by:
Marvin |
September 28, 2011 at 01:39 PMThanks, everyone! It means a lot to have your support. :)
Posted by:
Andrea Nguyen |
September 28, 2011 at 03:37 PMI had that same tiny Chinese dictionary for YEARS. Saved my butt in classes.It makes me realize the process doesn't end with the manuscript..
Posted by:
web design bangalore |
September 28, 2011 at 10:21 PMThough we haven't met, I'm a long time fan of yours. The book looks great. I just preordered it on Amazon. It will be a long wait until February!
Posted by:Jane |
September 29, 2011 at 12:47 PMJane -- Thanks so much for pre-ordering the book!
Posted by:
Andrea Nguyen |
September 29, 2011 at 06:10 PM Verify your Comment Previewing your CommentPosted by: |
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