Cookbook: First Pages

If you’ve been following along with the cookbook, when we last left off, the recipes were photographed over the course of two separate weeks and the text was copy edited. Up until this point, everything had been done electronically—I wrote the manuscript on my computer, the photo files were digital, and even the copy edits were made in a Word document using track-changes. 

Now we’ve entering an analog phase in which the entire book gets printed out on real paper at true size. This phase is either called first pages or first pass, and it’s one of my favorite moments in the whole book-making process. I was so excited to receive the printed pages from the publisher that I nearly hugged the delivery guy. (Don’t worry, I resisted and instead just squealed “thank you!” a few too many times.)

The stack of pages stays with me for a couple of weeks while I review the fully designed book (spoiler alert: it looks absolutely terrific!) and make changes to the text by writing directly on the paper. Then I return the pages by mail to the publisher, the team reviews and inputs corrections, and they print out revised second pages that come back to me. Stay tuned for updates!