Book Production Phase 8 Copy Editing Revisions
May 31, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
I know, I know—I already submitted the changes and answers to queries a few weeks ago but this past week I’ve been agonizing over the wedding cake chapter—always the most complicated.
There is one special wedding cake that always dips about a half inch at the edge of each layer which means either you have to fill in the edges where it dips with extra buttercream or level it losing some of the cake.
Woody and I tested every possible variation to try to fix this problem. What worked best was a combination of all-purpose flour and cornstarch but the all-purpose flour with its higher protein than cake flour darkened the 8 inch layers so with the longer baking time of the 12 inch layers it would be too dark.
Finally we decided that this is one cake that requires cake flour and that we would compromise and level it half way between the edges and the rest of the top so as not to lose much cake but not to have as big a gap at the very edges.
Of course revisiting this cake brought a few other things in to question among which was the buttercream itself. 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of sugar should have been 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon according to the weight in the chart. How did this happen? How did none of us catch this? How many more things are lurking in other recipes? How can this be when we’ve gone over everything a hundred million times?! well you’ll be the first to tell me when you catch any inconsistencies but as the saying goes: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” because some things have to be rounded off so won’t correlate perfectly from volume to ounces to grams. And some cakes, though they look similar, are not. Even one change in an ingredient may necessitate a change in another ingredient or ingredients. So don’t take this on as a challenge!
Just a little over a week til we film the tips at General Mills/Gold Medal. Really exciting. And now going over all the revisions with Ava. All this does not end until the book ships to China and then instead of being fully relieved one agonizes over it being too late to change anything in this the first printing! Nonetheless, I feeling very “complete” for the moment.
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Rose
06/04/2008 07:19 PM
thank you both.
nancy, zach is right when he says that where a book is produced is not an author's prerogative. publishers these days are having a hard time staying afloat, especially with the internet giving out most of the recipes! there's much we don't understand about the industry or what it takes to produce a huge, detailed baking book with photos of every cake. that's part of the reason i'm sharing as much of the process as i have time to write.
safe to assume that everyone is trying their best to produce the highest quality book in the best way possible under the circumstances.
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Zach
06/04/2008 04:52 PM
Touche` Hector!
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Hector
06/04/2008 04:46 PM
My Gosh, leave the poor woman alone. Rose is burning the midnight oil, so anyone is entitled to get a bit snippy.
Make love, make cakes, not hates.
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Zach Townsend
06/04/2008 04:42 PM
To Nancy, I think you're being entirely unfair. Rose did not invite this question and simply answered based on what is true in the publishing industry. They are the ones that determine where to have the books printed based on production costs to them. Rose (the author) does not make this decision for them.
If you have an issue with this, take it up with the American publishing industry, but not on this blog. I find it ridiculous to make such a drastic decision of not purchasing another book simply because of a straightforward answer to a question someone posed - but that's your decision, and your loss.
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Nancy Mardakis
06/04/2008 03:01 PM
I went thru my vast collection of cookbooks and noted that Martha Stewart,William Sonoma and many others have their books published in the USA! Your response that if printed in the USA would be $75, not only was your answer a bit snippy but circumvented the issue. Although I have several of your books I doubt if I would purchase another.
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Rose
06/03/2008 04:48 PM
yes arthur. i was very proud that my thermometers were made in the usa for as many years as they were produced. one doesn't always have control over these things.
thanks kate nad cecilia. we are changing the repeat "buy" message but the order of the placement needs to be where it is.
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Cecilia
06/03/2008 02:12 PM
Kate has a keen artistic eye. I agree with her comments about the appearance of your website Rose. It would look less overtly commercial if it was more thought out and balanced which is more in keeping with your style.
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Arthur
06/03/2008 11:18 AM
A product's price point is always an important concern. But I would rather pay more for the book and have it made in the USA. That way I would know that I wasn't contributing to the wage decline in this country that is affecting millions of working families. Take care and best of luck to you.
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Arthur
06/03/2008 01:24 AM
Yes.
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Hector
06/03/2008 12:08 AM
Don't get me started, my Grandparents and Mother were from China, my Dad and myself from Peru. We are now US citizens since 1989.
The Made in China logo means more than Made in China. As long as quality is there, it is best to manufacture something were it can be done best.
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Zach Townsend
06/02/2008 09:58 PM
Arthur,
I think your comments are directed at the wrong person. I'm certain authors don't have control over this aspect of a book production process.
It's my opinion that what productive entrepreneurs contribute to this country, and those who are employed as a result, out weighs what you're concerned about.
Zach
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Rose
06/02/2008 09:55 PM
are you saying that you would be willing to pay $75 for the book instead of what will probably be around $35 to $40?
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Arthur
06/02/2008 09:48 PM
I'm looking forward to the book, but would be more excited if you didn't state that the book was being printed in China. Can't we publish and print books in the United States anymore? That's going to be your main selling market, so I think you could have insisted in your contract that the book be printed using American workers and professionals. The fact that you didn't leaves me a little less than impressed. It's small decisions like this, made hundreds of thousands of times per day, that are weakening this country.
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Rose
06/01/2008 09:53 PM
oh that's a great idea--i'll have to photograph the photograph but i'll do it soon!
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Rozanne
06/01/2008 09:33 PM
Rose do you happen to have a picture that appeared in the People magazine? I would love to see it.
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Kate
06/01/2008 10:54 AM
That should be RHS - not LHS ;-)
Sorry - forgot to add that I'd probably change the archives and possibly categories too into pink sections, and put them on the RHS to balance the sidebars + its where you'd usually expect to find these sections on a blog.
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Kate
06/01/2008 10:50 AM
Looking at your blog Rose, I think I'd be inclined to group all of the deeper red sections on the left sidebar and the pink ones on the right - it would be less broken up this way. So ... with 'rose's books' and 'forums' on the LHS ... for the books, I'd then give the title first, then the image, then 'Available through' with Amazon.com image underneath ... and underneath this, 'Amazon Canada' etc. This would save repeating 'Buy from' so many times and would look a bit neater ... Does that make any sense?
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Matthew
06/01/2008 10:12 AM
Great stories Rose and Bill, and I never knew that Alexandra is your editor's daughter! I have certainly seen a lot of her lately on FN.
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Rose
06/01/2008 09:25 AM
i try not to be. (just kidding). funny story. here's one in return: when the cake bible came out people magazine did a feature and wanted me to appear with wings and a halo. my husband advised against it saying that it would be a mockery of my serious work. but i told him that i may never again be offered wings let alone a halo (by the way, when studying greek mythology i always wanted to psyche of cupid and psyche--strange how we get our wishes in ways never anticipated!) so that's how i appeared in the magazine--popping out of a cake no less! my editor's daughter Alexandra Guarnaschelli (now the reknowned chef of Butter) was in the library at columbia u taking a break and reading people. when she unexpectedly came to that photo, forgetting where she was and that only whispering was allowed, she screamed out loud! same thing happend with one of my oldest friends iris updegraf who experienced it on a flight (how appropriate)! i'll be making her daughter's wedding cake (which will be featured in the upcoming book) this coming march in AZ.
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Bill
06/01/2008 09:10 AM
Rose...
Mistakes happen all the time in this sort of thing...no matter how many times you go over it with a fine tooth comb. Years ago, when I worked in the theater, I was in an out of town production of the Sound of Music...the programs came back from the printer as follows:
The Starlight Playhouse Proudly Resents
The Sound of Music
Resents?
We love your books, and we know you do everything in your power to be sure that they are accurate. I think that there always will be little things that slip by...after all, we are only human.
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Rose
06/01/2008 08:12 AM
the way amazon showed and described it, the hyperlink just shows the photo of the book and when the cursor goes onto it it turns blue and you can click and see all the info in the next frame. hector you seem to imply that hyperlink is something else. kate i guess it must be java scrip but don't know for sure. so in short, can we leave it as is?
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Kate
06/01/2008 05:35 AM
I'm assuming the hover-thingy would use javascript ...? In which case, don't do it! I browse with javascript disabled, so I'd never know about the links.
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Hector
06/01/2008 05:13 AM
No to the non-hoverers, no to making the pics look like hyperlinks. It is old style, now everyone is so used to clicking everywhere, specially if it looks yummy!
Yes, my recipes get longer each time I make them.
Just had a wonderful b-lated b-day party, my friend Emily brought cake, and blew me away. Tonight was the first time my baking crown was second to best. Will post later.
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Zach Townsend
05/31/2008 02:50 PM
Just a further response to the posting about perfecting recipes....after reading your posting and continuing in the kitchen with a baking project, I thought about how often I constantly change my own recipes, too. In fact, everytime I make one of my cakes I've made countless times, I have to reprint the recipe because I've made changes from the last time. I often ask myself when will I ever get to the point where I won't have at least one small change to make after making something and therefor don't need to reprint it - it seems it's not a possibility. There is always a change to make, however slight, that seems to improve the approach or something about the recipe. But in prior versions when these small changes didn't exist, the cake still came out great. I think I might have 2-3 recipes that are settled where I've not made changes in a long time, but these are usually the simplest recipes I have.
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Zach Townsend
05/31/2008 02:44 PM
You might try just a small statement at the top that says something like "hover your cursor over the book cover to see links where you can purchase" (or similar wording).
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Rose
05/31/2008 02:06 PM
we try!
melting pot will be added as well. trying to decide if we should do a hyper link so that all that appears is the book cover and then when you hover over it with the cursor you see the different links. amazon suggested that but my fear is that some people (the non-hoverers! won't realize there are links!
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Zach Townsend
05/31/2008 01:50 PM
p.s...I'm loving the new book list addition now that I can see it all together.
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Zach Townsend
05/31/2008 01:49 PM
Rose,
Good reminder about not sweating the small stuff, especially in an area where the small stuff 99.9% of the time makes a big difference. But thanks to your meticulous, unprecented testing, it's as close to perfection as anyone could possibly get.
Zach
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