Research and planning

Researching and planning was such a crucial part to this project, especially because we didn’t know much about publishing at the very beginning of our journey. In fact we didn’t know everything at every stage of the journey! There was so much learning all the time, meaning we were constantly researching and planning. To help us, the first thing we did was bought a gigantic A3 notepad. We knew that we’d have a tonne of notes and ideas, so going back to old fashioned pen and paper was the best way to start pouring out all of our ideas and creative juices. We scribbled down all kinds of notes for the cookbook, from understanding the purpose, brainstorming ideas for the name, starting to form the structure and sections, planning colour schemes and the look and feel, scoping out the photography, and starting to iron out the budget. As we progressed through the journey and developed more of the content, a lot of these details did of course change, but it was so helpful physically writing down some details on paper so that we had a starting point.

The different parts to books

A big part of the research stage involved understanding how books are made, because to be completely honest we had absolutely no idea at the start! It was pretty intriguing understanding all of the different components of a book - everything from binding style, paper quality, hard cover, soft cover, cover weight, gold blocking, ribbon bookmarks, book size, head and tail bands, gold gilding, and paper weight. Who knew there were so many different parts to a book! I spoke to lots of printing companies to understand all of these different book components, and what key things to think about. Making decisions to how we wanted each component was critical to ensure that we created our book as beautifully as we envisioned, and to create a nice experience for our readers. This investigation also opened up a whole other world of offshore printing companies as we quickly came to realise the high costs of hardcover book printing in New Zealand, especially with all of the book features we wanted. More on this printing stage here.

The skills we needed & how our team was formed

Another super important part of research and planning involved scoping out what skills we needed to pull off our project, and therefore who we needed in our team. Mum and I had to do a bit of research to understand what we could do between us, and what would be tricky for us to do. For those trickier things, we had to find the right freelancers to get on board to help us. We figured out that we definitely needed a designer, and after chatting to a few people we realised we needed a copyeditor. Later down the line we also realised we needed a proofreader. When we realised we needed these other skills to create a successful book, I began trying to find people to fill the roles. I used to work with our designer Jess in my day job so I had already seen her incredible work, so after chatting to her and hearing that she was keen to help, that was an easy fill! Finding our copyeditor Andrea and our proofreader Kate was a little trickier because the publishing industry isn’t very big in New Zealand, and everyone I got in touch with wasn’t free in the timeframes we needed. After many emails and many names being thrown around to me, I was very lucky to have found Andrea and Kate. And that’s how our amazing team was born! 

The amusing story of how our book title was born

As we started actually working on the book itself, the title was one of the first things that we wanted to get right. We felt that the name linked strongly to the story and brand, so we wanted to start getting a clear idea about this early. Finding the book title actually turned out to be the easiest part of this project! To find it, I’d planned to sit down with mum and brainstorm a bunch of different ideas on a big sheet of paper. I organised a workshop style session to find the perfect title and we were all ready to go, but before we made a start with our big brainstorm, mum quickly went to the bathroom, came back and sat down and said ‘I know what the book is going to be called - Pass It On’. And that’s that - the name was born and founded in the bathroom where all great ideas come from!! It then became a joke that whenever we didn’t know something, we should just go to the bathroom! 

Colour schemes

Another thing that we wanted to plan and research nice and early was the colour scheme. Originally we wanted to go with a dark and moody look and feel, and then one day we visited a bookstore and found a book that looked very close to what we were wanting to create. Seeing this other cookbook made our hearts break - words can’t describe how absolutely gutted we were because it looked so beautiful and the photography was exactly how I wanted to approach it. It felt like our idea was stolen from us! Looking back now, seeing that cookbook was the best thing that happened to us because it made us change our approach. We ended up going in the complete opposite direction with bright and vibrant colours that truly reflect the culture of Gujarat in India. I think this was an important lesson that we learnt - to be able to change and adapt plans as you discover new insights, and be open minded about all of the possibilities. I believe that having this mindset really opens you up to other opportunities, and as a result, you end up with a product that is even better than what you originally planned. If we were closed minded about this, we would’ve likely continued with our original idea which wouldn’t have differentiated us in the market.  When we knew we wanted bright colours, I began painting a colour scheme that we could incorporate into the visual elements of the book to begin forming our art direction - the ones below formed the backdrop board colours for the food photography.

Trips to the library

As we started to get more into the details of book making, we didn’t really know where to start so we made hundreds of trips to the library and analysed so many cookbooks. We looked at everything from what jumped out at us as being effective, to page layouts, different sections and the sizes of these, chapter names, indexes, what we didn’t like and so much more. Looking at cookbooks in detail really opened us up to realising how much we’d have to do. We also used these books to look at the fine print to understand what kind of other information we may need to sort out such as trademarking and ISBN numbers. 

Research & planning is continuous

After some research and after having a bit of a plan in place, we felt like we had a clearer path in what we needed to do as next steps. However research and planning was something that crept up at every stage of the journey, not just at the start. It came up in every little thing from finding a barcode, to finding shipping companies, to setting up a company, to learning how to take photos using a DSLR...I won’t go into all of these things, but if you’re just starting a small business or wanting to self-publish, it’s good to know that there are sooo many things to research and plan behind the scenes. Through my experience, I thought I knew what may be involved at each stage, but after digging a little deeper I realised there’s much more to it. Once you crack the code it’s totally worth it though!

Keryn Kalyan