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Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

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Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#71

Post by dragonwriter »

logfromblammo wrote: post #70
dragonwriter wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why do you trust Alton Brown? Because I've found the information from his shows has been useful in improving the output of my own cooking. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bought any of his cookbooks. > If you don't know anything about cooking, you have to trust someone to tell you what to do. Cookbooks are generally not written for, or primarily marketed to, people who don't know anything about cooking. > So you nee…

You're confusing objective vs. subjective with quantitative vs. qualitative. A blinded taste test is an objective, qualitative measurement. If A > B, and the only difference between A and B is a single isolated variable, you're taking most of the subjectivity out. The same person is doing the tasting. You don't need to define a tastiness unit and quantitatively measure each dish with it, because all you need to answe…

> You're confusing objective vs. subjective with quantitative vs. qualitative.

No, I'm not.

Subjective (adj.): based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions

> A blinded taste test is an objective, qualitative measurement

No, the kind of blinded, ranked preference test you described is a subjective, quantitative measurement (the measure is ordinal rather than interval or ratio, but an ordinal measure is still quantitative if less powerful than other classes of quantitative measures.)

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#72

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #67
logfromblammo wrote: post #59

I'm actually surprised that printed cookbooks are still economically viable using any kind of publishing model. They remind me of those books from the 1980s filled with printed copies of the source code for computer programs. You would input the text from the book using your keyboard, and compile/interpret the program. That was how many programs were distributed, because a printed book on a truck had higher bandwidth…

> Does anyone here still bother buying cookbooks? Yes. > Would it not be more useful to simply learn how to cook without referring to recipes? They aren't mutually exclusive ideas; if you have a basic understanding of cooking, recipes are great points of departure. > Who needs that level of restaurant-style uniformity and consistency in their own kitchen? Consistency is not the only reason to buy a cookbook.

Yeah, I buy cookbooks as sources of inspiration.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#73

Post by ryanwaggoner »

grepthisab wrote: post #14
qznc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy [0] thinks mainstream publishers exists mostly for the prestige. [0] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/crossing-the...

Hard to take this guy seriously. He used to post pretty vile stuff online on a racist message board and had an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to his sockpuppeting.

He was fairly active here until being banned a couple years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=michaelochurch

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#74

Post by logfromblammo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #71
logfromblammo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing objective vs. subjective with quantitative vs. qualitative. A blinded taste test is an objective, qualitative measurement. If A > B, and the only difference between A and B is a single isolated variable, you're taking most of the subjectivity out. The same person is doing the tasting. You don't need to define a tastiness unit and quantitatively measure each dish with it, because all you need to answe…

> You're confusing objective vs. subjective with quantitative vs. qualitative. No, I'm not. Subjective (adj.): based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions > A blinded taste test is an objective, qualitative measurement No, the kind of blinded, ranked preference test you described is a subjective , quantitative measurement (the measure is ordinal rather than interval or ratio, but an ordinal measu…

Quantitative measures require units of measurement.

When the same taster is judging two dishes at the same time, the emotional state is the same, the taste buds are the same, the mental state is the same. The effect is the same as if you had a tasting robot programmed to output a number when you drop food into its sampling port. Most of the subjectivity is removed. But different people/tastebots have different calibration settings, so you can't compare results between tasters, or even between different times for the same taster. It's only objective if you taste steps to remove the subjectivity: blindfolds on, equal-sized portions, neutral-flavor palate-cleanser between tastes, quiet room, etc.; but if you are careful, you can then have reasonable confidence that if A > B in that subjective state, it is likely that A > B in most other subjective states, too. (Any state that caused B > A would then be considered "interesting".)

A subjective, qualitative measurement would be something like Scoville heat units. Each taster has a different sensitivity to piquant chemicals, and different rates of sensory adaptation, so multiple judges are used, and results are imprecise.

An ordinal ranking is not quantitative. You can't tell the following apart:

  qualitative ordinal ranking
  A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H
  
  ||
  ----A---B--C-------D-EF---G------H------
  ------AB----C----D----E----F-----G--H---
  A------------------------------BCD--EFGH
  -------------A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H------------

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#75

Post by unclewaltr »

nickkokonas wrote: post #25
nkurz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great to see you here. I do have a few questions: Baseline: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award imaginable, cost $3.83 per book to print, shrink wrap, and ship to the US. First book: All told, the cost per unit was around $10.80 laden for the first edition run of 30,000 books. Second book: Initial estimates for a print run of 15,000 and 30,000 are…

In order: 1) the different factors are: number of photos, quality of paper, quality of inks used (bigger difference than you'd imagine), 6 color offset printing, full bleed on every page, veneer on every photo, quality of binding. If you look at most cookbooks there is a LOT of writing and pages that contain no images. That's intentional. 2) I think 10 Speed did OK on our book since we sold so many. If you do the mat…

I think the crux of your argument is that you don't feel the employees in the publishing industry should be paid for their time and experience. In your article, you described being very upset when getting critical feedback from them about your manuscript. Even though it was coming from a very experienced source. It sounds like you just didn't want to work with experts on the project. But in the comment above, you went further and said 10 Speed took "virtually no risk" beyond their time. You realize that people get paid, I'm sure. Owning a restaurant, I'm sure you're aware the overhead is more than just the raw materials of the food. And that if you give the same raw materials to a random chef at a random location, you will have varying degrees of success.

It sounds like you're going in completely ignorant to an industry and, because you're very talented in another area, take a simplistic approach and assume anyone benefiting from your (most likely) amazing documentation of your culinary skills is taking money from the only one producing something here. I know it's not your intention, and I think it's more and more common these days.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#76

Post by pjmorris »

barking wrote: post #54
pjmorris wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go OT with you. Is there any attribute of 'the best cookbook' that you can remember that'd help us figure out which one it was/is - example recipes, cooking style, memories of the food made from it, or the book itself? Is the book still in the family? I once had a copy of the Alinea cookbook, it's a wonderful object. For mere mortals like me, 'The Way To Cook', by Julia Child is the cookbook I refer to most ofte…

All I can remember is that it was hardback with a plain red cover (if there had been a dust jacket, it was long gone) and she'd have used it in home economics class in 1950s Ireland. It was mainly what I'd call wholesome simple British/Irish food, beef steak and kidney pie and the like but the sweets and cakes are what I most fondly remember, queen of pudding, bread and butter pudding, eve's pudding, dundee cake, sho…

Hmm. Thanks for the description. I'll see what I can dig up.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#77

Post by gcb0 »

peterarmstrong wrote: post #21
gcb0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

leanpub is a cheap markdown printing. you don't get even bibliographic helpers. let alone full color bled pages. always saw it as printed github wiki pages (which seems to also describe most of their content) ...or am I wrong?

[Leanpub co-founder here.] We use Markdown for authoring (one of two dialects: either Leanpub Flavoured Markdown or Markua). We automatically produce PDF, EPUB, MOBI (what you were saying, essentially), but we also produce InDesign export. If you have a designer, give him/her the InDesign files. You can then produce exactly what you want as a finished product for print, with as much design as you want. But while the…

Interesting. You should make that more obvious on the site.

I got the impression it was 100% opaque from web ui -> paying for printed books.

Do you offer paper size/weight options? And what are the prices if I already have the book proofed and am just looking for a press?

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#78

Post by gcb0 »

accordionclown wrote: post #65
gcb0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

leanpub is a cheap markdown printing. you don't get even bibliographic helpers. let alone full color bled pages. always saw it as printed github wiki pages (which seems to also describe most of their content) ...or am I wrong?

your opinion is your opinion, and i wouldn't call it "wrong". but my opinion is quite different. i've been active in the e-book sphere for a long time, and i've studied e-book authoring quite extensively, even programming some systems myself, and i think leanpub is quite good. i liked it better when you didn't have to make a lump-sum payment in advance, but even now, i think it's one of the best systems around, espec…

you repeated what i said. it is perfect if what you want is to print github help pages as far as style is concerned. You just confirmed that this is what you want. The article we are commenting on is about artsy full color photos coffee table book, after all.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#79

Post by peterarmstrong »

gcb0 wrote: post #77
peterarmstrong wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Leanpub co-founder here.] We use Markdown for authoring (one of two dialects: either Leanpub Flavoured Markdown or Markua). We automatically produce PDF, EPUB, MOBI (what you were saying, essentially), but we also produce InDesign export. If you have a designer, give him/her the InDesign files. You can then produce exactly what you want as a finished product for print, with as much design as you want. But while the…

Interesting. You should make that more obvious on the site. I got the impression it was 100% opaque from web ui -> paying for printed books. Do you offer paper size/weight options? And what are the prices if I already have the book proofed and am just looking for a press?

We don't produce print books. Instead, we generate a print-ready PDF or InDesign.

With the print-ready PDF, you can use it on unchanged places like Lulu or CreateSpace. (With the print-ready PDF, we alternate margins (wider in middle) and page numbers (put them on the outside), start chapters on the right, etc. We also omit the cover, so that you can use their cover wizard things.)

With InDesign, your designer will need to do some work. We produce ICML.

Leanpub is primarily an ebook production workflow + storefront. The print-book-ready file export is something we just give away, since our authors want it. We currently don't want to be in the business of producing physical books ourselves.

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