Publishing A Cookery Photo Book With Jane Dixon-Smith

Do you want to publish an image-heavy book like a cookbook? How can you navigate the challenges of photography, book design, and publishing choices to make the best product possible? Jane Dixon-Smith shares her lessons learned from her first cookbook.

In the intro, Brandon Sanderson's predictions about publishing [Daniel Greene]; Craig Mod talks about walking and beautiful books [Long Form, Things Become Other Things]; Writing the Shadow [CreativePennBooks; Other stores].

Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at draft2digital.com/penn

Jane Dixon-Smith is a historical fiction author, an award-winning book cover designer, graphic designer, and adventurer. Her latest book is The Great Adventure Baker.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

* How adventure can keep your creative side alive

* Making a cookbook personal and unique

* Editing and testing the recipes

* Tips for producing the best photos without professional equipment

* Choosing the images for a photo-dominant book

* Choices in design and publishing

* Working with designers to incorporate AI into your designs

You can find Jane at JDSmith-design.co.uk.

Transcript of Interview with Jane Dixon-Smith

Joanna: Jane Dixon-Smith is a historical fiction author, an award-winning book cover designer, graphic designer, and adventurer. Her latest book is The Great Adventure Baker. Jane also designs my book covers and print interiors, so I am a huge fan of her work. So welcome back to the show, Jane.

Jane: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Joanna: It's gonna be exciting to talk about this because so many people want to do cookbooks, but there are many challenges. Before we get into that—

Tell us a bit more about your adventuring side of your life and why you decided to do a baking book at this point in your creative career.

Jane: Well, I got into adventuring properly, probably about five years ago.