Recipe for a Christmas cookbook

By Muna Reyal, Delia's editor at Ebury Publishing

As we near publication and I have time to reflect over the last few months, I thought it might be interesting to tell you what we have been up to. Like Christmas, the production of a book is all about the planning. First we need 150 recipes. Then we commission a photographer. Finally add a designer.  

Of course it’s not that simple, but this is where we start – putting the team together. Delia knew exactly who she wanted to work with so my first step was to contact everybody and ensure they were all available during the key dates – photography, layout stage and proof checking. We cleared two weeks in everybody’s schedule for the photography (no easy task as the team was based across three different continents) and this gave me a firm date to work to – so that I could work out the production schedule. It’s best to work backwards from the publication date, but when I did this, I realised that we should have begun work a month ago. Oh well, Production will just have to print the book quicker! One other question arose – props for the shoot. Our shoot was just after Christmas so the props stylist had to hunt high and low for these unseasonal items. He did a great job and we recreated Christmas in May for the book.

Christmas means turkey
The next key stage is the heart of the book – the recipes. We used a number of recipes from Delia’s original Christmas book – classics such as Roast Turkey, Traditional Christmas Pudding and Christmas Cake. Delia also wrote many new recipes – Chestnut Cupcakes, for example. These little cakes have become so popular that it seemed entirely appropriate to have a festive version. The Last-Minute Christmas chapter was also a very modern addition, and how useful it will be. We also needed to ensure that all the older recipes were updated where necessary – for example, with the advent of vac-packed or frozen chestnuts, we no longer need to laboriously cook and peel them. A little less butter here and there, a few recipes re-tested and all the suppliers contacted to ensure that we have all the correct contact addresses and delivery dates.

The last few weeks
As we approach the publication date, it’s time to negotiate the huge internal and external interest in this book. Our sales, marketing and publicity departments need jacket proofs, recipe lists, sample pages. Today we finalise the jacket finishes and bindings with the designer and our production department. We mock up a bookshelf, inserting our book jacket into a photograph of a shop display of best-selling hardbacks to see how ours compares. Stunning – its simple elegance really makes it stand out against the usual autumn list of celebrity biographies and chef cookbooks. We’re all really excited.

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