This is a story about how an intrepid Greek-American mom in
Alaska tackled economic problems caused by a family health crisis that forced
her to quit her job. She did it by
pouring her family recipes and her memories of her mother and grandmothers into
a cookbook that she self-published on the internet as an eBook. Within less than a month, she had an internet
best-seller.
This is also a story about how the internet has made it
possible for us to reach out to people around the world to find support,
friendship and a marketplace for things that we create with our own hands and
talents, no matter how physically isolated we may be.
The first I heard of Demetra Nerantzini was an e-mail from
her on Jan. 9 saying that she would like permission to use a photograph of mine
– a view of Santorini that
appeared on my blog in 2010-- for the cover of a Greek cookbook she was
writing. She told me what impacted her final decision to publish the book: The last few years had brought an
overwhelming sequence of health emergencies affecting her children and her
husband, all of whom had surgeries requiring a great deal of home care while
recuperating. During that time
Demetra had no option other than to leave her job.
It was her daughter Marina who pointed out that this would
be an ideal time for Demetra to
consolidate all the family recipes into one place. People were always asking for the Greek recipes she had
learned from watching her mother and two grandmothers—recipes that were stored
in her mind and on scraps of paper tucked into cookbooks. And once the recipes were gathered into
a manuscript, along with the
cherished memories of the women who created them, then Demetra could
self-publish an on-line cookbook that would be available not just to family and
friends, but to the whole world.
Marina begged her mother to make the book her single New Year’s
resolution for 2012 and kept insisting until Demetra agreed.
In her introductory letter to me, Demetra said, “This book will be my most requested family
recipes. I don’t know if it will
sell 5 copies or 5,000. I’m not an author and I’ve never published anything
before, so my apologies for being very green about this.” She offered to
pay for the use of my photo, but I told her she was welcome to use it; I was delighted that she liked it so
much.
It turns out that Demetra was not green at all about
internet publishing. In her second
letter to me she wrote “It appears that
Smashwords is really the only aggregator that can help me get this first book
out into iBooks and Kindle without a lot of up-front charges. My deadline is to
have this book submitted to Smashwords on/before January 25th since
my New Year’s Resolution …is to have this in the eBook stores by February 1st.”
Demetra kept me posted on the ups and downs of finishing the
book by her self-set deadline. “It’s amazing how hard sticking to a
schedule can be at times, having lost my Mother and Grandmothers not too too
long ago. (Lost all three between March 2001-Halloween 2006). Some
recipes/stories I can sit and smile through typing, while others feel like
they’re ripping my heart out…Sometimes I can’t see the screen through tears and
need to step away.…Even if this book only sells 10 copies it’s done me a wonder
of a soul cleansing”
She finished it by her deadline of Jan. 25, and the next day wrote me: “A Google search for “Demetra’s Kitchen”
already brings up the Smashwords page….
Before the book can be submitted to iTunes,/iBooks/Sony/Kobo, I have to
wait until Smashwords does a visual review and then they will assign it to
their premium catalog. At that point I can obtain an ISBN through them where I
am noted as the publisher.“
Despite getting the book done on time, Demetra was soon
disillusioned with Smashwords, “It is driving me absolutely batty every
time I see their screen about the ISBN number. It should say, “Click here to
give up your publishing rights…or wait an eternity for us to get to your book
so you can keep them!”
By Feb. 3, she was more optimistic: “Everything
is good now. The book has been distributed to Apple and all the other vendors,
so I ‘m just sitting on pins and needles waiting for them to update their
sites!... It, for sure, is going to be on all the Apple stores (available both
in iTunes and iBooks), Barnes & Noble’s e-site, Sony, Kobo, Nook, and then
somewhere along the line Amazon too. .. If you happen to be on Facebook, I have
made a page for the book itself www.facebook.com/DemetrasKitchen. There’s already 55
“Likes” on it, and according to the exposure statistics…it’s been viewed and
translated for countries from Greece to UAE, to Germany, Switzerland and
numerous others.”
On Feb. 11 Demetra gave me the high points of the previous week:
On Monday she learned from the Facebook Reach Insight Report that people
from 21 countries have been
“poking around the Facebook page for the book.”
Tuesday she found out that a chef in Mombasa, Kenya wants to
feature a couple of her recipes on his weekly show.
“Thurs—we finally
appeared on iTunes/iBooks! (note no sign of it still on Sony, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Diesel or Kindle as
of today.)”
“Friday—some one at
Apple read the book and made it one of 20 categorized as “New and Noteworthy”.
On Saturday she went to the Smashwords home page, clicked on
“Cooking” and then clicked on “Best Sellers” and found that “It’s Smashwords #1 cookbook. This is
amazing. I’m honestly floored at
all the attention this is getting.
I’ve said more thank-you prayers in this last week than I think I have
in the last few months…I’m a housewife in Alaska – I must be dreaming.”
By Monday, Feb. 13—“We’ve
hit more milestones today. We made
the front page of iTunes cookbooks page and also, when you click through the
recent releases (which are default sorted by sales, not release date) I AM #7
AND MARTHA STEWART’S COOKBOOK FROM DECEMBER IS #8!!! HOLY COW!!!
This is all just so humbling.
It’s very surreal seeing this little thing that I consider my heart on paper
being rated well enough to be sold on the same pages as the likes of Martha
Stewart, Julia Child and Mario Batali….
“How very humbling
this year has been ever since Marina decided this was my New Year’s Resolution. Thanking God every step of the way for
what a miracle this is turning into for our family.”
Feb. 18—“This is just
amazing. God’s hand truly is in all this…For days now, when you go to the iTunes
cookbooks page there sits the book cover (with your beautiful picture on the
cover) interspersed with the likes of Martha Stewart, Mario Batali and Julia Child…God’s
hands combined with the power of the Internet.”
Feb. 20—“Your
beautiful cover now graces the first spot on the iTunes main cookbooks page and
the first spot on the iTunes Regional & Ethnic Cookbooks page. I couldn’t sleep tonight and thought
I’d see where the book was and now I’m just sitting here in a dark and quiet
house shaking (also wishing I could wake everyone…except it’s 3:02 a.m. in
Alaska.)”
Clearly it’s too soon to write the ending to Demetra’s story
of how she used the internet, her family’s recipes and her computer and cooking
knowhow to help her family get over a rocky patch in the road. But whatever the ultimate
monetary rewards of “Demetra’s Kitchen”, its success so far has her looking for
a hardback publisher. And she’s
now working hard on “Demetra’s Kitchen Volume 2”.
“I’m going to have to
set myself a short deadline for Volume 2 and just bury myself in it” she
wrote me. “ Heck, my birthday is April 27th –why don’t we
make that the official “upload to Smashwords” date. I wrote the first one straight from my heart and out through
my fingers (in a hurry). Might as
well try that again, right?”
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