Guest blog with Jane Doiron

Today, Jane Doiron, author of Make-ahead Meals for Busy Moms, shares her thoughts on the process of getting her book published.

I have always had an interest in food, recipes, and cooking since I was a young girl. I started buying cooking magazines when I was a teenager. I still remember getting my first cookbook from my aunt and uncle before I was married. I loved trying new recipes back then and still do today! Over the years, I thought about writing my own cookbook, but heard so many stories about people being turned down by publishers unless they were a celebrity. In January of 2008, I did a little research on-line and soon discovered "self-publishing." I signed up with a self-publishing company on-line and started writing my manuscript. It took 15 months to write it as I had a full-time teaching job. Testing out recipes was the easy part. Once I submitted my manuscript in April of 2009, that's when things got to be stressful. When you self-publish, you are responsible to catch any typos, grammatical errors, font issues, format problems, etc. Consequently, it took about 15 rounds of editing the book and over 5 months to get published.

I was very fortunate to have my brother, Roger Rivard, take the photos of my food for the book cover. A book designer at the publishing company designed the book cover using Roger's photographs.

Now that my cookbook is published, I'm meeting so many wonderful people on the internet that are reviewing my cookbook, and I enjoy hearing from people who have tried my recipes. I really hope moms and dads find my cookbook useful. I know my dinner time is more relaxing since I started fixing "make-ahead meals." I have just started testing recipes for a second "make-ahead" cookbook. I hope to have it done in another year or so. Sign up for my newsletter at makeaheadmealsforbusymoms.com and you'll receive a new "make-ahead" recipe each month!

Jane Doiron