Little Cooks Press: Ann Osequera, Lauren Fleites, Marisa Carlucci, Natalie Castillo
Our project, “Sammie’s Sandwiches: A Book Proposal”, is a carefully planned book proposal created by four students in Dr. Shaik’s Introduction to Publishing course. With our knowledge of how the book publishing industry works, we created a book idea that would fit within a niche market of young children and their parents. After determining who our audience would be, we also assessed how the book would influence the culture by using several other books as models. From there, we created a marketing plan. Other aspects of the book plan include a press release and a cover. The dimensions of our book, and the fonts, ink colors, and paper type were taken into consideration when we referred to several publishing houses in order to determine the price of our book. Changes were made accordingly if we thought that a certain feature of the book caused it to be too pricey, as we did not want it to be too pricey for our audience. Overall, we focused on every aspect of publishing the book except for actually writing it. 1. The title of the book is Sammie’s Sandwiches: A Cookbook for Kids! 2. This is a sandwich cookbook for children ages six and up that is designed to teach them simple recipes with minimal parental involvement. 3. This cookbook aims to teach children how to create unique sandwiches with simple, fun recipes. In addition to detailed illustrations, there is the young boy mascot, Sammie, who provides tips on how to use certain kitchen tools and tells them when they will need a parent to help them out. But with little parental guidance required, children have room to learn how to make food for themselves, and have a good time as they do it. 4. In terms of the book’s contribution to the culture, it seeks to inspire children to get involved in the kitchen, give parents the opportunity to spend time with them, and help parents in teaching their kids valuable lessons along the way. Because of the integration of the mascot character, Sammie, children will be more likely to become engaged in the book. Even though Sammie’s Sandwiches is not a storybook, the fictional character and the illustrations will make the cookbook more relatable to the types of books that children are used to. Also, in terms of contributing to the culture, this book will instruct children on both identifying and making healthy food. In a world that has become more and more fastpaced, and where more people would rather spend money on fast food instead of preparing home made meals for their kids, this book will encourage children to embrace healthier eating habits for their own sake.
5. Three existing models that offer the same cultural contributions as Sammie’s Sandwiches are Barbie’s EasyAsPie Cookbook by Cynthia Lawrence, Kids’ Fun and Healthy Cookbook by Nicola Graimes, and Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up by Mollie Katzen and Ann L. Henderson. While Lawrence’s book provides people with a familiar character, the Barbie doll, as a helper throughout the cookbook, our book has a fictional character that is the age of child, making our model more relatable to the children who will be following the recipes in the cookbook. Graimes’ book teaches children how to make food using healthy recipes, which is what we plan for our book as well. Finally, Katzen and Henderson’s book aims to teach very young children how to create simple recipes with the help of their parents. While all of these books either have a fictional character, recipes aimed to teach children good health, or recipes that aim to bring parents and children together, Sammie’s Sandwiches combines all three concepts. 6. Natalie Castillo will be creating the cover (http://nataliecastillomedia.tumblr.com/graphicdesign). On the cover will be Sammie, the mascot of the book, drawn in a cartoonish style. Showing him as far down as his torso, he will be holding a comically long sandwich with all sorts of meats, cheeses, condiments, and vegetables, divided into semieven sections by a slice of bread. Above him will be the book’s title, in large orange lettering, and the subtitle just below Sammie, in smaller yellow letters. In the background is a pantry with jars and cans of assorted ingredients, and a nondescript kitchen counter against a tiled wall. The image is faded out at the edges, giving a detailfree area for the title, subtitle, and author names in black lettering near the right hand corner. 7. The ISBN will be acquired from Bowker’s website, www.isbn.org; the Bookland EAN will be acquired from Bar Code Graphics, Inc. (www.barcodeus.com), and the PCN will be gotten from the Library of Congress LLCN site (http://pcn.loc.gov/pcn005.html). 8. The trim size is 8.5 x 8.5 inches; the book will have 56 pages, will have a hard cover, and will be case bound. 9. For the text and for the graphics, there will be four colors. 10. Our printer, Books Just Books (http://www.booksjustbooks.com/), will be providing the materials for this book. 11. The paper stock to be used is 100pound white glosscoated paper. 12. The cover will have a gloss finish. 13. It will be shrinkwrapped in bundles of four. 14. The cost of printing 5,000 books is $10,388.89 ($2.08 per book); the cover price for the book will be $12.50. The cost of shipping one copy is unknown, as shipping is not factored in the quote and while there is an option to calculate freight, you would have to join the site. (Also, the information required to do the calculations is too complicated, as things like a storage facility must be decided beforehand.)
15. We will be doing a long run of 5,000 books; it’s a good inbetween number that is not too small and is not too large a run. 16. The point size will be 16 for titles and 14 for subtitles and body text as the book is specifically targeted at kids, and children’s books typically have a larger point size. The text typeface will be Dante; this font will be used because it is simple, formal, and legible.
17. The first book that was used as a model was Crazy About Cupcakes by Krystina Castella. When we were deciding on the trim size for the book, we looked at the dimensions of this book and decided to go with a square shape. Another book that can be used as a model is The Nancy Drew Cookbook: Clues to Good Cooking by Carolyn Keene. This book serves as a good model for our book because it contains a character, Nancy Drew, that young children can relate to. This author’s marketing plan to include a character is very similar to ours. A final book that can be used as a model is Best Ever Cookies, published by Gooseberry Patch. The detailed illustrations on the cover are eyecatching, and it is especially inspirational for a book that we hope to market to young children and their parents. 18. We will be using a wholesaler to distribute our books, which will cost $5.72 per book. 19. See press release and association letter below. 20. Our audience consists of working married couples (ages 25 and up), stay at home fathers or mothers, or employed singles parents with children, of middle to upper class status with a yearly income that ranges from $35K$75K and up located in suburban areas and urban areas that are developing and growing quickly. An example of where our target market is located is in New York. The average income
in the state of New York is $57, 683 (U.S. Census). 35%53% of the nearly 20 million residents of New York own their own home, or own a home with a loan or mortgage. Two important characteristics of our target market is that they have a substantial kitchen and can afford to purchase many ingredients that will be necessary to cook up our recipes. More than 50% of male civilians in New York are employed and less than 50% of female civilians in New York are employed, so these people would also be potential customers. 21. Every promotional plan needs to be fueled by a message that needs to get across to the audience in order to be successful. Our message is that children are capable of being independent while having fun and being healthy. We will go on a book tour if we can get on daytime television. The tours will start off in our local area (NJ/NY/PA/CT) and will branch off as the book gains more of a fanbase. During each tour, we will show our audience the everyday and basic ingredients used throughout the book, we will make some of our gourmet sandwiches with the help of our audience, and have a Q&A segment. On top of that we would like to take the educational route and make appearances at school libraries and bookstores, sponsor a parents’ night, and organize school assemblies where students can participate in our workshops. Because we are selling a cookbook, it is better for our audience to actually see how easy it is to complete our recipes rather than booking radio interviews or book signings where we cannot fully interact with the audience; thus, we will have forums, a shopping section, and games on our website. We will develop an animated TV show starring the book’s mascot, Sammie, and develop a toy line based on the show. We will use directmail surveys, place advertisements in magazines (Bon Appetit, Self, Parenting, Health) and newspapers (NY Times, WSJ), and have giveaways as a means to reach out to parents. There will be an online cooking channel for parents that will be updated daily, Q&A videos on recipes and new books, and kitchen utensil video reviews. To help us accomplish the educational aspect of our promotional plan, we can potentially partner with or be endorsed by Michelle Obama’s health and organic food campaign which is known worldwide. 22. We wish to contact Bergers Book Reviews, Booklist, Kid Lit. Review, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Reader Views, The Reading Tub, SCBWL Publications, Young Adult Books Central, The Guardian.com, NY Times, The Indie View, The Horn Book, and Kids Read. We chose these reviewers because not only are they popular book reviewers with daily visitors to their web pages, but they all have specific sections for children’s books. A majority of our target audience are also readers of the NY Times, The Guardian, and Publishers Weekly. 23. We will spend a total of $4,284.21 on 500 review copies (about $8.67 per book) from our printer. 24. We have identified our customers in the following channels: the NY Times (the Sunday paper), PBS, Sesame Street, Disney, Nickelodeon (a majority of these networks advocate healthy eating and fun activities for the young children that we are targeting), Bon Appetit (a Conde Nast magazine that could publish an article or place an ad to reach out to parents), Self (a health and fitness magazine). A majority of our customers may watch The Today Show, Good Morning America, or other daytime shows with hosts like Ellen DeGeneres or Kathy Couric; we can also identify potential customers via social media, especially Facebook. Additionally, we can partner up with Michelle Obama’s health and organic food campaign, The New Yorker (which publishes children’s book reviews), and even with The Food Network
to bring in new buyers. 25. Our website must be very informative and very interactive for the parents who will purchase Sammie’s Sandwiches, and also for their children who will read it. There will be several tabs at the head of the homepage consisting of: a general information page on our publishing company and our books; access to our app; a page for recipes with video instructions (i.e., holiday and weekly recipes); an arts and crafts section for decorating the kitchen table, and activities like baking or holiday decorating with the kids; a kitchen equipment review section; a section for local healthy restaurants for parents and their children; a page where parents & children can create their own menus; a monthly newsletter where all of the information listed prior can be mailed to customers who are not as internet savvy. The website will have a separate link solely for children (littlecooks.com/kids) where children will be able to play cooking games with Sammie, the book’s mascot. They will also be able to create their own recipes, menus, printout activities, and coloring book pages. On the main website, there will be a parent forum section where parents can discuss food allergies or how they put their own spin on certain recipes. There will be a shop section where items like aprons, chef hats, and children sized cooking utensils can be purchased. Perks like the newsletter, monthly freebies, and cooking workshops will be available to subscribed customers. We will also have a Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, and Tumblr pages to connect with our audience.
Little Cook’s Press Publishes Their First Book: Sammie’s Sandwiches JERSEY CITY, NJ [March 7, 2014] –Today Little Cook’s Press, a new small press, announces their first forthcoming publication of the children’s book Sammie’s Sandwiches. This book was acquired by Little Cook’s Press publishing director Lauren Fleites, and written as a collaborative work among two authors, Marisa Carlucci and Natalie Castillo. Sammie’s Sandwiches is a cookbook for children age six and older that provides fun and simple recipes that can be executed with minimal parental involvement. Children that read this book will follow Sammie, a young boy who provides meal preparation tips, advises children on when they will need their parents’ help, and offers safe alternatives if the children opt to do it themselves. Colorful icons appear throughout the book, designed to help children identify what food groups each ingredient they will be using belongs to and to help them understand the nutritional value associated with eating a variety of foods. This book aims to educate children on good nutrition while encouraging them to make meals for themselves, ultimately instilling in them a sense of independence. Children will familiarize themselves with the kitchen and basic kitchen utensils, exercise fine motor skills, and broaden their vocabulary after reading Sammie’s Sandwiches. Sammie’s Sandwiches will be available for purchase on the Little Cook’s Press website on March 14, 2014, and at Barnes and Noble stores nationwide on March 21, 2014. The first hundred purchases made through the website will include a Little Cook’s starter kit, courtesy of Little Cook’s Press. Contact: AnnMarie Oseguera, Public Relations annoseguera@littlecookspress.com 2013647929
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March 7 , 2014 Dear Rachael Ray’s YumO, It is with much excitement that we write this letter to announce the publication of Sammie’s Sandwiches, a book for children ages six and older designed to get today’s youth excited about nutrition. Sammie’s Sandwiches was written with the purpose of aiding children in preparing healthy, fun meals for themselves while learning about the importance of having a healthy diet. This book is a motivational, kidfriendly way to help children gain independence and knowledge regarding food. Sammie’s Sandwiches is equipped with recipes of a variety of healthy sandwiches, most of which children can prepare on their own. When parental supervision is necessary, it is clearly indicated. Children also have the option to finish preparing the meal themselves in a safe and fun alternative way, if their parents are not available. In addition, the pages of this book include colorful icons throughout to represent the different kinds of food groups that the children will consume after their sandwiches are prepared and ready to eat. Please find a copy of Sammie’s Sandwiches enclosed within this package. Do not hesitate to contact Little Cook’s Press should you have any questions regarding Sammie’s Sandwiches. We hope that you see the potential to change the lives of today’s youth, as we do, in this book. Best, Little Cook’s Press