June 11th 2024: Breathe

When you start out creating a book everything is awesome. The project is fresh and buzzy and people are stoked to be involved. Even though I've done a few now, I still really enjoy those moments and the travel, and the collecting of amazing stories from around New Zealand.

Once that part is done there is a mountain to climb. All the stories need to be collated and written, edited, tweaked and re-tweaked. The photos need to be edited and selected so they add something to each story. It's a giant amount of work that ropes in a designer, in this case my good mate Ian Ferguson, and an editor, another talented friend, David Summers.

After months grinding out the chapters the light at the end of the tunnel appears in the form of completed page layouts back from the designer. This is the first glimpse we get at what the book will look like ... it's a pretty cool moment. The final stages of proofing eradicate any typos and glitches in the copy and gives the chapters their final seal of approval before we send the whole thing to the printer.

Only then can we breathe. Then the recovery process starts ... an adjustment period of normalising not being on a deadline. It's a bizarre cycle. But it seems to get less intense ... this is my sixth book so I guess I've learnt something along the way to manage the rollercoaster of production emotions.

There is no doubt that New Zealand's Best Gourmet Pies is my most ambitious book project yet. It is on-sale on November 1, 2024, but you can pre-order your copy right here.

See you at the beach ... Derek

PS This past week I've been working with Kahawai Productions who have been filming a piece with the Modern Māori Quartet to celebrate Matariki. They're such an amazingly talented bunch of individuals and working with the team at Kahawai again is always a lot of fun ... even with some long days with early starts way up Otago Peninsula. I'll add a few images in here to give you a taste of what's to come at the end of the month.