You’ve finally written a book, sent it off, and lucky you, it gets published! Job done, right? Not so fast. Now you have to promote and market your work. To that end, my publisher has asked me to contribute a recipe of any holiday food I might have written about in my next novel, THE CHRISTMAS TREE. It’s for their upcoming holiday issue of their magazine. My heroine, Sadie, bakes cookies in several scenes, so easy-peesy, right?
Just one catch. The recipe has to be original. I don’t have any original cookie recipes. I’m more of a back of the Tollhouse bag kind of gal. So, since I absolutely had to, I spent my night trying to create my own recipe for peanut butter cookies. And then I had to taste test them all. Cookie after delicious cookie. It was sweet, sweet torture.
If only all marketing tactics involved butter and sugar.
Coincidentally, my sister, author of the Pie Town cozy mystery series, also was asked to provide recipes. Just a couple of days ago I was the lucky taste-tester of one of her delicious pies. Who’d have thought that being a writer meant having to eat so many sweets?
Sometimes, life is just rough.
(PS: My spiced peanut butter drops turned out awesome. I’m usually 50/50 when it comes to my baking. 50 percent of the time I’m in gastronomical heaven. The other 50 percent, I need someone to tell me to put my beaters down and step out of the kitchen. I’m glad this was one of the happy-food-dance times.)