Well, it is time to tell my story. I am about to go nationwide with my book formerly known as "Dinner on Ice" (in January 2010) with Leatherwood Press (my publisher) and my dreams of being a published author are finally coming true. Let me share with you how I got to where I am now. If I can get published, I truly believe you can too.
7 years ago I started experimenting with freezing meals. This was just before I had my first baby and I wanted to be ready. I was working as an apartment manager while putting my husband through school at BYU and money was tight as well as time. The first freezer meal I made was chicken enchiladas and when it came time to defrost the food and serve it for dinner, it came out just horrible. The cheese sauce separated and it looked and tasted nasty. We ended up throwing it out and I felt just sick for wasting all that food. I didn't cook another freezer meal for 5 years.
5 years later I took a cooking class at Orson Gygi from an incredible Chef named Kathy and while she was teaching us she talked about how organized she was when she had teenagers at home. She had meals for the week all cooked up and in the freezer for each night of the week. (And this was a gourmet Chef, so I'm sure the meals tasted amazing.) Her children were each assigned a day of the week to get dinner on the table using the frozen food.
I didn't think anyone could be that organized, so I took it on as my personal challenge. I still dream of being that incredible mom who has a sparkling clean house with homemade baked goods on the counter and delicious food on the table for my family to enjoy together every night.
After the class, I went to the public library and found a book on how to freeze meals. The book I found taught once a month cooking. I took the book to the grocery store with me and bought everything it said I would need to make 30 meals. Then I started the prep work. Because I have small children, it took me 4-5 days just to get the prep work done. (You have to chop a lot of vegetables and cook a lot of meat to get ready to assemble 30 meals.) Also, I only had one set of pots and pans so every time I used them, I had to wash them. Finally after all the prep work, I assembled the meals and some were good, but others my family did not like (I have a family of very picky eaters.) I ended up eating a lot of the food (and then I became sick of it) that my family would not eat.
I also tried out Dream Dinners (a place that has recipes and food ready for you to assemble) and my family did not like the meal (Orange Cinnamon Chicken) I brought home. Once again, I ended up eating all the food and hating it by the end of the week. Dream Dinners was also quite pricey and I figured out it would cost double the money to use their services as it would be to make the same thing at home. I could better cater to my families tastes if I made my own freezer meals so I started experimenting with my own favorite family recipes.
Soon after I began experimenting, I started noticing I had more time to play with my family and that I spent less time cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. I also noticed an increase in savings in our food budget every month. Some months we had a few extra hundred dollars. We were also eating out less. I was excited to start using the money somewhere else (like to get my hair done or to buy some new clothes, etc..)
After I got better and better at stocking my freezer with the basics for easy meals and came up with better freezer entrees, I decided it was time to start sharing the recipes with others. I began to teach free cooking classes in my neighborhood and then got a job teaching cooking classes at a local entertainment arena called Thanksgiving Point once a month.
Teaching the basics of how to freeze fantastic meals was very popular and I often had full classes. Students started to ask for more and more recipes and one suggested that I make a cookbook.
At first I thought the idea was crazy, me write a cookbook? But after teaching for a year or two, I had quite the collection of great recipes and writing down recipes became quite easy. I contacted a few other cookbook authors that were also teaching at Thanksgiving Point and one author (Janet Eyring, Author of 101 things to make in a Slowcooker) told me she got started by publishing her own cookbooks at a local copy center and selling them for $15 a book. After she sold 3000, she took the book to a publisher and they jumped right on it. She went nationwide quickly and sold hundreds of thousands of books.I started to sell books at my cooking classes and after a year of that, my husband built me a simple website, www.freezerdinner.com, with a paypal button that anyone could purchase a book on. I started to sell a few books a week and shipped them to customers from my local post office.
This is the second rendition of the book. My first one looks pretty homemade. I 'll have to scan a copy of the front page and get it on this post.I tried using Amazon to sell my books, but they took such a huge commission out for selling each book and I had to ship books to them 10 at a time (and some were damaged in the process) it made it so it wasn't worth it. Through paypal, I started to get hits from all over the nation. During my cooking classes I would have a Deseret News photographer show up and write an article about my class, or someone from the Daily Herald would come. Having an article in the newspaper would really boost website hits and book sales. These are some pictures from my class that the Deseret news photographer took.
Also, I noticed while I was working out at the gym that there were t.v. spots for chef's on some local television shows and I thought "I can do that" so I started emailing the local t.v. stations to see if I could make a guest appearance. 
Studio 5 was the first station to let me make an appearance and the segment went really well. I started selling books via my website to small towns all over the state of Utah; towns I had never heard of before. I also started selling books to Idaho and Wyoming! It was so fun to reach a much larger audience through television. It took me a while, but I was able to win the heart of the production manager for Good Things Utah and land a t.v. spot there as well. 
When viewer ratings went way up while I was on, I was invited to return again and again. I was also able to do an appearance with Maria Carr on KJZZ "The Home Team" 
as well as a morning show in Pocatello, Idaho. I've been on 8 or 9 times now. It is finally starting to be not stressful, except I still don't know which camera to look into. It is always an adrenaline rush and I'm grateful for a 6 minute segment every few months.
After selling around 2000 copies I started to send my book to a few publishers and I landed a contract with a national publisher (Gibbs Smith in Layton, Utah)! The plan was to print 10,000 copies and they would take care of everything, the printing, selling and shipping of the book nationwide. In return they would send me a ckeck in the mail every month. Man, was I ecstatic!
Unfortunately 3 months later, when the economy took a dive, Gibbs Smith had to let my book go. I was devastated. It was just awful to have a taste of what it would be like to be published and then have it taken away.
After loosing the contract, I started to submit my book to literary agents all over the nation and not a one was interested in representing me. Most of the agents said it was just too hard to get a publisher for cookbooks. I decided to continue doing things on my own with the book until I could find a publisher by myself. I also decided to redesign the cover to possibly catch the attention of a publisher.
We (I say "we" because I used a great photographer, and a graphic artist) redesigned the cover at the beginning of this year (2009). I had Kenneth Linge take the pictures in his Orem Studio (he did a fantastic job) and Tyson Zimmerman designed the front cover for me. With the help of numerous friends, we decided to rename the book "Dinner on Ice".
I did notice an increase in sales after we redesigned the cover (especially at a local boutique (The Holy Cow boutique) and in the middle of the year, a friend of mine (Lisa Bergantz with SMAART ideas) found an LDS publisher that I hadn't heard of before. I sent a book to Leatherwood Press and a few months later I heard back from them. At long last, they were interested in publishing my book! A few months later we met and set down a timeline to get the book printed and in stores and now we are on the homestretch with getting things wrapped up.
Also, a few months ago, Gibbs Smith, publishing contacted me about a project they were working on and gave me the opportunity to author a BYU Tailgating party cookbook. I am also doing a final edit on this book and it should be out in the Fall of 2010. After I finished the BYU cookbook, they contacted me again to author a U of U cookbook. It has been a BLAST coming up with tailgate party ideas for these two schools. I can't wait to see the final result! They are both cookbooks with 30 recipes and pictures on every other page.
What I've learned from this whole experience is to not give up, because your dreams will never come true if you quit. I'm also very grateful for the opportunities that have been sent my way and for people willing to give me a chance to teach my ideas. Family dinner is very important for me to have in our home because it strengthens family relationships to eat a daily meal together. I hope some of my ideas will help you in your home. Thank you for taking some time to read through my experiences.
