Happy Holiday Season!

Happy Holidays everyone! I'm going to check out for a few days while I enjoy my family and friends over the extended weekend. We're gearing up for our next round here in Boyd, though, so there's going to be even Less of Me on my birthday, Feb 27!

How exciting!! Less of Me!

I need to come up with a new contest, too. Those are just fun... I'll put that in my thinking cap and see what I can come up with. :)

Have a safe and happy weekend!

PS - I'm extending the discount for our book through this weekend, just because I'm not planning to be around a computer to take it down, lol... So, if you want the print book at the same price as the ebook, now's the time! ALKBCBS8 from https://www.createspace.com/3409507

Merry Christmas!

Through Christmas Day, discount code ALKBCBS8 will give you a $5 discount on the hard copy of the book, taking it to the same price as the ebook.

Merry Christmas, everyone! We're starting Round 2 the beginning of 2010... Who's joining us?

Hard Copy of the Recipe Book READY!

WOO HOO! The publishers got the book through the whole process *much* faster than I expected it to - our hard copy of the book is ready! https://www.createspace.com/3409507 It'll be available on Amazon.com inside the next 15 days, too. HURRAY!

The hard copy book is $29.95, where the ebook is just $24.95...

Apologies, CHOPPED, What's in the works

I'm sorry for being so... non existent ...lately! Honestly, I just had no idea publishing books was so time consuming. It's definitely better to do gobs of research *before* you write a book so you've got the right image sizes, pages sizes, image dpi (dots per inch?), and the right amount of pages for the right binding so you can keep the price down.

Initially, we (Mom and I) went with lulu.com and I sized our book according to their standards. However, when I went to do on-demand-publishing, I realized the price was just going to be outlandish, so I just released it as an ebook and decided I'd keep looking for other options.

After a lot of turmoil, another author lead me to the right page on createspace.com and I discovered that I could get an ISBN number, the 13 digit other number (EAN?), and be listed on amazon.com. It's going to be 29.95 for the hard copy book.

The catch is that I need to make my book 8.25" square instead of 8.5" square. It means redoing the whole book, altering the fonts and all the pictures so they fit in the smaller space without cutting anything off.

Our good news is that we'll soon have the hard copy available. The bad news? I'm embroiled in resizing and uploading until it's done. I'll be MIA until then.

Want some more good news? We've already got about 20 new recipes for our next book! There's a few that we still need to make, so I can't say we *have* 20 until the taste tests are conducted. Kids are the best taste testers and my niece (9 years old) and my nephew (8 years old) are brutally honest about stuff being good or not. In fact, if it's not good, I get CHOPPED (just like on the TV show, Chopped). I figure if they're going to chop my recipe, I better chop it from a book and just use it as a jumping point for a better recipe.

I'm trying to come up with a good subject for the next contest, too. Maybe recipes to feed the whole family while you're in P2, P3 recipes, or perhaps a meal planner? I'm not sure just yet, but it's rolling around in my head these days! Have YOU ideas or suggestions on this topic? Please post a comment and let me know, k?

Another thing I'm trying to iron out is how to do video podcasts. I was thinking that I might use that to do a whole series on taking the P2 recipes we have already and showing everyone how to make them P3. However, I have NO CLUE how to do podcasts! Please, please, if you know how to, will you leave a comment here and point me in the right direction?

Then, I've got three more irons in the fire. One is a meal planner book, but I don't even know how to describe that one, so we'll move on... The second is an attempt to do a weekly newsletter. (That's a new one just in the last four days - so it's really in the baby stages.) The third iron in the fire is getting me into college to get a Bachelor of Science in Natural Health.

And, I have an announcement to make, too! Angie contacted us to see about putting a few of the recipes that are only in our book (not online anywhere) in her book. Angie is a yourhcg community-wide respected and knowledgeable person who regularly posts to the Facebook group. You can visit her at http://mypositivelifechanges.com, where she offers a free consultation.

At any rate, that's what's been going on. I still offer my sincere apologies for being MIA without explanation before this, though!

P2: "Off Protocol" Foods

With the release of our book, we've also been getting comments back that we're using "off protocol" foods. So. We'd like to go ahead and answer that now. We definitely don't want to get into a "purist" vs "extended menu" match, but we do need to answer concerns.

History: The original P&I book called out a limited list of foods. When Kevin Trudeau released his version of the diet, he extended the original menu. Since then, clinics and individual doctors both extended and constricted both the original menu and the one that Kevin Trudeau released.

Jayme got our list of allowed foods from one of those clinics that took from both menus and adjusted based on the results of their clients. From the results that Jayme shows, 47 pounds released, we are confident that the recipes within our book will allow our readers following Phase II of HCG to also release a considerable amount of weight.

In our combined (Christine and Jayme) opinion, results speak louder than any individual list of foods.

Hard Copy of the Recipe Book

We have had many requests for a hard copy of the book. It's so cost prohibitive that we've really struggled with releasing a copy of it. We did go ahead and put a copy up that's $40... It *might* be less expensive to use the Facebook discount (see previous posts!) and print it yourself, then have it bound someplace lik...e Kinkos. But. This is a way just to order it and be done with it. The link? Oh yah. Here you go:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/100-recipes-to-keep-you-on-phase-ii-of-hcg---hard-copy/7892238

If only we could get a publisher to just pick it up and get the cost of printing driven down to the $24.95 price range that we want it to be at! Anyone know a publisher? Editor? Agent?

Book: Sneak Peek

Book is DONE!!

Wheeeeeee! Our cookbook is finished! Well, the ebook is finished, anyway. We're still looking for someplace to have it printed at a reasonable cost. $40 for a cookbook is just too much, in our opinion. You can go get it RIGHT HERE!

Looking at CreateSpace, as suggested by Amazon, we'd have to price the printed book at $40, though, just to make a $2-3 profit on each book! Printing costs are outlandish, so we figured we'd just keep looking and release our ebook at $24.95. :)

It's beautiful and we're (Mom and I) quite proud of the final result. There's a lot more in it than on my blog right now. Of course, that probably has something to do with us still cooking P2 meals while in P3, then doubling them up and adding cheese to it. Hahahaha!

So, how are we getting it out to the public? Well... We've got it on Lulu.com, the same place as the BM audio file I uploaded there to help with "getting you moving" during Phase II, for now. We're looking for someplace better, but this will take care of the automatically getting the cookbook to you immediately! That's important, if you're already in Phase II and find that you just GOTTA have something you saw in our index.

P3, T-2 Days, Recipe Book Index

I thought I'd give a preview of the recipe names included in the book! You have to click on the picture to see the larger image, but then you get to see what's in the book... :)

I just printed out a copy of it (color and had it bound) so I could see what the final product would look like, if someone ordered a hard copy of it. It cost $30 just to print it in color! YIKES! But, it's a proof and I wanted to be able to mark on the pages and make notes so I could check them off while I'm making the changes. So, Friday is the self-imposed deadline on this project - but I've already got two more projects that have come of this one! I've had requests, several times, for menu planners. And, of course, I had more than 100 recipes this time around, so I'm planning a second cookbook.

I think I may need to add a couple more pages, so the readers of the book know where to get stuff like Zevia, Butter Buds, and that sort of stuff and I didn't put down any method to contact me, either! I better fix that. Hehehehe...

Recipe Book II

We've already got two new recipes for the next book!

P2 Peanut Chicken

P2 Fajitas

How cool is that??

I need to be sure to add some great new deserts, too.

P3, T-4 Days!

And the count down continues... Not only is that count down for the end of P3 for me, but it's also my deadline (self-imposed) for the completion of my recipe book.

I wasn't home *at all* today, so I didn't work on the book, either. To make matters worse, I also didn't eat like I was supposed to. In fact, I ate a single meal today; a chef salad. Not good. I hope it doesn't make me gain and get stuck with a steak day tomorrow!

Tomorrow, I'm gonna get on the stick and get things done so I don't miss my deadline! Wish me luck!

100 recipes DONE

Now all I've got to do is get my intro done up and and get the book over to the publishers! What a task! We've actually got several more ideas for recipes - perhaps that'll be 100 MORE Recipes to keep you on Phase II of HCG?

:)