… birthing this book baby of ours! Seriously, somebody get us to Lamaze class. Yup, it’s coming in early November (our official “due date” is the 6th, although it varies slightly depending on where you look). Excuse me while I practice my deep breathing (hee, hee, hoooooo, hee, hee, hoooooo).
Perhaps the craziest part about it is that this might be the longest baby gestation ever recorded – over three whole years! Seriously. Labor of love could not apply more. So for everyone who has been asking about pre-order details, you can click on any of the logos below to pre-order from any of these affiliates. And of course don’t forget the local guys – the book will be available at your favorite bookstore, and if you stop by, many local bookstores can pre-order it for ya too. Fun fact – pre-orders don’t just score you a discounted price, they’re also good for us authors too. And we hear they can show up before the actual release date, so that’s another added bonus.
Speaking of a nice long gestation, this was John’s Facebook status almost exactly a year ago (and yes, that’s the Jamie you know from this post).
But today somehow we’re holding a 336 page mocked-up book full of hundreds of house-sprucing ideas that are about to go off to the printer this week to be made into a real life book. Like one you can hold in your hands and read and put on the coffee table. Actually lots of them since it would be weird just to print one. As for what it’s about, it’s definitely not a formal decorating bible with designer terms and upscale rooms. Please, we’re not that fancy. It’s more of an idea book for folks like us. A heaping portion of doable and affordable suggestions to pick and choose from – and adapt to fit your home. Some are more involved, some are super easy. Some are free, some might be something that you’d save up for. Basically it’s the blog. Only a book. And instead of getting a post or two a day, you get 243 ideas with photos, checklists, tutorials, and illustrations galore (along with bonus tips, sidebars, and added commentary). And a little dorky humor a la us.
Wait, and did we mention that we packed it with over 200 photos and 100 illustrations that have never been seen before on the blog? I guess we just did. In fact, none of the tips in this book are just regurgitated from our blog posts (zero cutting and pasting here!). Some of the general ideas and basic tutorials may be familiar (how could we not include must-have how-tos like painting furniture or upholstering a headboard?) but we wanted to present them in a fresh way. So instead of seeing the same table that I painted three years ago for the blog, you might see a brand new dresser makeover that we secretly completed back in January. Sure it was extra work, but we really wanted the book to look fresh and be full of different “takes” on a ton of decorating ideas – both classic and unexpected (and pretty much everything in between).
It’s so funny because we distinctly remember every single phase: signing on with an agent well before Clara was born, writing a 100 page proposal in 2010, pitching it to publishers and picking the right one for the job right after moving in 2011, turning our proposal into a complete book outline and then a complete manuscript right around New Year’s, shooting for three straight weeks in our house back in February of this year, and then refining and proofing and proofing some more, and finally – finally! – sending this baby off to be printed. Whew.
Whirlwind? Yes. Lots of fun? Yes. Lots of work? Yes. Still feels like it’s all a dream? Yes. One big, flipping-the-house-upside-down dream…
So needless to say, when we look down at the final layouts and triple check that we didn’t write something like “hang your fart” instead of “hang your art” (don’t worry, we have proofreaders) it really is sort of a chest-swelly moment. Not in that “we’re a big deal” way, but in that “we didn’t know we had it in us” way. I mean, of course when we signed on to write a book we thought we could do it, but as we went we kept saying “ooh, wouldn’t it be cool if we added this too?” – and every time we did we’d worry if we had just bitten off more than we could chew. But oh happy day we didn’t! We survived. We lived to tell the tale. We wrote the book we were dying to write. And I think it’s going to feel even more unreal when we’re actually holding it in our hot little hands. There might be tears the ugly cry.
And since the final cover has officially been pinned down, we thought it would be fun to chat about that process, since it was completely different than we thought it would be (as was almost every aspect of writing a book – did you know you edit the entire thing with a pencil on printed layouts over about five to six rounds of revisions – there’s no computer involved at all?!). I’d say the two overall most surprising things about writing this book were:
- how little the publishers changed the inside of the book (aka, the meat)
- how much the publishers have to do with the outside (aka, the bread)
Isn’t that funny? Every time we submitted outlines and even the final manuscript we expected tons of crossed out stuff and rearranged stuff and suggestions about what to move/do/change. But other than typos and grammar fixes, it was really all us. Which is kind of awesome. I mean, in the book we’re the same pun-loving weirdos as we are on this blog. I guess we somehow thought they’d try to “polish us” but they totally let us be us. Our freak flag is waving, baby. And we’re so grateful.
Then when it came to the cover, we learned that most authors actually only get to give “feedback” but the publisher always has the final say. Thank goodness we love our editors and they seem to like us back, so it was a pretty collaborative process in the end. First we shot some of their initial concepts amidst our three-week photography extravaganza back in Feburary, and out of all three cover concepts there was one that we did our darndest to wiggle out of: putting our mugs on the cover.
We just didn’t want to be sitting there (or standing there) posing in some styled room because… I don’t know… it just felt so… serious. We really wanted the cover to feel playful and happy and fun (it’s not a lofty book about box pleats, it’s a happy-go-lucky home idea book). So after we shot all three concepts, including some terribly awkward photos of us sitting on the sofa like this…
… we heard they officially weren’t going with the pose-on-the-sofa idea for the cover (they agreed that it was looking really forced). Wahoooooo! We celebrated. There might have been an entire box of Oreos that were sacrificed to the We’re-Not-On-The-Cover Book Gods (by way of our bellies). Then about a month later we heard they were going with a fourth concept that a new designer came up with (with us on the cover, but not as big, and not us posing in a room). Whaaaaa? Here was the very first draft they sent over just with initial ideas from their team:
We opened the PDF while holding our breath… and then we stared at it for a while. And then we realized that we kind of liked it. Not because we’re on the cover of course, but just because of the vibe. The playful look and feel of the different typefaces, the wood letters, the blue stitched spine detail, the paint can in the O – they were all fun and cheeky and definitely not stodgy or serious. Of course the designers asked us for feedback, so we gave it lots of thought, still kind of cringed at the idea of seeing our faces on the cover, and offered up a few general suggestions like:
- what if we made the spine more of a teal tone and less of a baby blue?
- what if we added some house keys hanging at the bottom from the “e” in the word love?
- what if we used wood letters in a chunkier, more modern font?
- what if we took ourselves off the darn cover? (this became a joke, how many times we tried to weasel our way out of it)
And they came back with:
- Sure! Color picks are just preliminary, so you can definitely weigh in on those!
- Sure! We love that idea!
- Sure! We’ll get them hand-carved by an artisan in the typeface that you pick and then shoot them in a studio so they look real and have real shadows (how cool is that?! they were made just for the book, and yes we have totally begged them to send them to us so we can keep them forever!)
- Nope, you’re staying right there. Everyone here loves that it makes it personal and it’s not a giant stiff looking photo so hopefully you’ll learn to love it too.
Oh and some other changes happened over those months of development. Some tips got changed to bonus tips instead of numbered tips (to help keep the page count – and therefore the price – from getting too high). So we ended up with 243 tips, which is our lucky number (it’s old pager code for We Love You, which we thought was fitting). The subtitle also got more specific thanks to some focus-group feedback. So here’s the final design – mocked up to look 3D:
Clean and still fun. Not too kid-ish, but still playful and cheeky with that awesome zing of color down the spine and a few more pops on the front and back. We also love how there’s a mixture of masculine (the wood letters) and feminine (the scripty ones). And everything from the stitched spine to the paint can and the house keys feels – I don’t know – homey?
Just for kicks, here’s the front, spine, and the back (the back is so much fun up close since our website’s heart background is subtly worked into some of the colored boxes):
Thanks to that teal spine, we think it’ll look so cute on a coffee table, or even stacked between our horse head bookends with the other decorating books that we love. Can’t you picture it squished in here?
As for why the book cover doesn’t look like our blog header, we actually thought that wouldn’t be a good idea since:
- It’s kinda boring if it’s a direct lift from our blog
- The book isn’t just repackaged blog stuff, so we didn’t want the cover to look so much like our blog that people assumed it was just the same stuff (all of the projects that we photographed were secretly done just for this book, so they’re all never-before-seen images)
- We love to redesign the blog every few years, so we didn’t want the book to look dated (to us and our readers) once we outgrew the current design
- It’s actually a really fun process to see what a professional book designer can do with your “look.” They know what they’re doing and have so much interesting reasoning behind certain choices that we never would have even thought about. And it’s not everyday that you get to see yourself through a book designer’s eyes.
So that’s the story of being completely convinced that we had successfully weaseled our way out of being on the cover (we even said we had done it in this post) and then ended up there anyway. But at least we’re not sitting on the sofa smiling. Haha. And there are bunny ears. And I’m wearing red shoes. And we’re little. So if we put a cute little paper weight over that part of it when it’s on the coffee table we won’t even be visible. #crouchingtigerhidden$herdog
Another fun fact? That photo actually wasn’t shot for the cover. It was just a random portrait that we snapped back in February while shooting all of our projects (just in case they needed an author photo for the back or something).
Oh, and what’s the funny thing you notice about John’s hand in the original pic? Yup, no drill. They cut his arm holding a drill from another process photo in the book and stuck it on there. We love that. I don’t know why. It’s like one of those behind-the-movie tidbits about the magic of book cover building. John’s Frankensteined Drill-Arm.
Oh and while Clara and Burger pop up inside, they didn’t make the cover because our editors rightfully pointed out that the Young House Love title was in danger of looking like it was some sort of relationship/family book, and not a decorating book (which is also why the designers chose to emphasize the word HOUSE with wood letters). But we made up for it inside the book. Seriously, Burger is without a doubt our favorite part of the book. He basically walks in and out of chapters and says hilarious Burger-esque things (yes, he talks to us when nobody’s around) and Clara got in there more than a few times too (she even got to do a project with us).
So in the end we feel like the book really represents us and our blog. There’s tons more that we’re itching to tell you about this, but we don’t want your head (ok, our heads) to explode. So we’ll occasionally be diving into more behind-the-scenes details about finishing this book of ours, sharing a video that we shot and edited with some sneak peeks, and finally dishing out the dates and cities for our book tour once that’s all set in stone. For now, all of this jabbering is just to say: holy cow this book baby is actually coming out and we love you all for the amazing support and encouragement that you’ve shown us during this intense and incredible journey. Couldn’t have done it without you. For reals, guys. Love, love, love.
Psst- You can check out a bunch of links to other book-related happenings, like when we announced that we were writing a book, how we picked a publisher, how we prepped for photo shoots, and how we shared a little photo-shoot sneak peek. Plus you can swing by our new book landing page with more info that we’ll update as soon as we know more about things like book tour details (along with other fun behind the scenes stuff).
Jeannie says
Can’t wait for the book! And by the way, I was tearing up reading this post! Way to go, you guys!
Mouy says
Congratulations you guys! I’m so excited for you guys (and me because I finally get to read it). =) Will you guys have a book tour?
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, we can’t wait! Sometime this October/November. Will share all the deets when we have them!
xo,
s
Jacky says
Congrats from Germany!
Hi Sherry, hi John!
I’ve been reading your blog for years now and you truly inspire so many people around the world! Everyday you make me laugh and I love reading all the stories about Clara and Burger!
I just preordered your book in Germany and as it comes out on my birthday it will be super special to me!
Keep up the good work!
Jacky
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Jacky! You’re so sweet. Thanks for your order and for reading our blog. You guys are blowing us away today. So full of amazingly kind words!
xo,
s
maria says
please please PLEASE come to spring/ the woodlands texas!!! I would LOVE to meet ya’ll!!
Megan L says
I can’t wait! I know what to get my entire family for Christmas. Well done!
Nora Rose says
Boston Book tour? Please announce soon so I can take off work. ;)
Beth says
YAY! I pre-ordered mine at lunch today! It will be a nice surprise when it appears!
Shelley @ Green Eggs and Hamlet says
Congratulations, can’t wait to read it! I have already picked out where my copy will live – on the bottom “shelf” of our coffee table with the Colorado “Then and Now” book I just bought to use as our guest book for our wedding in September. :)
Lee says
Pre-ordered! So excited for you guys! I love the look…and of course you two should be on the cover.
Bree says
How exciting! You guys should be so proud! :) Enjoy every moment…excuse me while I pre-order mine!
Bree says
and ordered!
Heather says
As much as I LOVE reading your blog every day, I wasn’t sure I’d buy the book because we’re having to rent for the next 2 years due to my husband’s schooling, so it leaves me less than motivated to tackle my own projects. I have to say after reading this post, I got so excited about the dang thing I pre-ordered it anyway ;-)! Maybe it’ll inspire me to make this temporary house a home.
Congratulations on such an amazing accomplishment! Can’t wait to read it!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Heather! There are definitely tons of projects you can do as a renter for sure (many of which are super cheap and even free). Hope you love it!
xo,
s
Jennifer Beck says
Ordered a copy for myself – can’t wait until it is delivered! Congratulations!!
Katie says
So so excited for you guys, can’t wait to get my painted splashed little hands on it!
Celia says
I preordered a few weeks ago and finally got the coconut water I had ordered at the same time. They had waited to send it until I did another order! Can’t wait to see the book – congrats on all the hard work.
Vanessa says
Yay! This is so exciting!
Heather says
Holy buckets! I was just on Amazon and your book is #7 under “Best Sellers in Books”. Move over Fifty Shades, haha.
YoungHouseLove says
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! So crazy. Must eat a cupcake.
xo,
s
Angela says
Just saw that too! SO excited for you guys!
Hannah C. says
My husband pre-ordered your book as my birthday gift this past weekend. :) So glad he got the BIG HINT I gave him! I seriously can’t wait till it comes in the mail. The funny thing is our anniversary is in early November, the book will pretty much be doing double-present duty! :)
Meg says
Pre-ordered! Can’t wait.
Terry says
Just pre-ordered. I can’t wait for it to come out. It would be great to see you at a book tour, too!
Jessica D. says
YOU HAVE A NATE BERKUS QUOTE!!
Sorry had to get that out. Congrats on finishing up this big baby! Can’t wait to get my eyes on it!
YoungHouseLove says
Hahaha, isn’t that crazy?!
xo,
s
Jenna says
This is so great! I was just pre-ordering on Amazon and saw that your book has already hit #7 on their top best sellers and you are #1 in all the craft/hobby/specialty lists. You guys know how much you rock, right? Many congratulations going your way.
YoungHouseLove says
Isn’t that crazy?! We’re kind of in disbelief over here. The explanation? Best readers ever. Seriously. The best!
xo,
s
Krissy says
Um I LOVE THIS POST.
I love the pic of you two on the cover. I love the wood letters. I love everything. So so so happy right now, and will be pre-ordering as soon as I can calm down enough to open Amazon.
*Eeeeeee* (My dog is making a very concerned face at me right now..)
YoungHouseLove says
Hahaha, I love you for being so excited and I love your dog for being so concerned.
xo,
s
Lynn Matteo says
Congratulations! I’ve been following your blog for a while and love the fun spirit that you both bring to home improvement. You are an inspiration to many and I plan to order a copy. Best wishes!!
Caitlin @ Desert Domicile says
Love, love, love back atcha! I just pre-ordered my copy and can’t wait for your book tour! I know you guys (probably) don’t get to pick the cities you visit but can you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE put somewhere in Arizona on your list?! I’m willing to take a road trip just to meet you/have you sign my book :)
Jen says
Just primed this bad boy from Amazon and noticed that you guys got props from Nate Berkus in the “Review” section. That is pretty darn awesome. Any chance you’ll go back on his show to promote it? You totally should!
YoungHouseLove says
We’d love to – but sadly it got cancelled. Boo! So unless the news has changed, he won’t be on air when it comes time to promote it.
-John
Lori @ Lighten Up! says
I get the whole Emily Post “man name” thing, but in my mind, you guys are named John-and-Sherry… it sounds too weird the other way! (I think we all know couples whose names are like that, no?)
SO excited! Off to pre-order my copy!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, it’s funny because my family calls us Sherry & John and John’s family calls us John & Sherry. Maybe the one you know longer goes first?
xo,
s
Lori @ Lighten Up! says
Amazon apparently couldn’t decide who to put first! In the “About the Author” section, they have the same blurb twice: once about “Sherry and her husband John,” and once about “John and his wife Sherry.” Too funny!
(BTW, my 13-year-old – who takes pride in scooping me on reading YHL each day and who talks about Clara as though she is a relative – is just as excited about the book as I am.)
YoungHouseLove says
Isn’t that funny?! We had a good laugh over that. And give a big smooch to your daughter for us (and Clara especially). That’s so sweet!!
xo,
s
Erin Frost says
Hey, what is the source for the two pillows in the 4th picture in your post. Perfect colors and love the wool texture….
Just pre-ordered book!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks! Those are from West Elm and Home Goods a while back!
xo,
s
AshleyC says
Just pre-ordered the book. So excited!!
Louisa T. says
My husband is in advertising and they do major catalogs every year. I have seen him stand many an hour at the kitchen island going over page after page of revisions and corrections to 700+ page catalogs. Bloody tedious is what it is. I completely understand what a HUGE undertaking this was for you guys and have all the respect in the world for you. Guys, this was a major accomplishment and I personally cannot wait to get my copy!
Katie says
I can’t wait! This is going to be my coffee table book, but I’ll have to build a coffee table first.
Ruchi says
Hey Sherry,
Just pre-ordered your book…cant wait for it to be delivered. You know whats funny your bff Katie qnd you are going to deliver around the same time frame….:))) ofcourse she with a baby and you with a book…..plzzz make it to Columbus Ohio for a book tour!
Ruchi
YoungHouseLove says
Isn’t that hilarious?! We have been laughing over that for months! Would love to end up in Ohio, btw! Will keep you posted!
xo
s
Ashley Watson says
So excited to read this! and may i add i do like the wooden letters for “house” better on the final draft as well as the font on “love” …i dont know how you do it, but you alweays seem to make things look better by making simple changes!!!! We are in the process of picking colors, painting paneling and all that good stuff..i use your blog for inspiration ALL THE TIME!!! Thank you!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Ashley! So sweet of you to say!
xo,
s
Kate in New Zealand says
Congratulations on the book!
There’s a New Zealand pre-order in the ether now :)
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Kate!
xo,
s
Lindsay B. says
I just looked to pre-order on Amazon and you are ranked as the #7 seller in books! That is AWESOME! Congrats!
YoungHouseLove says
Ahhhhhhhhh. Crazytown. Might never happen again so we’re totally taking screen grabs. Haha.
xo,
s
Tahlia says
Congrats!
How do they get the quotes from other authors? (eg. Nate, Gretchen) Do they show them the book first?
YoungHouseLove says
The quote from Nate was actually from an article that was written about us a while back and for Gretchen’s quote (which is the only one on the actual book, the others are just listed on amazon for some reason) we sent her an advanced copy of the book (a hard copy, not an e-version) and she read and reviewed it. It was really cool! We just emailed her ourselves to ask if she would review it and didn’t even know if she’d write back and she agreed so we sent one over! She’s so nice!
xo,
s
Jen says
YAY! Thanks for a book update! The cover is beyond wonderful and feels very YHL to me so kudos! I can’t wait to get my paws on the book because I can just feel all of the love that went into creating it!
xoxo,
Jen
PennySmith says
How much of a blog geek do I have to be to recognized the face of my OTHER favorite blogger while scrolling thru the comments on a different blog? Crazy town! I {heart} you too Jen! :)
YoungHouseLove says
Hahaha! So cute.
xo,
s
Jessica G. says
Woohoo!! Major congrats once again. I can’t wait to have this book on my shelves.
I’m a production editor, so I’m all too familiar with red pencils and stacks of paper. Lots of people are surprised by that! Though my heart aches for the trees (my company does use recycled paper, and we’ve started printing double-sided whenever possible) I find the process delightfully old-fashioned and I kind of hope it never changes.
YoungHouseLove says
Me too! At first I thought it was so weird, but I think it’s so much easier to see things/absorb them/catch mistakes. And I love that it gets recycled:)
xo,
s
Meagan says
What a great post. So many congrats to you. I am excited to order it and add it to my decorating book collection with the other greats like Domino. :) Hope you come to Raleigh on your book tour!
YoungHouseLove says
We’d love to! Thanks so much for ordering it Meagan!
xo
s
Pam says
I hurried and ordered it! I can hardly wait for it to come out!
Love all your projects and it gives me the confidence to try
subway tiles in my kitchen (one of these days!)
You two are awesome!!!!!!!!!
Gord says
Pre-ordered it on Amazon!
Sammy says
I seriously CAN-NOT wait!! I’m sure it’s fantastic! =D
You wouldn’t by any chance know when it will be available on other international websites, such as Amazon Spain, would you??
xx
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for your interest Sammy! I think it’s actually available on some foreign amazon sites already (ex: a few German and UK readers said they got it on amazon today). Maybe check to see if it’s there and if not hopefully it’ll be up soon?!
xo,
s
Heidi says
No way! Me too! I’m 1 trimester away from having a real (not book) baby. Right now I am a little bit jealous that you are having a baby and your clothes still fit and you don’t wake up at night because someone is banging around on the inside of your belly. Lots and lots of congratulations on all your hard work getting to this stage. I can’t wait to hold your book in my hands (and hold my baby) ’cause it sure is hard waiting for something good to hurry up and get here already!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, I wake up in the middle of the night because I have a nightmare that all the numbers in the book are off, or it goes to print with some giant typo and all the wrong pics! Cold sweats, I tell ya! And sometimes I just wake up because Burger is trying to sleep on my head. True story. Hahaha. Hope the rest of your pregnancy is restful and wonderful!
xo,
s
Wendy says
So.. I’m thinking that this is the perfect thing to read during my hopefully last 20 or so days of pregnancy. (She-wee one is due 26 Nov :-)
Perhaps I can suggest it to my hub as a “things to enjoy together” present.
By the way, hub has an amazing voice and used to volunteer to record audio books for the blind when he lived in Minnesota. He’s done a bit of work for pay, too.
If you need someone to do an audio reading of the book, please shout! (He’s a published author, too- with a great set of kids sonnets!)
http://www.sonnettics.com and http://www.kidseep.com
Note- I really don’t expect anything to come from this. Maybe a smile, but that’s it.
Congrats on everything!
YoungHouseLove says
That’s fun! I love that! I don’t know if we’ll do an audio version (haven’t heard anything about that yet since it’s a pretty visual book) but we’ll definitely keep him in mind!
xo,
s
Shannon says
YES! Sooooo proud/happy/excited for you guys and cannot wait to see that sweet book baby of yours in my hands!
Sarah Bentham says
Pre-ordered! An Amazon birthday gift card well used. I’m excited because it’ll turn up randomly and inspire me. I can’t wait to see it, and I really hope it is a success!
Brooke says
Congratulations! So excited for you! Can’t wait to read it cover to cover!
katyrenee says
Congrats!
I’m due that day too–with my first human baby. So exciting. I love that it is election day so very often the news will say something along the lines of, “100 days until election day.” It is fun to have a countdown that way too.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s so exciting! Happy baby birthing!
xo
s
Brooke says
Couldn’t wait…I commented and then pre-ordered. Eeeeee!
Laura @ DMHB says
I’m SO excited! I will be pre-ordering my copy as soon as I get home! I hope you guys come to MA or NH! I’d love to get mine signed!!
Stephanie says
I’ve never pre-ordered a book before. . .but I’m gonna!! PUH-lease come to Nashville for a book tour and Pleeeeease crash our house while you’re here : )
Big ole Congrats and Job Well Done!!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Stephanie! We’d love to come to Nashville!
xo,
s
Terry says
First time I’ve pre-ordered a book, too! So excited. I hope we get our books a little early.