As 2019 unfolds, Lisa Ludwinski will be thinking seriously about how to grow her Detroit bakery, Sister Pie.

It was a packed fall, with the Oct. 2 release of Ludwinski's cookbook and changes in her business's structure. The West Village bakery alone sold more than 1,000 copies of her book, said Ludwinski, founder and owner of Sister Pie.

"Sister Pie: The Recipes and Stories of a Big-hearted Bakery in Detroit" is also for sale on Amazon.com and through publisher Penguin Random House. It's sold more than 20,000 copies so far, exceeding expectations, she told Crain's.

It topped the New York Times' list of the year's best baking books. And Sister Pie's October-November sales were up 63 percent over last year.

"The cookbook came out and that helped, not only selling books, but getting more people into the shop," she said.

Productivity has also increased as Ludwinski shakes up how she runs the business. They're making more batches in bulk to meet demand and in September she eliminated her staff's hierarchy to foster teamwork and divvy up less desirable tasks, she said.

"Once the new year starts, the pressure will be on to figure out what's next, so we'll have to get into that tough work," she told Crain's in December.