Archive your family recipes in a book for all time.
Put your favorite brownie recipe and Grandma's homemade chicken soup secrets in a place where they can be appreciated by all: a self-published cookbook. Self-publishing has opened the door to many people who have book ideas and need a way to get them into a finished, professional format. A self-published cookbook is a great project for chefs who want to share their food with the world.
Instructions
Organize
1. Pick a theme for your cookbook. It can be a book of desserts, summer grilling recipes or even a cookbook that deals with health issues like gluten intolerance or diabetes. Know your topic and do some research to see what other cookbooks have been published with the same theme.
2. Collect your recipes. Whether you are a professional chef or just someone who spends a lot of time in the kitchen, collecting the right recipes for your book is an important step. In order to avoid copyright infringement, the recipes need to come from your own experiments and family traditions and not from another cookbook. If you do use, or build upon, ideas from other chefs and published authors, you must cite your sources correctly and give them credit in your text, acknowledgements and sources section at the back of your book.
3. Organize your collected recipes. Put them in an order that will make sense to the reader. If your book is on desserts, have a section for pies, one for cookies, one for homemade candy and ice cream. Number your recipes for easy reference.
Build Your Cookbook
4. Cook and take photos. Try your recipes out one last time before you start writing your text. Add notes that directly address your audience. Use a good camera to take close up shots of the food or have a photographer friend help you take some shots of you working in the kitchen, along with some well-displayed pictures of the finished dishes. Digital photos will be the easiest to use for self-publishing purposes.
5. Choose a company to print your finished work. There are many online self-publishing companies where you can upload your finished files and have printed copies sent to your door. Choose the one with the prices and distribution process that works for you. Create an account with this company. It's usually free to sign up for newsletters, join the self-publishing community and ask any questions you might have.
6. Pick a size and format for your book. Landscape or letter? Pocket sized or large and square? Hardcover or paperback. Publishing your cookbook in a larger format will give you room for photos and design, but it will be more expensive. Choose your format wisely before you begin your project, to avoid reformatting later.
7. Import all photos and text to a word processing program that is made to save files for easy uploading to online self-publishing sites. Most online publishing sites, such as Lulu.com and Createspace.com, will work best if you saved your entire book in a PDF format, which is the standard way to save a multiple paged file in programs like Acrobat and InDesign. Lulu.com even has a 'cookbook' section where you can upload your text and files directly to the site and work there. Other formats that are generally accepted by all sites are DOC, RTF, WPS, PS or simply saved images such as jpg, gif, and png. Make sure to format the pages in the body of your cookbook to the size that you want to them to be published.
8. In your word processing program, build the body of your cookbook. Have a Table of Contents with clearly organized sections, and make an index for quick reference. Number all pages. Keep all text and images well within the margins and away from edges and gutters, to avoid cut off words or pictures.
9. Save your document file in the preferred format for your chosen site. Upload the file to your account. Print a proof copy for yourself before you make the book public. When you have your cookbook looking how you want it, set a price, spread the word and order copies to share.
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