11 replies
Hi everyone! I hope everyone is having a great holiday!

First, a little background...

I had a grandmother who was born in 1898 and she was a phenomenal cook. She had a ton of recipes and she passed them on to her daughter (my mother) when she died in 1980. My mother died in 2003 and now I have her recipes. Most of them are hand-written on index cards. They were all born and raised in Texas so most are Southern recipes.

I want to create a cookbook with all these recipes and include some down-home memories and wisdom in the cookbook. I guess you could call it a nostalgic cookbook! I might even let Thaddaeus T Hogg put some roadkill recipes in it (not really). He will be coming out with his own recipe book but it will be more in the humor niche.

Anyway, I am asking for advice from any of you folks in the cooking niche for advice on the best methods to use to do this. I could just type recipes in Word and compile them into a .pdf file but I was wondering if anyone had any other thoughts, i.e., a versatile recipe software that would allow me to streamline some of the work, etc.

I have considered a membership site to go along with the ebook but for now I just want to get the ebook done.

Any fresh ideas out there?

Thanks for any and all your help and you have a great whatever it is wherever you are!
#book #digital #recipe
  • Profile picture of the author Audrey Harvey
    Hi Chris

    I'm working on a recipe book too, but in a completely different niche. I'm thinking of trying this software -

    Recipe Software | Living Cookbook 2011

    It has a 30 day free trial, and has very good reviews. If I don't like it, I'll probably just type up the recipes and give the resulting doc file to someone like Tracey Yates to format for me. She does a beautiful job.
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    • Profile picture of the author TinkBD
      Audrey - Thank you so much for the link. I have a few recipe projects on the back burner and this software looks like a possible solution.

      Tink
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      • Profile picture of the author Chris W. Sutton
        Audrey, thanks so much for that link. I will take a look at that and see if it would work for me.

        Tink, are you stalking me again? We have GOT to stop meeting like this!
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        • Profile picture of the author TinkBD
          Originally Posted by Chris W. Sutton View Post

          Tink, are you stalking me again? We have GOT to stop meeting like this!
          Er.... ummm.... [looks down at feet]

          Gee, Chris, I thought replying to a post would be good subterfuge.

          I guess you are too smart to fall for it?

          LOL Actually, this software is giving me some super ideas...
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  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    Hi Chris.

    I have nothing to add right now. I just wanted to say how fortunate you are to have such a treasure. I wish you well with your labor of love and please let us know when it's up for sale.

    George Wright
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    "The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book." Mickey Spillane
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    Heya Chris, I would reach out to Ron Douglas as he has done really well with recipe books.

    RoD
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  • Profile picture of the author DianaHeuser
    Hi Chris,

    The fact that the recipes are so old and the family history behind it makes it a perfect subject for a really pretty graphic recipe book. You could sell it as an ebook but also make the print quality high enough so that someone could print it out and have it bound.

    Here's an example:



    It's really easy to find someone with Photoshop skills (cough cough) to pop the recipes in there. There are loads of other examples, so give me shout if you would like me to send you some more examples.

    You would need an entirely different look if you want Thad to create a recipe book
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  • Profile picture of the author IndomitableD
    Whichever route you take, inserting high-quality scans of at least a few of the actual cards would be great. Smudges, stains, "old-fashioned" handwriting and spelling variations can add so much character to the book.
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  • Profile picture of the author Audrey Harvey
    Diana, that's gorgeous!!!
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    • Profile picture of the author DianaHeuser
      Originally Posted by Audrey Harvey View Post

      Diana, that's gorgeous!!!
      Another great idea is that you can do a screen version (lower resolution) and then have a high resolution print quality photobook version done for people. You could do a soft cover or hard cover book and they look fantastic.

      In South Africa we have a few companies that will take the photobook you compiled, download the files and print it out for you. You could offer the completed photobook to your buyers as an additional offer that they can send to the printing company themselves. The other alternative is you send the files to the printing company and whenever someone orders the print version, you just send the order to them. I did some searching and the companies in the USA are much cheaper than in South Africa.

      Shutterfly is one site in the States that I know of.

      I have been wanting to do this with an old notebook I found that belonged to my grandmother filled with quotes that she thought were noteworthy throughout her life.

      Di
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      • Profile picture of the author Chris W. Sutton
        How great is this information??? You people are amazing and I thank you for the input!
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