When it comes to making a cookbook, many home chefs and enthusiastic cookbook authors believe that unless they get a major book deal, they’ll never achieve this particular dream. What if we told you that you could write your own cookbook without a publisher? There’s no need to go through the grueling process of creating a recipe, testing, graphic design, and marketing – the whole nine yards – when you can just do it yourself!
A DIY cookbook is something that you can make with the help of a few tools and resources. Today, let’s look at some of the advantages that come with a DIY cookbook project, and how the Heritage Cookbook team can help you through the process while you maintain complete creative control.
Why Make Your Own Cookbook?
The process of getting a cookbook published through a traditional cookbook publisher is notoriously grueling. First, the author has to write out a full proposal, laying out the details of what cuisine they want to focus on, and how they want to present each recipe.
Then, if the proposal is accepted (and that’s usually a big if), the manuscript has to be written, and every recipe must be tested rigorously to make sure that it can be prepared by the average home cook. After that, everything must be photographed, with each photo edited and arranged in a specific design. The cash advance that a publishing house gives you is usually barely enough, or even not enough, to cover the cost of recipe development and photography.
All this only represents a fraction of the process, as edits and revisions, binding, and marketing all have to be done before the cookbook can be released.
If you want to publish a cookbook yourself, according to your own vision and without interventions, the best way is to do a DIY cookbook. Here are some of the benefits you’ll enjoy when you make your own cookbook with Heritage Cookbook.
1. You have full creative control
When you make your own cookbook, you have full creative control. You can decide what recipes you publish, what photos you use, and how everything is laid out, as well as what type of cookbook binding you want- anything from a cookbook binder to a plastic coil recipe book. If you have a specific vision for a cookbook, this is the best way to achieve it. It’s so satisfying to hold your own cookbook in your hands, knowing that your hard work creating recipes has paid off.
2. Collaborate with friends and loved ones
Putting together a group cookbook, or recipes from an entire community can be daunting. Without professional assistance, it will likely fall to one person to be the leader and to solicit recipes, add photos, and create the design alone. That’s a lot of work.
Instead of relying on one person, collaborate with friends and loved ones using Heritage Cookbook’s easy-to-use software. Every collaborator gets access and can work from the same templates, which makes it easy to keep the design both beautiful and cohesive.
3. Do it on your own time
Need your cookbooks ready by Christmas? No problem! The quick turnaround time offered by Heritage Cookbook makes it easy to come up with recipes, then have them published and in your hands less than a month later.
If you’re on a slower schedule, that’s totally ok too. You can take as much time as you want to put your book together- there is no membership fee!
4. Choose how many you order
The best thing about making your own cookbook is choosing how many to order at the end. We have no minimum order, and definitely no maximum!
Plus, you can always come back to order more books later. That way, you won’t be stuck making an initial bulk purchase order that could eat into your profits.
Make Your Own Cookbook with Heritage Cookbook
There are so many reasons why doing a DIY cookbook will help you achieve your creative vision while saving money in the process. If you want to see more for yourself, come check out our website. We have plenty of resources to help make the process easy.