Writing a Cookbook - Update #1

In complete honesty, we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into! We just set out with a goal to be published cookbook authors at the end of this adventure. Even after the cookbook is published we hope to still have a platform to continue to share food and recipes with family and friends. 

With no idea where to start, each of us started googling “How to write a cookbook”. There aren’t many other blog posts out there with information on what it takes and the process of successfully writing and publishing a book. We have learned so much about writing and how to start to build the book but are still learning about what it will take to be published. 

All the information I read all had a basic starting point, build a mock book in a binder. We have a large binder with page protectors and black pages ready to be filled. The idea is that each recipe that we would like to include write on its own page, and within the page protector to include any photos that will go along with the recipe on its page. Then as we continue to make the recipe and possible take more photos to replace and tweak until we love what’s inside. The thought being that throughout the hundreds of times we will open and go through our mock binder to truly see if we love a page. 

Another very large instruction was to establish a theme and idea that the whole book will revolve around. Luckily for us, that came easy! There are so many good things that we want to bring to life in the book, from food to showcasing the good-hearted people we have grown up around. 

One other area of research we are doing is how to correctly write recipes. There are quite a few small things that we haven’t been including, such as prep time and total time. I am going to spend some time going back through the recipes that we have to ensure our flow and recipes are all consistent and easy to follow. Other things to consider when writing a recipe, are to list ingredients in chronological order, be as descriptive as possible, don’t assume everyone knows what you're talking about. Pan size is a good example of this, casserole dish can mean so many things to different people. Instead, write a 9x13 pan or dish of similar size.

I’m sure there are more things I’m forgetting that we have learned so far, and will update as we go. As far as our mock binder, we will be in this stage of our cookbook for a long time. While we continue to build the binder we are researching the publishing aspect and what that is going to take. Other than that we will continue to collect recipes and food ideas to share with you, and practice getting them written out in a consistent manner.

♡ Anna & Renae