Family Cookbook Project was just included in this news article: Christmas Gifts For Your Food Obsessed Friends. Please check it out and give us a “thumbs up” to move us higher in the article.
Category: General Cookbook
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Christmas Gifts For Your Food Obsessed Friends
Family Cookbook Project was just included in this news article: Christmas Gifts For Your Food Obsessed Friends. -
The most important part of your recipe – the title
At Family Cookbook Project, we believe your recipe title is the single most important element of your recipe. This is because your title is a headline, and the headline in any type of content has one special and powerful property.Think about how you read a cookbook looking for a recipe to try. You don’t start in the front and read every page like a novel then pick the one you want. No, you scan the pages looking for a photo or recipe title that catches your eye and looks interesting!
Of all the elements in your recipe, the title has the greatest power for grabbing your readers’ attention and the greatest responsibility for enticing them to continue and read your recipe It follows that the better your title, the higher the chance of turning a recipe scanner into a recipe reader (and ultimately a recipe user).
For a recipe title to be effective it needs to consider several things:
Grab Attention – Like any headline you need to grab the readers attention.
Describe the food being prepared – “Gruel” is one of my son’s favorite dishes, however it no one outside the family knows what it is. Including the main ingredient of the dish and even how it us prepared make the title more useful. “Baked Hamburger Gravy” would be a more descriptive title for our gruel.
Be different and unique – If you have seen the recipe title before, it does not belong on your recipe!
Include the source – In family cookbooks, certain people are associated with certain recipes. Grandma’s Apple Pie or Lou’s Lemon Bars help the reader image exactly what dish you are referring to. It just does not help anyone who is not at family gatherings!
Sell the sizzle as well as the steak – This means to highlight the benefit, the reason why this recipe is worth making.
Recipe titles that address cooking and eating needs are more likely to seduce the reader into the recipe itself. A good title clearly shows the reader which of their cooking and eating needs the recipe addresses. Every readers’ need is different. For example, it could be for something indulgent or something low fat, or something quick and easy or something sophisticated and thus involved, or something refined or something rustic.
Consider the following recipe titles: ‘Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies’, ‘Quick ‘n’ Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies’, ‘Grandma’s Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies’, ‘Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies’. Notice how each title addresses a different need and even appeals to different audiences. Quite simply, as the chocolate chip cookie examples show, it’s all down to the words you choose for your title.
With a little thought and imagination, your recipe titles can stand out and make your readers give your recipes the attention they deserve.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!
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Make your own eCookbooks
Family Cookbook Project makes it easy for you to access your personalized cookbook or custom family cookbook on an iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Nook or any other eReader. You can have a digital recipe book for your very own.
This is available to everyone who wants to create a family cookbook and opens an account on www.FamilyCookbookProject.com. Creating cookbooks has never been easier using our online cookbook software.
Once you have entered your recipes, selected a cookbook cover (or created your own using a cookbook cover template), added photos of the food or family members you will be ready to publish your cookbook.
Kindle Cookbook 
Kindle CookbookTo create an eCookbook, simply create a high Resolution PDF of your cookbook and save the file to your computer. This file is designed to adapt to the screen size of any eReader you may use. Many people use PDFs on their Kindle or Nook eReaders.
If you want to convert your PDF to the widely accepted ePub format used by most readers, you can simply go to a website like Online-Convert.com and upload your cookbook PDF. In seconds, they will convert the cookbook to ePub format at no additional cost.
Family Cookbook Mobile AppAnother way to access your family recipes on your mobile device is with the Family Cookbook Recipe App.
The Family Cookbook Project online recipe box makes it easy for Family Cookbook Project users to browse and use their recipes in their mobile device. Tools include our blog at your fingertips, latest recipes from our recipe database, notes for in the kitchen, articles on how to create a recipe, and cookbook making, a tip calculator and more! Users can enter their recipes at www.familycookbookproject.com and have access anywhere!
The Family Cookbook Recipes was named the Best Publishing Mobile App in the Web Marketing Association’s 2017 MobileWebAward Competition.
Designed for use on the Apple iPhone or iPad, the free app can be downloaded at the iTunes App Store.
Designed for use on the Android mobile devices, the free app can be downloaded at the Google Play Store.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!
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Lowering the cost of printing your cookbook
When it comes to printing your family cookbook project, page count is the largest determining factor on what the cost per book will be.
To lower the number of pages that need to be printed, you don’t always have to just delete recipes. Here are some simple formatting charges you can make to affect your page count.
Go to Editor Tools>Publishing Tool>Cookbook Options and Design. Under Recipe Layout, choose any or all of these options to save space:
- Choose Arial or Times Roman, Two Column Small for the smallest type faces
- UNcheck Print my recipes in non-continued format
- UNcheck Force recipe photos to be on same page as recipe
- CHECK Print Directions and Comments as single paragraphs
- Under Recipe Sorting, choose Print my recipes in book order – shortest to longest
Another thing to do is look at your recipes that are more than one page long. We show you multi page recipes in the “recipes by category” index. There is a “*” next to the edit button of long recipes. Consider removing some of these recipes by unchecking the box by the recipe title and see the impact on page count.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!
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Why Blank Pages Are Important In Your Family Cookbook
One of the questions we get a lot as Cookbook Publishers is “how do I remove the blank pages in my cookbook?”
It seems that when people preview their family cookbook on FamilyCookbookProject.com, they see the cover, then a blank page, then the title page, then another blank page, and so on. They want those blank pages eliminated to lower the cost of printing.
In publishing, especially cookbook publishing, a cookbook needs to be laid out in a specific way in order for the most important pages to be on the right side when the book is opened. Think about it, Whenever you open a book, the title page is the first thing you see and it is always on the right page of a two page spread. Same goes for the Introduction, Table of Contents and the section dividers.
On FamilyCookbookProject.com, if you create a preview cookbook PDF, you want to open it in your Adobe Reader program and select the option to view “Facing Pages” or “Double-up” (look under the View menu), you’ll see how the pages back up to each other.
Now with that said, there is no reason why those pages have to be blank. The inside front cover can have a family photo photo or bio of the cookbook editor. The same goes for other blank pages as well. If your introduction is one page and after it is a blank page, consider writing more, adding a photo or even making the text larger to fill up that extra space.
One benefit form using FamilyCookbookProject.com is that we provide a complete set of handy kitchen information that can be used on the back of the recipe category dividers with the touch of a button.
Bill Rice takes more than 20,000 photos a year and is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!
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Holiday Cookbook Printing Deadlines
The holidays are right around the corner and family cookbooks make a great gift for family and friends – and it is the busiest time for Family Cookbook Project in terms of printing cookbooks for families.If you plan to have your cookbooks printed by us and received by Christmas, the deadline to order and make payment is Friday, November 30th. There will be an extended deadline, but expedited shipping will be required. Let us know if we can help!
If you need your family cookbook for Hanukkah (December 2), the print deadline is Monday, November 12th.
For those of you who want to share their cookbook at Thanksgiving, your print deadline is Thursday, November 1st.
So get your contributors to submit their final recipes and start reviewing everything to get your cookbook ready to print before the holiday deadline to have a wonderful family heirloom to share for generations.
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Keeping Your Cookbook Contributors Motivated
As with any family project, getting everyone to contribute can be a challenge, especially if they have not seen the end product beforehand. Here are some tips to keep your contributors motivated:
The more the merrier – Be sure to include everyone, not just the great cooks. Everyone likes to be asked to participate and the more you invite, the more recipes you’ll likely get. To add contributors and send an email invitation, > Use the Invitation Tool
Set a reasonable deadline – Set the submission deadline on the “Project Information Editor” page, but don’t set it too far in the future. We all tend to put off whatever we can and contributing recipes is often one of those things. A month is usually enough time to give everyone to find the recipes they want to contribute and get them entered. Two things to remember: most of the recipes will come in just in time for the deadline and second, you can always extend the deadline if you want more recipes.
Send regular updates – Use the Reminder Tool to email some or all of your contributors on a regular basis. Remind them of the deadline and ask them to meet a specific goal, like “please add one or two recipes to each category”.
Target the biggest recipe boxes – Every family has a handful of people who are known for their cooking (you are most likely one of them in your family!). Send a personal message to them either using the remainder tool or reaching out by telephone, Facebook or with a personal visit. People are flattered when their skills are recognized. Let them know the cookbook would not be complete without their contributions.
Ask for specific recipes – Send a reminder to everyone asking for a specific recipe from your family’s past that will get everyone thinking of past gatherings. Include your memories of that dish or the person who created it. It might help remind everyone why putting together a family cookbook is important.
Use social media – As you add your own recipes to your family cookbook, it is easy to post them to Facebook or pin them to Pinterest. Sharing your recipes this way shows other family members that you are contributing and shows them they should as well.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!
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It’s the Dog Days of Summer!
It’s August. It’s hot! But fall and the holidays are going to come quicker than you think. You still have plenty of time to get your cookbook ready for Thanksgiving get-togethers. Just remember, it will take us 2-3 weeks to print and get your cookbooks to you. So plan to finish up by the first few days of November. That’s just 10 weeks away.Right now is the perfect time to get everyone involved – and print your book for the holidays!
Add to the Story
Our feeling at Family Cookbook is “Behind every recipe you love is a story you want to share!” And we have added an awesome new feature to your cookbook! Every recipe has always offered a personal notes/comments field for a contributor when they add it to the cookbook – so they can tell their story about the recipe.
We have added an “Add to the Story” button on all recipes – so any contributor you have can add their own comments and stories to someone’s recipe. As editor, you can even have these stories added to the printed cookbook!
Check it out on any of your recipes!
Get Our App for Your Phone!
Get the Family Cookbook Recipes App for iPhone and Android! You don’t always have to have a printed cookbook to use your recipes – you can always access them from the web on any PC, Mac or iPad with a nice larger screen. But what about your phone? Well, we have an app for that! Here are links to get the one for your phone:
iPhone App here
Android App hereGreat Cookbook Accessories!
Need a nice cookbook holder for the kitchen? How about a really nice 3-ring binder for when you print on your own? Check out our Cookbook Accessories Shop and see all the fun things we have!
Start Your Own Cookbook!
If you had this email forwarded and would like to create your own cookbook, start by clicking this link – have fun!
Bill Rice and Chip Lowell
Publishers
Family Cookbook Project
Cookbook Blog -
Holidays are the Best Time to Start a Family Cookbook
To most of us, the year-end holidays are a time of family, friends and a lot of food. While these times can be hectic with all of the running around that needs to be done, it is also the best time to start a family cookbook project says one expert.“Many of the family holiday traditions start in the kitchen and center around the meals we serve our family and guests at this time of the year, says William Rice, Founder and Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project. “What better way to celebrate our family food traditions than to preserve them for future generations in a family cookbook. There is no better time to start planning a family cookbook than over a wonderful meal during the holidays”.
A successful family cookbook needs at least one dedicated individual to lead the project as editor. This person gets the project off the ground and invites family members to contribute recipes. Once a labor intensive task, now families are using the Internet to simplify the project. “A website, such as www.familycookbookproject.com, can provide step by step instructions and tools to help the family member serving as cookbook editor to contact others and encourage them to enter their favorite recipes directly into the online system,” says Rice “The editor then simply reviews and edits the recipes, selects printing options, and sends the cookbook to be printed. The finished printed cookbooks are received in a few weeks time and can be enjoyed and preserved forever.”
Here are some tips from Familycookbookproject.com to help make your family’s personalized cookbook a success:
Start talking about the project over dinner – Enjoying the food and dishes we love while being asked to contribute recipes will make the value of the project more real and worthwhile.
Have a sign up list for those who want to participate – Get everyone’s telephone number and email address in one place. This will help when it is time to be in contact with them over the project.
Pass out recipe forms after the meal – Having printed recipe forms lets people know what they need to provide and shows them how little work contributing will be.
Invite everyone to participate – Don’t just invite the family cooks. Everyone has at least one recipe that they can contribute to the cookbook. Use email to invite and stay in touch with contributors. Let them see what others have submitted to encourage them to keep adding their best recipes.
Set a deadline – Set a deadline one or two month in the future to have all of your recipes submitted. Most people work better if they know they face a hard deadline. If you don’t have enough recipes at the deadline, you can always extend it.
Keep in touch – After the holidays, keep in touch with everyone via email. Send regular updates and let then know who is participating and who is not. Set a goal to have every family member contribute at least one recipe so they can be listed in the list of contributors.
Consider using a Website, like Familycookbookproject.com, to help organize your family cookbook. Here are just some of the benefits of www.FamilyCookbookProject.com:
– Editors can send contributors an email to invite them to participate in the family cookbook. The site also makes it easy to send regular updates by email to some or all of the contributors.
– Allows individuals to enter their recipes directly into the online family cookbook so it does not fall entirely on the editor.
– Provides an easy way to share recipes online. Contributors have access to everyone’s recipes even before the final family cookbook is printed.
– Provides many options for recipe layout and cover selections or allows you to create your own cover.
Family cookbooks are an important way to preserve our mealtime traditions for future generations. With the passing of our loved ones comes the loss of treasured food traditions. A family cookbook ensures that the recipes from one generation can be passed on to the next as a treasured family heirloom. Once the recipes are preserved online, they can be shared with other family members by email, printed individual and included in your own professionally printed cookbook.
For more information on how your family can make a family cookbook, go to www.familycookbookproject.com.
About the Great Family Cookbook Project
The Family Cookbook Project is dedicated to helping individuals and families collect and preserve the time-honored recipes that are so important to our family traditions. The Family Cookbook Project (www.familycookbookproject.com) was recently named the Best Family Website by the Web Marketing Association’s WebAward Competition for the second year in a row. The website has helped thousands of families and groups coordinate the creation of personalized cookbooks by provides step-by-step instructions and online tools to create a valuable family heirloom. Personalized cookbooks are also used by schools and church groups as important fundraisers.
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What They Are Saying About FamilyCookbookProject.com
“I have never been more satisfied with a product or a service in my life. This Cookbook Project program was a true miracle. For years I had been collecting recipes on my computer from the last 6 generations of my family’s history. I was amazed at how I could just add a recipe and the program would, place it, index it, and adjust page numbers for it. All I had to do was plug in my recipes. I did this for my family for a heritage treasure. I could not be more pleased with their reaction. They were amazed. Thank you so much for this program, product, instruction, and help when I had a problem. You guys treated me so good that I tell everyone about your program. Thank you so much!!!”
–Mark King, The King Family’s Very, Very Secret Recipes“We all love our cookbooks. One of my granddaughters (8 years old) literally wrapped her arms around it and wouldn’t turn loose. She just kept saying how much she loved it!”
–Mickey George, Mother always said: “This is a one-rump kitchen.”“I received my cook books. I just love them. Thank you so much for the software and the printing. I can’t wait to start on the next one.”
–Diana Murphy, Family Collection of Recipes“I have never written a testimonial for a computer program so this will be my first! I can’t say enough how wonderful this program is, and how easy it is to use. I started with what I thought was going to be a “small” project. Once I got started, I found it so easy to use, that I expanded the project to include my whole family, including four generations and over 700 recipes. The book is truly wonderful and I appreciate the ease of the program, and the wonderful support from you when I needed to have a question answered. Thanks to this program, our generations of favorite family recipes are in print forever. I will recommend it to everyone. Thanks again for your wonderful program.”
–Rosella Alfermann, FROM GRANDMA TO MOM TO ME