The Family Cookbook Project

Category: Editor Tips

  • Cost of Printing A Family Cookbook

    CookbookPileOne of the most frequent questions asked by people wanting to create family cookbook is “How much will it cost”.

    There are two expenses you will incur to create your own personalized family cookbook. The first is the membership fee and the second is the actual printing of the cookbooks.

    The membership fee allows Family Cookbook Project to maintain it’s servers, maintain the software, hire designers to create new covers, and cover the other costs of doing business. We have tried to keep this fee as low as possible and allow it to be paid either monthly, annually or with a lifetime membership.

    The other cost of creating your personalized cookbook is the actual printing. There are three major aspects to your cookbook that will impact the cost of printing.

    The most significant is the page count. The more pages in your cookbook, the more it will cost to print. Raw materials, such as paper and ink play a factor here.

    The second consideration the use of color. Color inks cost more than black inks and that is why if you include more color in your cookbook, especially photos, we are required to charge extra.

    The final consideration is the number of books printed. Each cookbook must be set up on the press for printing. The cost of that set-up has to be distributed to each of the cookbooks printed. That is why the price per book when you order only five cookbooks is so much more than when you order 100.

    You will find the complete pricing for the use of the site at http://www.familycookbookproject.com/price_to_print_a_family_cookbook.asp
    You will also find a way to estimate the cost of your cookbook printing at the bottom of the page, however the actual cost will be determined by the number of pages contained in your cookbook when you send it to print.
    There are also ways an editor can lower the cost of printing. Check out our blog post Lowering the Cost Of Printing Your Cookbook for some ideas.

  • Holiday Cookbook Printing Deadlines

    Christmas CookiesThe 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 Monday, 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, the print deadline is Monday, November 16th.

    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.

  • Recipes on the Internet

     

    Young and beautiful housewife woman cooking in a kitchen

    One of the benefits of having your recipes on family cookbook project is that they become available to you from any computer.

    Google and other search engines regularly crawl our site looking for new recipes. When they find them, they make them available to the entire Internet. That way you can access a recipe simply by typing in The title of a recipe and your cookbook name into any browser.

    This is useful for when your family cookbook is not available, like at a grocery store buying ingredients for recipe, or wanting to share a dish with a friend.

    You also can have access to all your recipes if you download our award-winning mobile app for iPhone and android devices.

    Not only are the recipes made available to you online, but many other people around the world can enjoy them as well.

    Currently the most popular recipe on family cookbook project.com is Saskatoon Berry Crisp, by John and Verna Heinrichs, is from The Heinrichs Family Cookbook . This recipe has had almost 50 people view the recipe in the past month.

    Be all time most viewed recipe on family cookbook project.com is Camp Fire Pizza Roll, by Danyeil Reed, is from 40 Something Cowgirls Restless Riders Cookbook, which has been seen by more than 7000 people since 2013!

    Of course if you don’t want to share your recipes with the public then simply mark them private when you post them. This keeps them out of the public domain.

    Since our founding 10 years ago, family cookbook project has helped more than 63,000 families and fundraising groups collect more than 1 million recipes.

  • Christmas in August?

    Christmas in August?

    I don’t know about you, but in August on Cape Cod we are enjoying fine summer weather and fun times with family and friends.

    However if you like to give incredible personalized gifts for the holidays, now is the time to start your family cookbook project.

    The best holiday gifts are not something you buy in the store. The gifts that make people feel most appreciative are those that you put a little effort into. Time is a valuable resource and people appreciate when gifts are more than just something purchased at the last minute.

    People who receive your personalized cookbook will never know just how easy it was to create using family cookbook project.com. All you need to do is enter your recipes, pick a cover and dividers, and we’ll do the rest. You can add an introduction and photos if you want.

    However, while it is easy, it does not happen overnight. Your personalized cookbook needs to be printed on our professional cookbook printing presses. Plan on submitting your print order by sometime in October to avoid the busiest time of printing.

    That means September is the time that you need to have your recipes submitted and your introduction written.

    So while you may be spending time on vacation in August, create an account at family cookbook project and creating a one-of-a-kind gift giving opportunity for the holidays.

    To learn more and get started, go to www.familycookbookproject.com

  • Family Cookbook Project In the News

    We helped Mary V. Danielsen of Documented Legacy learn more about the ins and outs of creating a family cookbook project and she wrote a series of articles entitled “The Joy of Preserving Family Recipes” and “Organizing Your Family Cookbook Project” for the Flip Pal Mobile Scanner website.

    “Determine who is going to contribute recipes. Make certain you invite everyone in the family to participate in the project”, says Chip Lowell, publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project. “People will let you know if they feel over committed and want out.”

    The articles are well written and provide some good tips editors can use to have their family cookbook move forward.

     

  • Print Your Cookbook For the Holidays

    Christmas CookiesThe 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 Sunday, 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, the print deadline is Thursday, November 20th.

    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.

     

  • Wanted: Grandparents who cook

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    Cooking Channel’s hit show needs Grandmas and Grandpas for Season 3!! You (or someone you know) could be featured on the series The New Yorker calls “charming” and Parade Magazine calls “maybe the best (cooking show) on TV”.

    They are looking for…
    Grandmothers and Grandfathers
    All ethnicities anywhere in America
    50 to 100 years old
    Big personalities who can cook delicious dishes
    Real characters: warm, fun, outgoing, eccentric, lovable, sweet, fiery, or even curmudgeonly
    Great families
    Accents and English as a second language not a problem

    HOW TO APPLY

    If you know someone who might be who they are looking for, go to the website http://www.grandparentswhocook.com/ and complete the simple application. It does not cost anything to try and you might get your grandmother on a TV show!

  • Tell Your Friends About Family Cookbook Program and Earn $$$

    Tell Your Friends About Family Cookbook Program and Earn $$$

    Did you know you can make money by becoming a Family Cookbook Project affiliate marketing partner and telling others to start their own cookbook? Joining is Free and Easy!

    If you have a blog, you can write posts about the site. On Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest you can share your story, even word of mouth can work effectively when bringing new editors to the FamilyCookbookProject.com site.

    The Great Family Cookbook Project was founded almost 10 years ago and helps individuals and families collect and share favored recipes online and in printed cookbooks. Our online software makes it easy and fun to make a fabulous personalized cookbook.

    By helping us to spread the news about our offerings, you can benefit by earning valuable referral fees.

    How the Affiliate Program Works

    1. Program members drive Internet traffic to FamilyCookbookProject.com through specially formatted links that allow us to track sales and other activity.
    2. Program members earn up to 30% in referral fees on all qualifying revenue made through their links.
    3. We send monthly payment to Program Members via PayPal on the 15th of every month (if your balance is at least $100).

    Once you join the program we will give you access to our online Affiliate Center.  This is the place where you will build your links, view your traffic and earnings reports, and read about the latest news and opportunities available to you through the program.

    We do have some basic ground rules for the program:

    • All participants must have a PayPal account (in order to receive payouts).
    • Your traffic must come from individuals in the USA and Canada.
    • You may NOT receive credit for referring yourself.

    Participants caught violating or attempting to circumvent these rules will have all affiliate credit voided and will not receive payouts. Additionally, they will be banned from further participation in our affiliate program.

    To get started, simply complete the online application. Once your application has been reviewed and accepted, post the web site links to FamilyCookbookProject.com on your web site or to social media sites, using the links provided. It’s as easy as that.

    We look forward to building a strong, profitable and successful relationship with you.

  • How to get your recipes into your cookbook

    How to get your recipes into your cookbook


    Many people who have entered recipes in the past into a word processing program, like Microsoft Word, often of ask us for a way to import these recipes into Family Cookbook Project.

    Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to import these recipes into our system because each source uses its own layout and there is no way for us to identify what information needs to needs to be entered into our fields.
    Cut and Paste
    The good news is that it’s quick and easy to copy and paste a recipe into Family Cookbook Project using cut and paste on your computer.
    Here’s how: Simply highlight all the ingredients in your source document and hold down the Ctrl key while pressing the “C” key on your keyboard. Next go to “add a new recipe” in your family cookbook site. Click in the ingredients box and now hold the Ctrl key while pressing the “v” key. This pastes what you have copied into the field. Repeat for title, directions and notes and you are done!
    This process also can be used to import recipes from other websites. However, remember to credit the source of the recipe in your recipe notes.
    Scanning recipes
    Another way editors look to add recipes is by scanning. The problem with scanned recipes is that the system can not read the text to create titles and indexes and other parts of the cookbook. The computer just sees them as photos.
    Here is a blog post that should help answer your questions:
    Moving recipes between cookbooks

    If want to transfer recipes from one cookbook to another, you can do so by using the Recipe Transfer Tool.  Go to Editor Tools>Publishing Tool. You will find the link at the bottom of the page since it is still in the testing (beta) phase. This tool offers step by step instructions on how to move your recipes to the new cookbook

  • How Many Recipes Should a Cookbook Have?

    How Many Recipes Should a Cookbook Have?


    One question every cookbook editor wants to know is how many recipes should my cookbook have? Too many and printing costs are higher, not enough and the cookbook is not as valuable. What’s a family cookbook editor to do?

    Looking at the thousands of cookbooks we have printed over the past decade, there is no real number of recipes that make up a good cookbook  – you have what you have.  We have printed cookbooks with just 15 great recipes and as many as 1200!  However, that 1200 recipe book was 750 pages – HUGE!
    The average size seems to be around 150 recipes and that is why we use that number in our cost calculator.
    When a great cookbook has less recipes, often the editor includes other content to augment the food offerings. Photos of each dish, a section of family photos, a family tree or family stories about people remembered can really add value to a smaller cookbook.
    Larger cookbooks can be impressive simply by the number of recipes it contains. However, since printing cost is directly related to the number of pages that need to be printed, it is important to be mindful of your design choices when choosing your layout options.
    At the end of the day, your cookbook is exactly that – your cookbook. You need to balance the number and quality of the recipes included with the needs of your family.