Category Archives: FamilyCookbookProject.com

Award-winning Family Cookbook Project Puts Customers First

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FamilyCookbookProject.com pioneered the use of the Internet to create personal cookbooks and family cookbook online as a way to lower the cost for consumers. We were the first cookbook publisher to use the Internet to allow editors to submit their recipes, designing their cookbooks, choose a professionally-designed cover, invite others to contribute and offer tools to communicate with contributors.

And our efforts have not gone unnoticed. The Web Marketing Association recognizes the top websites in 96 different categories. Family Cookbook Project has been a consistent winner in these internationally recognized award programs.

FamilyCookbookProject.com was named recognized for its outstanding website development 9 times since 2005. Awards include Best Family Website, Best Publish Website and Publish and Family Standard of Excellence awards.

Family Cookbook Project monthly newsletter, Food for Thought, has also been recognized as the Best Family Newsletter in the 2018 Internet advertising competition.

Finally, Family Cookbook Project’s award winning app for both iPhones, iPads and android devices has also been recognized in the MobileWebAwards as Best Family Mobile App and Best Publishing App for the past four years straight.

Here is the complete list of Web Marketing Association awards one by Family Cookbook Project:

WebAwards Competition for Website Development

2018 Best Family Website

2017 Publishing Standard of Excellence

2016 Best Publishing Website

2015 Family Standard of Excellence, Publishing Standard of Excellence

2013 Best Publishing Website

2012 Family Standard of Excellence, Publishing Standard of Excellence

2011 Best Publishing Website

2009 Family Standard of Excellence, Publishing Standard of Excellence

2005 Best Family Website

 

Internet Advertising Competition Awards

2019 Family Cookbook Project Newsletter Best Family Online Newsletter Campaign, Best Publishing Online Newsletter Campaign

2013 Family Cookbook Project Best Award Ad

 

MobileWebAwards

Family Cookbook Mobile App

2018 Best Family Mobile Application, Best Publishing Mobile Application

2017 Best Family Mobile Application, Best Publishing Mobile Application

2016 Best Family Mobile Application, Best Publishing Mobile Application

2015 Best Family Mobile Application, Best Publishing Mobile Application

2014 Best Publishing Mobile Application

2013 Best Publishing Mobile Application

 

These awards along with all of the wonderful testimonials we have received over the years is a testament to our commitment to innovative web development, strong customer service and putting the customer first when it comes to creating a personal cookbook for individuals and families.

 

Bill Rice is the publisher of the award-winning Family Cookbook Project which helps individuals and families create treasured personal cookbooks.

New Cookbook Editor Recipe Editing Navigation now available

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At Family Cookbook Project, we listen to our editors and our contributors and it usually gives us the ideas we use for future development. Today we are announcing the Family Cookbook Project’s Recipe navigation to make it easier to spellcheck and edit recipes before finalizing your cookbook for printing.

Editor Mode

When you go to your VIEW RECIPES and then VIEW RECIPES BY CATEGORY, click on the edit link for the first recipes to edit.

You will notice two things. First any misspelled words will be underlined in red. Right click on the word to see correct spelling options. Second you will notice a recipe navigation bar that shows green buttons with the current recipe title and the next and prior titles as well.This allows you to move from one recipe to the next without having to go back to the index of recipes every time!

Contributors will also have this same functionality, but only for the recipes that they submit.

In the image below taken from my own family cookbook, the recipe title is “Artichoke and Goat Cheese Bundles” which also appears in the center green button. “Artichoke Dip” is the next recipe to edited when you click on that button. Or you can go back to the last recipe “Apricot Cheese Ball” by clicking on the button to the left.

Always remember to save your changes before moving to the next recipe!

 

 

Family Cookbook Project Launches 4 new Pinterest Boards

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Family Cookbook Project Pinterest Account

Many of our cookbook editors and contributors are frequent users of the social media sharing site Pinterest and one of the biggest categories are recipes. Who doesn’t like looking at photos of food and having access to the recipe to boot!

Family Cookbook Project is launching four new collections of recipes, known on Pinterest as “Boards”. Each one will focus on a different category of recipes contributed by our cookbook community.

These new Pinterest boards join our existing 11 boards:

If you are a Pinterest user, please follow Family Cookbook Project or any of the boards of interest.

If you are not yet a Pinterest user, what are you waiting for! You can click on any of the links above to see what it is like and then create a free account to save pins to your own board. And be sure to follow Family Cookbook Project!

 

Bill Rice is the Co-Publisher of FamilyCookbookProject, a website that helps people create personalized cookbooks for families, friends and fundraising efforts.

Organizing your recipes in your Personal cookbook

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Over the past 15 years, Family Cookbook Project has continually updated its software to meet the needs of you, our cookbook editors. One of the things that we have done is make it easy to organize your recipes as much as you’d like. This blog post will go over some of the ways you can organize how your recipes appear in your personal cookbook.

Recipe categories

Recipe categories are general classifications that allow similar recipes to be placed together. For example, appetizers or desserts. Here are some of your options for categories in the Family Cookbook Project:

Default categories – when you first start your cookbook, these are the categories that are assigned to every cookbook. They are well thought out and can cover just about every type of recipe you may want to add to your cookbook.

Custom categories – whether you want to add just a single new category or completely redo the categories to best meet your needs, you can use the custom category tool to accomplish this.

Subcategories – One of the newer additions to the software is the ability to add subcategories to your cat. This allows you to group recipes of a specific category under the main, or top-level, category. For example in the default category appetizers and beverages, you may want to create a subcategory for appetizers and a sub category for beverages. That way each type of recipe appears with like recipes.

Recipe sorting

Recipe sorting determines in which order the recipes appear within a category. Here are your options for recipe sorting:

Shortest to longest – this is the default sorting option. It places the shortest recipes upfront so more recipes can appear on a single page. Usually it is the most cost-effective way to organize your recipes.

Alphabetical – this is a very popular way to sort your recipes. The titles are organized alphabetically so that As come before the Bs and so on.

Custom Sort – One of the coolest additions to the software is the ability to sort your recipes anywhere you want. This tool will show you a list of all your recipes and you can move them to the location and it makes sense to you.

How you sort your recipes is completely up to you. Family Cookbook Project just wants to make sure you have the tools you need to create the perfect personalized cookbook.

Sample of the custom sort tool




Bill Rice is the Co-Publisher at Family Cookbook Project which helps individuals and fundraising groups create cherished personalized cookbooks using the power of the Internet. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest.

How To Make A Bridal Shower Cookbook

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HeartsOnStickstxtHere is a great idea next you need to plan a bridal shower for a friend or family member – a bridal cookbook!

One thing every new bride to be needs is great recipes to feed her family. Both families as well as friends can help get this started by contributing recipes as part of a bridal shower!

Here’s how to do it:

When you send out your bridal shower invitations, include a link to your family cookbook project cookbook, use the Invitation Tool and add everyone’s email. This will send everyone a link that will allow them to contribute their recipes. Set a deadline for entering recipes about three weeks from when the invitations are sent. Remember people will also wait until the deadline!

Get both of the mother’s to contribute the most recipes if possible. This way both the bride and groom with have lots of recipes that they grew up with in their cookbook. Using Family Cookbook Project’s Custom Categories Tool, you can even create a special category for each mom’s recipes.

As the recipes are being entered, start planning how the cookbook will look.

Cover – Family Cookbook Project offers several cookbook covers specifically for bridal cookbooks or wedding cookbooks. You also can create a custom cover with the name of the cookbook and a photo of the couple.

Write an introduction – The best bridal cookbooks will have an introduction written by the individuals giving the bridal shower. An introduction can be used wish the couple well wishes and to talk about the importance of family.

Add Photos – Photos can help bring your cookbook to life. You can add photos of the lucky couple on top of recipes, or create custom pages to highlight photos of the bride and groom as they were growing up and while they were dating.

Finally, it is time to print your cookbook. Make sure you give yourself enough time to order your cookbooks and have them printed, at least 3-4 weeks if possible. Be sure to order enough copies for each attendee as well as several extra copies for family members that can not attend the event.

For the event, make some of the dishes from bridal cookbook and serve them at the event. Include a place card with the dish name and include the page number from the cookbook. Finally, if you are looking for a great wedding favor, try creating a Wedding Cookbook for your family and friends!

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!

Why Cookbooks Make a Great Fundraiser

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Funding worthwhile projects can be a challenge. While there are many fundraising programs that happen year after year, it’s always good to try something new every once in a while to keep people interested.

A fundraising cookbook not only can help you find important projects and activities, but it also can help to bring a community together in a fun activity that everyone can benefit from.

Who doesn’t like to see their name in print? Having a recipe submitted and included in a community cookbook gives added incentive to buy those cookbooks and share them with friends and family.

Here are some ideas on how to get the most from your fundraising cookbook project.

1) The more people you get involved with your cookbook, the more people will likely be your target audience to buy that cookbook once it is printed.

Cookbook fundraiser.com has built-in tools to invite as many people as possible to contribute to your cookbook. We make it easy!

2) Include advertising from local businesses and individuals to help support the cost of printing the cookbook. That way the proceeds from the sale of the cookbook can go directly to the worthy cause.

Cookbookfundraiser.com allows you to add as many extra pages to the back of your cookbook as you would like. These make it easy to add advertising pages!

3) Most fundraising cookbooks seem to be priced between $12 and $20 and contain about 150 recipes. Determine how much money your organization wants to raise and that will help you determine how many copies you need to sell and at what price to reach your goal.

Our website has a great cost estimator to help you determine what to expect from your printing cost. We also offer many hints on how to format your cookbook to decrease the cost of printing.

4) Reach out to not only those who contributed recipes, but all those in your community to pre-order the cookbook before you go to print. The more copies you presell, the more copies you can order which will lower your per copy cost.

Our pre-ordering tool makes getting orders from contributors a snap. You can also order a single copy of your cookbook to display at community events and help to generate additional sales.

5) Add an ISBN number and bar code to your cookbook and you can sell the cookbook at local bookstores and online on Amazon.com. This can provide ongoing revenue for your organization.

Family cookbook project offers a marketing package that includes an ISBN number and barcode. We also will get your cookbook listed on Amazon.com!

6) Ask local retail stores to also sell your cookbook to their customers. Often grocery stores and small retailers will support community fundraising efforts at no charge by offering the product at their checkout counter.

These are but I handful of ways to help you get the most from your cookbook fundraiser project. However, as with every fundraising project, it takes one individual to get the ball rolling.

To get started with your cookbook fundraiser project, go to www.cookbookfundraiser.com and create a free account today!

Bill Rice is the Co-Publisher at Family Cookbook Project which helps individuals and fundraising groups create cherished personalized cookbooks using the power of the Internet. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest.

Meet the Guys Behind Family Cookbook Project

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Chip Lowell and Bill Rice at a beach picnic on Cape Cod

Family Cookbook Project was began 14 years ago and was developed by two friends who both love cooking and food.  Bill Rice is the father of four and has worked on his family’s genealogy for more than two decades.  Over a wonderful summertime family meal on Cape Cod, Bill and some of his family decided to create a family cookbook.  Bill turned to his long time friend and programming expert Chip Lowell to develop a simple website to facilitate the project.  The site was such a hit with Bill’s family, the two decided to offer it access to other families looking for an opportunity to create a lasting family heirloom.

Both Bill and Chip brought a strong understanding of web development, marketing and the need for top notch customer service to help the development of Family Cookbook Project.

Bill Rice is an entrepreneur and the President of the Web Marketing Association. He brings a strong marketing and usability focus to the development of the website and it’s products. He also has written much of the text for the site and many of the blog posts (including this one!). He is an avid photographer and a senior contributor on the TripAdvisor website.

Chip Lowell is the technology guru behind the programming of Family Cookbook Project. He is also the Director of Sales and Marketing at CodeBlue Technology, LLC, based in Richmond, Virginia.  CodeBlue provides IT services throughout Richmond and central Virginia. Chip is also a grill master and loves to spend his free time (if he had any) in his back yard with his wife Sally trying new recipes on his Big Green Egg grill.

In 14 years, we have had more than 60,000 cookbook editors use our system to collect and create online cookbooks for their family, friends, church, school, group or as a fundraiser. More than 227,600 contributors have submitted over 1.6 million recipes so far and hundreds of new recipes are added every day.

So when you wonder why all of our customer service is usually done via email, it’s because we both have day jobs. However, Family Cookbook Project is a passion of ours. We love to be able to help promote the concept of personalized cookbooks for families and fundraising efforts.

Family cookbook project.com just got easier

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QuickStart HomepageOne of the things we are most proud of about the Award-winning FamilyCookbookProject.com is how easy it is to use. While the site offers so many options to make your personal cookbook look just like dreamed it would. But it still was not easy enough for us.

That is why for the past several months we have been developing a new Editor’s “Quick Start” homepage specifically to make being a cookbook editor easy. We’ve created five separate centers and added all of the features, tools and options that relate to that center in one place. You will also find quick links to the most used functions on the homepage itself.

These new Centers are:

Recipe Center

Cookbook Layout Center

Cookbook Account Center

Helpers and Contributors Center

Cookbook Printing Center

 

Your Choice

Now, the first thing most of you long time editors will think is that “I know where everything is now, why do I have to learn it all over!”. Well, you don’t. You will have the option to keep your existing homepage or switch to the new one. However, all new accounts will automatically start on the new homepage experience.

Instant Hints

Another new feature to help you when you use a desktop is our “Instant Hint” feature. You will now find <?> icons throughout the site and if you hover over them with your computer pointer, you will get more details on what that link does without having to click on it!

How to Select the new Editor’s homepage

The first item in your Family Cookbook Message center (the right column of your homepage) is now option to “Set Home Page”. Change this to “Quick Start” and you’ll be switched to the new homepage. Change it back to “Full Home” and you’ll reset it to the original homepage.

We Need your Help

Now it is your turn to make the site even easier. Please give the new homepage a try and then give us your feedback about what you like and dislike about our new Editor’s Homepage. Is anything is the wrong Center? What else would you like to see? Is it easier or more difficult? It’s up to you to let us know what you think and help make Family Cookbook Project the best personal cookbook publishing site on the Internet.

 

Family Cookbook Project adds three new cover choices

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BackToSchool4txtIn an effort to continually build its library of professionally designed covers for its editors to choose from, Family Cookbook Project has added three new cookbook covers.

Back to School – Kids: This cookbook cover is perfect for a daycare, elementary school or other cookbook involving young children. The images are fun whimsical cartoon characters having a good time.

 

BackToSchool3txt

 

Back to School – Supplies: Another school related cookbook cover, this cookbook cover features schools supplies such as a globe, artist paint brush, calculator, apple, etc.

 

RedWhiteBluetxt

 

 

 

Red, White and Blue: Looking for a patriotic cookbook, this may be your cover! A blue background with red stripes and white stars provide a colorful cover for any cookbook need.

Family Cookbook Project is working on additional covers that will be available in the coming months. If you have a cover that you think we should add to our collection, please let us know!

Web Marketing Association Names FamilyCookbookProject.com Best Family Website of 2018

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FCBP Homepage 18The Family Cookbook Project (www.familycookbookproject.com) has been named the Best Family Website of 2018 by the Web Marketing Association’s 22nd annual WebAward Competition for Web site development.  The Family Cookbook Project creates personalized cookbooks for individuals, families, church groups and schools.

“The Great Family Cookbook Project is a website dedicated to helping families collect and preserve cherished recipes into a printed cookbook that can passed down from one generation to the next”, says Chip Lowell, Technical Director of the Family Cookbook Project.  “We are proud that our efforts have been recognized by the Web Marketing Association with this WebAward.  We will continue to develop our site to help families, schools and church groups create both online and printed cookbooks that become treasured heirlooms.”

The Family Cookbook Project Website was started as a project in 2003 to help one family collect and organize a family cookbook. Overwhelming feedback from those who used the website led to its continued development and public launch.  Currently, more than 88,000 families have started family cookbooks using the website and have entered more than 1.56 million individual recipes.

“Personalized cookbooks have been around since the 1950s, however the process of collecting and organizing recipes has always been a labor intensive project for the cookbook editor”, says Lowell. “The Family Cookbook Project website provides step by step instructions and tools to help cookbook editors invite others to participate and allow them to enter their favorite recipes directly into the online system.  The editor then simply reviews and edits the recipes, selects printing options, and sends the cookbook to be printed.  The finished printed cookbooks are then received by the editor in a few weeks time”.

Thousands of sites from 52 countries were adjudicated in 96 industry categories during this year’s competition. Entries were judged on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology.  The competition was judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing a variety of relevant disciplines of Web site development. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

One WebAward judge commented “This is an excellent site. It is easy to navigate and lets the user enter recipes easily. Even someone who is not tech-savvy could probably enter their recipes without a hitch.”

About the Web Marketing Association

Since 1997, the annual WebAward Competition is conducted by the Web Marketing Association, Inc. (WMA), an independent organization founded with the purpose of evaluating and recognizing the standard of excellence on the World Wide Web. Its Web site is located at www.webaward.org. The Web Marketing Association also has established the Internet Advertising Competition (IAC Awards) and the Interactive Investor Relations Awards.

About the 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 website at www.familycookbookproject.com 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.