The Family Cookbook Project monthly newsletter provides helpful hints, tips and ideas for creating the perfect family cookbook. We also provide general cooking tips, recipes, famous quotes and news and testimonials about FamilyCookbookProject.com for our readers.
The goal of this newsletter is to engage our 80,000+ cookbook editors with interesting content to help them create their own custom cookbook.
Her are four editions of the newsletter.
Family Cookbook Project answers hundreds of emails a week with basic questions on how to do various aspects of creating a family cookbook. So we came up with the idea to put all of those answers in one place.
Welcome to the Family Cookbook Project Editor Education Center. Here you will find the answer that age-old question “How do I…”.
When you don’t know how to do something, start here and get specific instructions on how to accomplish most aspects of creating the perfect family cookbook.
You will find a link to the How To Center in the black navigation bar on every page of FamilyCookbookProject.com.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.
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Here’s an idea for a truly unique wedding gift for a special couple – a printed cookbook filled with the bride and groom’s favorite family recipes and photos. It’s a great way to bring both families together before the wedding, makes a wonderful bridal shower theme, can be used as a wedding favor and gets the new couple cooking with family favorite recipes.
Here’s how to create your own wedding cookbook:
It starts with a bridal shower.
One thing every new bride to be needs is great recipes to feed her family, especially with everyone needing to stay at home so much more these days. Both families as well as friends can help get this started by contributing recipes as part of a bridal shower!
When you send out your bridal shower invitations, include a link to your FamilyCookbookProject.com 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 always 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.
Select a 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.
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, you can print additional cookbooks and give them to everyone attending the wedding!
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. His son Conor was married in 2021. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.
Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!
One of the hardest things about creating a cookbook fundraiser is planning for how big your cookbook needs to be to generate the profit you wish to raise. Our Cookbook Fundraiser Profit Calculator at CookbookFundraiser.com lets you change variables to help you determine the scope of your project.
Click on the Green bars and enter the details for your Cookbook Fundraising project and see how much potential profit your fundraiser. Click the link above and give it a try.
Bill Rice is the Co-Publisher at Family Cookbook Project and CookbookFundraiser.com which helps individuals, churches, schools, teams and other fundraising groups create cherished personalized cookbooks using the power of the Internet to meet funding needs. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!
The Family Cookbook Project (www.familycookbookproject.com) has been named the Best Cooking and Recipe Mobile App and the Best Family Mobile App in the Web Marketing Association’s 2021 MobileWebAward Competition. The Family Cookbook Project creates personalized cookbooks for individuals, families, church groups and schools. This is the eighth year that the Family Cookbook Project recognized with a best of industry honor. The Family Cookbook Project Mobile App can be downloaded for Apple iPhone or iPad, or Android mobile devices.
The Family Cookbook Project online recipe box allows users to browse and use their favorite family recipes from their family cookbook account. Tools include educational articles, latest recipes from our recipe database, notes for in the kitchen, a tip calculator and more! Users can enter their recipes at www.FamilyCookbookProject.com and have access anywhere!
“The Great Family Cookbook Project is a website dedicated to helping families collect and preserve cherished recipes into a printed cookbook that can be passed down from one generation to the next,” says Chip Lowell, Co-Publisher and Technical Director of the Family Cookbook Project. “However, many people also like to access their recipes on the go from their mobile device. iPhone and iPad users now have an award-winning option to access their recipes”.
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 42,000 families and groups have started family cookbooks using the website and contributors have entered more than 1.2 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. “Now it’s easy and cost effective to have your very own cookbook printed. 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 only a few weeks”.
“We thank Web Marketing Association MobileWebAward judges for recognizing our work. We will continue to develop ways to help families, schools and church groups create both online and printed cookbooks that become treasured heirlooms,” continued Lowell.
About the Web Marketing Association
Since 1997, the annual WebAward Competition is conducted by the Web Marketing Association, an independent organization founded with the purpose of evaluating and recognizing the standard of excellence on the World Wide Web. Award programs run by the Web Marketing Association include the WebAward Competition for Website Development, the Internet Advertising Competition and the MobileWebAwards.
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. Groups looking to create cookbooks for fundraising efforts can also check out www.CookbookFundraiser.com.
Do you have a lot of recipes of a specific type? Maybe you love to make cookies or pies or cakes. You can create a “mini cookbook” to organize your recipes and even share with family and friends using FamilyCookbookProject.com.
With a few as 10 recipes, you can create a single category cookbook or multiple categories within a theme.
For example, were I live, oysters plentiful and are some of the best in the world. My family eats a lot of oysters each summer and I thought it would be great to create a cookbook with just oyster recipes. It was so well received, it is now available on Amazon!
You can buy a copy of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook by clicking on this link.
Next, I plan on creating a BBQ mini cookbook and giving it out as gifts for Christmas to my friends and family.
To create you own mini cookbook, go to the Production Center on your editor page and select “more cookbooks”. Here you can create your own mini cookbook and even import your recipes from your main cookbook using our recipe transfer tool.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.
Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!
Family Cookbook Project is not simply a cookbook Publisher, it’s a community where individuals and families gather and share recipes and food memories.
We have created a system that makes it easy to gather and publish your family food traditions. However we also try to give valuable advice on how to make your cookbook better, how to create better recipes and even how to better understand cooking.
There are many ways to learn how to build a better cookbook. Here are just some of the ways you can follow us on social media.
Facebook
Follow us on Facebook to get interesting recipes from our editors, ideas to improve your cookbook and general cooking tips.
We also have specific pages created for barbecue recipes and cookie recipes, be sure to follow those pages if they are of interest.
Pinterest
Cooking and recipes are one of the largest categories being shared on Pinterest today and Family Cookbook Project has 18 different boards filled with great recipes and cooking tips and ways to improve your cookbook. Some of the more interesting recipe categories include Food Guys Like, Recipes from Around the World, Let-us Eat Salad, Big Shrimp Recipes and even What’s for Breakfast.
Instagram
Family Cookbook Project on Instagram is new to Instagram and will be sharing recipes and tips on this platform as well.
If you don’t follow any of the other social media platforms then you will find us at Twitter with the same great information. Follow the hashtag #familycookbookproject
YouTube
Our newest entrance into social media is on YouTube where we post interesting videos on how to use Family Cookbook Project’s various online tools to create the perfect family recipe book that you can be proud of.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.
Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!
You can allow your contributors to order printed cookbooks on their own instead of having you as editor order bulk and distribute to others. One note: as with all printing, the more copies ordered at one time, the better price per book. If your contributors order 1 or 2, the per book price could be much higher than if you order 10 or 20.
To enable contributor cookbook ordering, go to Editor Activities>Printing & Publishing. Click the “Contributor Ordering Settings” shortcut. Then select the options you want available to your contributors:
Update Settings to save.
FamilyCookbookProject.com Editor Marsha P writes:
“I published our family cookbook back in November. We are very happy with the books, but I have a question: If new recipes are added and/or photos, if/when more copies are ordered will they reflect the cookbook with any new saved changes/additions? It seems, once it was published, so many wished they had added this or that recipe and/or had photos added to recipes that didn’t have them, etc.”
Your story is not uncommon. Often once a family cookbook is printed, some of the contributors (and many of those who did not take the time to contribute) see how cool the project is and want to add additional photos and/or recipes.
Here you have three options:
1) Allow the new content to be in the online cookbook only. Even after our cookbook is printed, you can still add new recipes to your account and view them online and using the Family Cookbook Project App on your phone or tablet.
2) Create a second edition of your printed cookbook. In a second edition expanded you include all of the content from the first edition, rewrite the intro to explain that it is the second edition and add the new recipes and photos. This way all of the recipes are still in a single printed cookbook.
3) Create a second volume of your cookbook. When you have a lot of new recipes you might consider a second volume of you cookbook. This would have all new recipes and work as a companion to the first volume. It can have a different title than the first but the subtitle should link back to the first title and include the volume number. This way will generally cost less to print than the second edition since you are not reprinting all of the recipes from the first cookbook.
When you view recipe by category in your editor account, you will see a check box to include/exclude recipes from the next printed version. If you want a second edition, simply leave everything checked. If you want a second volume, click on the uncheck everything button and only the new recipes will be included in the second volume.
Another fun idea is to just take one category of recipes, like desserts or appetizers, and create a single category cookbook for your family.
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.
Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!
A common question we get us “How long should it take to complete my family cookbook? It is different for everyone. It depends on the size of cookbook you want, how many contributors you have and how much time you have to devote to the project in a given week. It can be done in as little as a week and as long as several years. Most people generally take 2-3 months on average to go from start to completed finished cookbook.
Here are some simple ideas for finishing your cookbook faster from Family Cookbook Project:
1. Invite Friends and Family to Help
Gathering recipes is more fun when everyone gets involved. Adding a contributor is very easy. Simply go to Editor Activities>Communication Center or find the “Invitation Tool” shortcut on your Quick Start. On this page you can enter a person’s name and email and even personalize the email they will receive. That email will automatically create a user account for them and include their login information in the email they receive.
2. Set A Deadline and Schedule
Family Cookbook Project has the ability to set a deadline for contributors to submit recipes. As editor, you have complete control over the deadline to contribute recipes to your cookbook. This helps keep your contributors motivated. Go to the Cookbook Info Center in your editors account and in the center box you will see a link to change it to any date that suits you.
Also personally schedule a few hours a week to add your own recipes and work on the design of the cookbook. You don’t want to wait until the end to accomplish this.
3. Add a Co-Editor
Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can find typos that you can miss. To make someone a “Co-Editor”, go to Communication Center and click on their name in the list. Check the box next to their user name and update. The next time they login they will have access to: Editor Activities Menu with all tools, Add/Edit any recipe to help with cookbook editing and sending messages through the Communication Center.
4. Send Reminders to Contributors
Did you know you can send an email reminders to some or all of your contributors at the same time. Use the remainder tool to every few weeks to keep the cookbook on everyone’s mind until it is finished.
5. Style Made Simple
Family Cookbook Project is a dynamic online publishing tool that have been developed over more than a decade and a half based on the needs of our editors. The options can sometimes feel overwhelming. However the default options are the most used settings in a significant number of cookbooks we publish. Don’t get bogged down trying to use all of the features the software offers. Just pick the ones that makes your cookbook perfect!
Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.
Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!