self-published cookbooks

A New Model for a Mini Cookbook?

May 12, 2020 by diannejacob 6 Comments

image for bing bread cookbook What if you want to get just one really great recipe out into the world? How do you get it published? Kevin Pang figured it out. He and the owners of Parachute restaurant in Chicago published one recipe as an illustrated mini cookbook. Called The Parachute Bing Bread Book, they created it through a successful Kickstarter campaign. And Pang has plans for more mini cookbooks, with chefs.

The 32-page cookbook covers a recipe for just one menu item that has a cult following. The recipe for bing bread is 5,000 words.

Now, obviously, this bing bread is no ordinary [Read more…] about A New Model for a Mini Cookbook?

7 Tips to Successfully Crowdfund a Cookbook

January 19, 2016 by diannejacob 22 Comments

Author Kathy Strahs raised more than $21,000 on Kickstarter to publish The 8×8 Cookbook. The project was named a Staff Pick, boosting its visibility.

A guest post by Kathy Strahs

Over the past 18 months, both first-time and established authors learned to crowdfund a cookbook on Kickstarter, and raised good money. Here’s a sample:

Leanne Brown, Good and Cheap: $144,681
Hank Shaw, Buck, Buck, Moose: $93,763
Emily Kaiser Thelin and Andrea Nguyen: UNFORGETTABLE: $91,465
Anna Watson Carl, The Yellow Table Cookbook: $65,815
Leslie Jonath and 18 Reasons, Feed Your People: $40,805

Mine was one. After writing The Ultimate Panini Press Cookbook with a traditional publisher in 2013, I published The 8×8 Cookbook this past fall by establishing a publishing company, Burnt Cheese Press, and crowdfunding my cookbook on Kickstarter. I raised [Read more…] about 7 Tips to Successfully Crowdfund a Cookbook

The Joy of Passive Income, Through Self-Published Books

July 8, 2014 by diannejacob 25 Comments

A Guest Post by Jill Nussinow

Culinary Educator Jill Nussinow sells print-on-demand cookbooks on her website, which lead to passive income.

Just last week, I made almost $100 in e-book sales with almost zero effort. The cost was a minute or two of my time to login to e-junkie.com, enter the buyers’ information and hit the Send button. The money showed up in my PayPal account like magic. Who wouldn’t love that?

I got the idea to sell a downloadable cookbook in March 2011, when I hired a designer to format my manuscript. Within a few weeks, I had something saleable but wasn’t sure how to sell it. A publisher mentioned [Read more…] about The Joy of Passive Income, Through Self-Published Books

Self-publishing Success with a Paleo Cookbook

July 10, 2012 by diannejacob 40 Comments

Melissa Joulwan started out selling only on Amazon, but sales are so good she’s publishing the books herself and sending them to a distributor.

You may have heard of the latest craze, the Paleo diet. Cookbooks on this subject are selling like crazy since they started appearing in 2010.

Austin, Texas-based Melissa Joulwan started a paleo diet three years ago. Both she and her photographer, husband David Humphreys, worked in ad agencies for 20 years and have a background in marketing, social media, and web development. She quit her job this year, after the success of her cookbook Well Fed: Paleo Recipes For People Who Love to Eat.

Q. How long were you on the diet before deciding to write a cookbook?

A. I started eating paleo three years ago, and I started posting recipes on my website two years ago. It was more of “what I ate last night.” Once I started writing that you could substitute [Read more…] about Self-publishing Success with a Paleo Cookbook