How to Create Your Very Own Cookbook- From Conception to Publication

 When you are a foodie and a chef, cooking dishes and sharing what you’ve made with the world is an absolute dream. It takes so much effort to truly bring dishes to life that it’s only natural that you want the benefits to go beyond just eating well for that one meal. While actually tasting your food is great, sharing your food is that much better.  

 
That’s why you may be entertaining the idea of creating and publishing your very own cookbook. If this is a dream of yours, and you aren’t a famous chef already, then it may feel like nothing more than a pipe dream.  

 
This is not true.  

 

You can absolutely put together, publish, and have people buy your cookbook again and again. The secret today is to build up an audience, establish your niche, and then use a few key publishing tricks to help your cookbook sell and sell big.  

 

While it’s a lot of work, a lot of the time, you just need to know what to do to finally start your journey, so start your publishing journey today by following this guide. 

 

Share Your Food Journey Online  

 

Creating content for social media takes a lot of time. It means combining your cooking skills with marketing, content creation, photography, videography, editing, and so much more. Starting right now to create your own content that showcases your cooking skills, recipe ideas, and personality, however, is essential. People who don’t work in the food industry don’t typically produce successful cookbooks. Either you self-publish to an audience of none, or you get rejection letters from the publishing companies who don’t want to try to sell from someone with no credentials. After all, they can’t test your recipes, which means they’re selling your expertise and personality.  

 

You can do this without working in a professional kitchen or in the food media space. You just need to grow your own online social media platform. Starting right now while you’re still figuring things out and working on creating your own recipes in the first place is the perfect place to do it.  

 

Remember to use the analytics feature to help you understand what type of content works best. Go crazy with your ideas and try out a variety of different approaches to see what works. For some, it’s the calm, sensory-first recipe making content that will help them soar. For others, it’s their personality or humor. Great-looking food is always a must, but authenticity and taking people along on your own journey to be a better chef can do so much.  

 

Find Your Niche  

 

A niche is powerful. It can help you find your audience faster and also gives you something that you are known for. To find your niche, start first with what you like most about food. This can be a type of diet, like vegetarian, pescetarian, vegan, or halal. It can be food based around certain ingredients, like locally grown produce.  

 

Finding a general theme is a great way to start your niche. You’ll then want to subdivide your theme. You can, for example, have an entire series about onions. Putting one ingredient at the forefront is a great way to build up your audience since it shows viewers just what they can do with a single ingredient.  

 

Not only that, but it’s also a great way to advertise that future cookbook. Creating and publishing a general cookbook without a theme is hard. However, publishing and selling a cookbook about onions and onion dishes is a great, eye-catching choice that makes cooking more accessible since it’s centered around a single ingredient.  

 

If you do choose such a niche, it’s important to delve deep into all areas of that one ingredient or type of meal. When testing recipes and tweaking them for your cookbook, however, it is important to keep costs low. For those who are serious about putting together a serious cookbook that’s full of amazing recipes that will continue to sell like hotcakes, it’s important to buy in bulk. Buy bulk onions online or go to specialty markets that sell business-to-business. You’ll want to focus on both fresh and dried ingredients to make your cookbook as approachable as possible. After all, it’s unlikely professional chefs with access to rare ingredients are going to be buying your cookbook. They might, but they’re never going to be your primary target. Your target audience is the general public, so try to find recipe ideas that make cooking easy and quick.  

 

Post Your Duds, Publish Your Gems  

 

When it comes to content, you can absolutely document your journey towards creating a cookbook. A great way to market and make use of the whole experience is to publish your “dud” recipes that taste good, just aren’t good enough for your cookbook, online for free. This can help drive up engagement on your social media and website, which you can then use to sell your book when the time comes.  

 

Work With Professionals to Put Together a Stunning Cookbook  

 
Cookbooks are works of art. They’re typically on display in the kitchen somewhere, which means a beautiful cookbook is actually a prerequisite for many home chefs. To help you create such a book, you’ll typically want to work with a professional. You can find one online, or you can try to get your book published through a traditional publisher (be sure to add your social media and engagement stats to your publication pitch).  

 
If you’re self-publishing, find and work with an illustrator and book designer. There are many out there today that help you create an absolutely beautiful cookbook that’s as much a work of visual art as it is a source of culinary art. Combine the two, print a few mock-ups, and then send them to friends and family. Send them a questionnaire with prompts such as rating the readability, design, ease-of-use, and so on of the book experience itself.  

 

You’ll also want to have testers for the recipes themselves. Everything needs to be easy to understand, follow, and get amazing results. This means you’ll need to earmark months of time just in testing, but it will be worth it. Once you’re done, you can start marketing your book to your wider audience and pitching it to other foodie influencers and even bookstores directly to get your cookbook out there to the wide world.