The Recipe Writer's Handbook, Revised and Updated (2024)

FAQs

How many recipes should be in a recipe book? ›

The standard expectation is that a cookbook should have between 70 and 100 recipes, but larger compendiums have at least 200. Think carefully about how many you want to include.

What is the average cost of self-publishing a cookbook? In general, it can cost between $1,000 to $20,000 to self-publish a book. This price varies depending on the additional editing, book cover design, and formatting services you choose.

On myfoodbook, you can create your own free online cookbooks. You can save any recipe on myfoodbook in your cookbooks, and you can also upload your own. Customise your ebooks with your own covers, dedication and recipes today - all for free.

The average landscape cookbook size is 11 × 8.5 inches with a horizontal page orientation, but you may also opt for smaller print sizes such as 9 × 6 inches and 8.5 × 5.5 inches. The commonly used square cookbook size is 12 × 12 inches, but there are other print sizes available such as 8 × 8 inches and 6 × 6 inches.

Please keep in mind each publisher has different contract terms. This is a single subject book with lots of history, narrative, and full color throughout. The cookbook would be approximately 50,000 to 150,000 words with 40 photos.

Similar to ideas, facts and history, there isn't copyright protection in recipes as mere lists of ingredients. This is clearly stated by the U.S. Copyright Office. Most recipes, however, include content beyond the ingredient list.

For example, if you wrote a cookbook with original illustrations and descriptions, it would be eligible for copyright protection. But the individual recipes in the cookbook would not be protected by copyright law. The first thing to understand is that recipes are not copyrightable.

Both large and small groups can make huge profits with cookbook fundraisers. Cookbooks easily sell for 2–4 times their cost, allowing you to earn $500 to $50,000 or more! We're so sure you'll make money that we back it with our No-Risk Guarantee.

Recipe Keeper is the easy to use, all-in-one recipe organizer, shopping list and meal planner available across all of your devices. Enter your recipes with as much or as little information as you like.

Copyright can protect a published recipe in the way it's written, but not the way it's made. So, as long as you create your own versions of the recipes by rewriting them with your descriptions of how to make each, and you use your own images, yes, you can publish them in a cookbook.

What was Julia Child's famous phrase? ›

"This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook—try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun."

An average cookbook typically contains around 100-200 recipes. However, the number of recipes can vary greatly depending on the type of cookbook and the specific publisher. Some cookbooks may have as few as 50 recipes, while others may have over 500.

I recommend that your cookbook have a minimum of 50 recipes. You'll want to test these recipes yourself until you're very happy with the results and then ask others to test them. This part is tempting to skip, but don't!

Because you want your cookbook to be easily readable while scurrying around a kitchen, the smallest size to consider would be 6 x 9 inches. However, the standard cookbook size is the medium cookbook size of 7.5 x 9.25 inches.