Talk to me about cookbooks

I know quite a few rescues do them. It's been suggested that we do one and I've kind of volunteered to put some time into it (yes, I do have a big sign on my forehead that says "CHUMP").

So what's involved other than the obvious--getting recipes and pictures. Are there copyright issues with people using recipes from old cookbooks or from cooking websites? How do you bind them--get fancy or just use the cerlox (sp) binder? Do you print up a bunch and sell them or do you do like we did with the Bob book and use a press that prints on demand?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I did my first cookbook about 25 years ago...it was a family cookbook..back in the day when I had to type up all the recipes. Talk about a pain in the arse and a time suck!! Then the first one I did with rescue was with the other Pug rescue...we had someone who worked at a printer but we still had to help putting the suckers together. Another big time suck.

With PugSavers we have used Morris Press which allows people to input the recipes themselves on line. Then someone from your organization will have to proof all of them (Rebecca did our 2 books). You need to get the photos and other info for the inside pages and the cover, then you have to order in bulk. It is generally a lot cheaper to buy in bulk than to do a POD type of thing. You can't make much of a profit on the POD type of cookbooks, but you don't need to schlep books around for a few year either.

Since unlike calendars, cookbooks can be sold for many years so I don't think if it as being a problem..in fact it is great always having something that is not just pug-specific to sell at different events.

Thank you, ma'am.

Morris Press does have it set up so that your contributors can type in their own recipe. It saves lots of time, but you may have to go back and reformat if you want abbreviations to be the same. You can also set the limit of recipes people can post. And... some of the recipes may be the same so you may need to deal with that. But, as questions come up, I would be happy to try to remember details.

Thanks Rebecca. Did you guys do human and dog recipes?

northernwitch wrote:Thanks Rebecca. Did you guys do human and dog recipes?

Yes, we paid extra to have custom categories so we could do human and dog recipes. It is cheaper if you do their standard categories. We also paid extra to have a custom cover and custom dividers with pictures. I have a pdf of our More Pugs in the Pantry Cookbook on my work computer I can forward to you if you want to see what we did. I won't be back at work until Monday though.

Rebecca and the Pugs wrote:

northernwitch wrote:Thanks Rebecca. Did you guys do human and dog recipes?

Yes, we paid extra to have custom categories so we could do human and dog recipes. It is cheaper if you do their standard categories. We also paid extra to have a custom cover and custom dividers with pictures. I have a pdf of our More Pugs in the Pantry Cookbook on my work computer I can forward to you if you want to see what we did. I won't be back at work until Monday though.

That would be great if you wouldn't mind, Rebecca. And there's no rush.

Having contributed recipes to several fund-raising cookbooks, I must say that PugSavers' More Pugs in the Pantry was the easiest ever. I was able to add notes and comments, and was very pleased with how they came out. Pugsavers' Pugs and the More Pugs have become some of my go-to cookbooks, by the way.