take your cookbook from dream to done

So, you want to write a cookbook! I’m pretty confident you could get yourself a book deal if you wanted. But here’s why I opted to self-publish. When pitching publishers, the process of going from idea to deal can take years, between writing a proposal, pitching, waiting, negotiating, and more. I wanted my book done now. The deals being offered to cookbook authors are worse than ever (small advances, sometimes no royalties, tight timelines). Many costs of creating the book come out of your advance (recipe development, recipe testing, photography, indexing). If you want to go on a book tour, that's on your own dime, too. You lose creative control. I had a vision for my book and didn’t want someone else telling me what to do. (I might have a problem with authority??? )

Being somewhat familiar with the Adobe suite makes things easier, but we start from step one and teach you how to use InDesign (an Adobe program) to create your cookbook. InDesign is somewhat easier to learn than other Adobe programs like Illustrator or Photoshop because it only has one function (formatting long documents and posters) and doesn't create graphics or edit photos. I have seen many people with little or no design experience get comfortable with the program in a short amount of time.

I’m sure you’re wondering about Canva: we don’t recommend it for many reasons, but you can use it if you want. We talk about this in greater detail inside the Cookbook Lab!

I’ve got you! We help you come up with ideas, make sure people are actually searching for cookbooks on that topic, and test those ideas with your audience.

Writing a cookbook opened so many doors for me! Since self publishing, I've had the opportunity to do live cooking demos at events, multiple TV appearances, podcast interviews, a magazine feature, LEAVE MY FULL TIME JOB and I've even been presented with cookbook offers from publishers (to which I said no), all because of my books.

I finished my books in 6 months with a fair amount of distraction. If you really wanted to push it, you could probably do it in as short as 3-4 months. It's okay if it takes longer, too! You'll have lifetime access to the Cookbook Lab. You can work at your own pace and go as slow or fast as you want.

We can help with that, too! We’ve got tons of resources to help you better your photography, including guest expert trainings from Joanie Simon and Sam Adler, and we’ll walk you through creating a cohesive look for your cookbook.

All of the skills you’ve built food blogging over the years have prepared you for this day! Some organizational and time management skills are helpful, as well as photography and basic design. But even if you don’t have the latter two, we are here to help!

The final costs are dependent on what you choose to hire out vs. do yourself, but I estimate you’ll spend between $1200 and $3500, including groceries. I have a free guide about pricing and cover this in depth in the course along with the real numbers of what I spent publishing my cookbooks.

You’ll be invited to a private Slack channel that I'm active in daily. My favorite support is our themed office hours where I'll answer any questions you have and you can hear questions from others. You’ll also receive accountability emails to help keep you on track and remind you of resources available inside the course.

That’s okay! I only had about 3000 Instagram followers when I launched my first book (and frankly, I still don't have many). As long as there’s demand for your book, which we talk about, you can sell it.