Writing a good cookbook is about more than just having a bunch of good recipes. There are so many recipes currently available for people to access for free on the internet that it takes marketing, originality, organization, and of course good recipes as well. Before you start selling your cookbook, you should make sure it is perfect as even one negative review could seriously hurt your sales, unless you are a well-known household name like Martha Stewart or have been on a Food Network TV show.

 Marketing

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of making your cookbook successful, as it is not just about how good your recipes are, but about getting people interested in your cookbook. This element includes advertising your cookbook to your target audience and making it appealing. Make sure everything from your cover to your cookbook’s description is appealing to your target audience. Do not focus on selling your cookbook to teenagers if it is intended for mothers. Once you begin advertising, make sure to have a budget for how much you can afford to spend and stay within that budget so that you do not go bankrupt before you even sell one copy. There are multiple advertising methods that are affordable for new authors such as: YouTube videos, freelance reviewers, and online giveaways.

Good Quality Recipes

Making sure your recipes are all good quality recipes is about more than just ensuring they make delicious food. The important thing is making sure they are understandable to other people and that someone else can follow the recipe in the way that you intended. The best way to ensure this is to select a recipe from each section of your cookbook and ask a different person to make each recipe. If all the recipes were made the way you intended, then you were successful. However, if some of your recipes fail when made by other people, then sit down with the people that made each of the failed recipes and talk to them about what exactly they did so that the recipe can be edited for better understanding.

Organization

Organization is the area that so many cookbook writers fail at implementing. So many writers just throw the recipes into sections based on the type of food and call it done. However, before you begin organizing your cookbook you need to think about the type of theme you are using. For instance, if you are writing a holiday cookbook then a simple appetizer, entrée, dessert, and drinks organization would be fine. However, if your cookbook is a beginner cookbook for teenagers, then the cookbook might be better off organized by the difficulty level or the type of main ingredient. The important part is that not only should the organization method be understandable to the reader, but the reader should also be able to locate their desired recipe quickly. Many cookbook writers have an intro page to each of the cookbook sections that includes a list of the recipes in the section and their page number to make it easier for the reader to locate their desired recipe.