How to Write a Cookbook!

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Twitter Updates for 2007-09-05

Adding a Disclosure Policy to http://tinyurl.com/39u2mc #
Updating Contact page at http://tinyurl.com/2qgf7c #

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Posted by on September 5th, 2007 under Twitter | Comment now »

Looking for Recipes

I was searching the blogosphere for some jalapeño pepper recipes when I came across this Award Winning Jalapeño Cottage Canoes Recipe on the Everyday Weekender blog. After jotting down the recipe I decided to surf around the blog for more food ideas … I found an Easy Delicious Rotisserie Chicken, a post on Picking the Perfect Steak, even a list of the Top 10 Beers. There’s lots of cool stuff here; it’s definitely worth another visit when I’ve more time to read through the other recipes.

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Posted by William Frederick on September 4th, 2007 under Recipes, cookbook, Research | Comment now »

Twitter Updates for 2007-08-21

Uploading images to http://www.flickr.com/photos/wffrederick/ #
Writing draft for blog. #
Reading my RSS feeds on bloglines… #

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Posted by on August 21st, 2007 under Twitter | Comment now »

Twitter Updates for 2007-08-19

I’m updating my blog at: http://howtowriteandpublishadamngoodcookbook.com/blog/ #
Browsing http://cookalmostanything.blogspot.com/ #
Adding Twitter Tools plugin to my blog. Cool. #

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Posted by William Frederick on August 19th, 2007 under Twitter | Comment now »

Some Early Results for My Cookbook’s Theme

After reviewing over 50 top selling cookbooks on Amazon.com, paying particular attention to the titles, I’ve noticed a trend. Many of the cookbooks are for: easy, fast, or variety recipes. For example, Easy Italian Recipes Cookbook - A Taste of Italy. Others are for health related issues: low-fat, diabetes, babies, or even fat flush. Narrowing the health related field there’s the diet cookbooks. Although “trendy,” these are always big sellers. I found several cookbooks on the South Beach Diet alone. There were also cookbooks on: Atkins, Weight Watchers, Pilates - with exercise planner. My favorite themes were based on television shows or books. These included: The Sopranos Family Cookbook, Sesame Street: Elmo’s Magic Cookbook, there’s even one adapted from an NBC Hit Show, The Biggest Loser Cookbook, and my favorite, drum roll please ….. Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook. Many were also ethnically focused; for example, Italian or Polish cookbooks.

Although writing a cookbook based around a television show or an existing book seems to be out, I could write a cookbook with an ethnic theme. Making the recipes easy and fast … and, possibly focusing on a health issue like high blood pressure or diabetes. That would add focus and narrow my audience, making it easier to contact and sell them.

What do you think?

Update: I deleted my Google Alerts for the word “cook.” I was receiving too many results for people with the last name Cook than anything related to cooking. The other alerts are revealing some valuable information.

Stay tuned …

Bill

Technorati Tags: Amazon.com,write a cookbook, Sopranos, Atkins, Weight Watchers, diabetes

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Posted by William Frederick on July 31st, 2007 under Amazon.com, Google Alerts, Research, Write a Cookbook | Comment now »

A Cookbook Theme, the Research Begins …

I started researching my cookbook theme today. For starters, I signed up with Google Alerts for the keywords: cook, cooking and cookbook. We’ll see what’s hot with cookbooks and cooking right now.

In case you’ve never heard of Google Alerts, they are email updates of the latest relevant Google search results from websites, blogs, news and groups that are based on your choice of query or topic, in this case cook, cooking and cookbook.

With Google Alerts you can:

* monitoring a developing news story
* keeping current on a competitor or industry
* getting the latest on a celebrity or event

I’m also beginning to search and compile a current listing of the top selling cookbooks from Amazon.com. Hopefully this will give me a “snap shot” of what to include in my cookbook.

Both of these tools should give me some direction of where to go with my soon-to-be-bestselling cookbook.

Stay Tuned …

Bill

Technorati Tags: cookbook, cooking, Google Alerts, Amazon.com

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Posted by William Frederick on July 24th, 2007 under Research, Write a Cookbook | Comment now »

How to Write and Publish a Damn Good Cookbook

If you’re a writer who cooks or a cook who writes, chances are good that you’ve thought about writing a cookbook. Me too. So, even though I’m not a trained chef, I am going to write and publish a cookbook … hopefully, a best-selling cookbook.

Isn’t that a lofty goal you ask? You bet it is. Will I make mistakes? Probably. Does that scare me? A little. Hopefully, with my inventive and playful DIY attitude, I won’t fall flat on my face.

Stick with me and you’ll learn how I research cooking trends and discover a profitable cookbook theme. How I research the competition and develop a unique selling position.

How will I come up with and test 100+ original, tasteful, tried-and-true, recipes? I’m not sure … yet.

Follow along as I find and work with editors, proofreaders, graphic designers, photographers and food stylists. Watch me file copyrights, trademarks and obtain ISBN numbers. Look over my shoulder as I negotiate with printers and select cover stock, binding and fine-tune the layout of my cookbook.

Finally, find out about distribution, publicity, marketing and anything else that I’m currently unaware of.

I think it’ll be fun. Don’t you?

Bill

Technorati Tags: cookbook, write a cookbook

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Posted by William Frederick on July 3rd, 2007 under Write a Cookbook | Comment now »