Editor in Chief of "Country Living" magazine Rachel Hardage Barrett shows us how to create a festive holiday table setting from "Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas" book. Get the full instructions here.
Select your best or favorite recipes. A good cookbook is an assemblage of a well thought-out collection of recipes that reflect themes, such as starters, appetizers, entrées, desserts, baking, etc. Generally you stick to one cooking style rather than being too eclectic, for example, raw, homestyle, old-fashioned, family friendly, easy cooking, fast cooking, dinner party cooking, fresh, seafood focused, etc. You might also consider the recipes that are always a hit with family and friends and that are fairly fail-proof. These virtues can be touted and will encourage readers to give such recipes a try. Prepare the recipes. If you have them in a variety of places such as your head, different pieces of paper, various cookbooks etc., it's time to draw together your collection. Always use your own words when writing up the recipes. While lists of ingredients are not covered by copyright and common ways of performing recipe actions are usually not copyright either, the words used to describe the methods in each step or as a whole are copyright, so you must use your own words where you are relying on your cookbook collection. Acknowledge where possible. If you know you've used a recipe from a favorite chef for the past few years, consider acknowledging the original source, even though you've long since deviated from the exact same ingredients. It's a common courtesy and helps to maintain the sense of ongoing sharing and pride that is commonplace in the cooking community. Take photos. If you are adding photos to your cookbook, make up the meals or items and photograph them. Contemporary readers tend to expect more images in cookbooks than was the case in cookbooks of the past. Photos help the reader imagine the end result more concretely and give inspiration to try the dish out. Take several photos from differing angles to get the best possible final shot of each recipe being photographed. You don't need a photo for all recipes unless that's the sort of cookbook style you're after; just select the recipes that you'd most like featured as part of the photos. Make any changes to photos using photo fixing software. If you can't take photos or don't like doing it while juggling the cooking, find a friend or family member willing to help. Some printing places will do this for you but it adds to the cost, so it's best to do it yourself if you're self-publishing. Bring the recipes together. Select the order in which you would like to place the recipes in the cookbook. Write an overview and a table of contents to help guide your placement. Look at existing cookbooks for ideas of the way that recipes are usually ordered. While it's okay to be slightly quirky, remember that readers have fairly set-in-stone ideas of the usual direction of recipe books, which tends to be savory to sweet, starters to mains to dessert, and so forth, depending on what food selections you're bringing together. Publishing the Cookbook
