Cookbooks are one of the most complex kinds of books. If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with your cookbook project, you are not alone! One cookbook creator said to me, “Thank goodness that ignorance is bliss. We didn’t know what we didn’t know, or who knows if we would have been brave enough to take on this cookbook project! I’m a little overwhelmed with pulling this all together…” I have compiled some of the questions my cookbook clients have asked me, to help answer some of your questions, too! If you have more questions, just fill out the free consultation form to get in touch.
Photo by Brett Jordan via Unsplash
I have a cookbook that I really love. Can you copy the style of that cookbook for my cookbook?
I always ask to see some of your favourite cookbooks and also some cookbooks from a similar genre (cookbooks that might sell next to yours) before I start designing. You may not have the words to describe the style that you like, but when you show me visuals, I can find the common theme flowing through all of the books you like and come up with a design that has the same feel without directly copying someone else’s cookbook!
What size should my cookbook be?
Please read my article here about what size to make your self-published book. This is something that must be decided before design and layout can begin, and may be influenced by what printer or style of printing (print on demand vs. offset) you are using. Learn more about getting pricing or info from a book printer here.
Are my photos good enough for a cookbook?
If you are working with a professional photographer, your images should be high enough quality for a cookbook. But if you are shooting your own images, do lots of researching and practicing to make sure you are producing images that are high quality. If you want me to check the resolution of an image for you, or give an opinion on the quality of the photos themselves, I can do that. Learn more about how to shoot photos for a cookbook at this link.
Some of my cookbook images need editing, can you recommend a good photo editor with experience in food photography editing?
I know an excellent photo editor and can put you in touch with her. She does both Photoshop retouching (like removing wrinkles) or general editing (giving all of the photos in the cookbook a similar look and feel).
Do I need to have all of my files (text and images) ready for you to be able to begin working on my cookbook?
Usually a cookbook project starts with the cover design. If you have everything you need for the front cover, and a draft of the interior text and images so that I get a feel for the cookbook, I can design the cover. I can also create sample layouts for the interior (such as a few sample pages for each main page style, like opening pages, recipe pages, photo pages, article pages) before everything else is ready. But after the cover design and interior sample layout are done, I wait until all the remaining material except the index (which cannot be created until the print layout is fully finalized and no page positions will be changing) is completely finalized.
For some clients, I divide the project into two stages. Stage One is the cover and interior layout sample stage. Then they approach publishers with those samples, and when they find a publisher (or if they decide to self-publish) they come back for Stage Two, which is the full interior layout and design, spine and back cover layout.
If I want to print my cookbook in both soft- and hardcover, can I use the same pdf files for both editions?
As long as the page size of your book is the same, the interior files are exactly the same. The cover needs to be adapted for the two different cover editions, because the hardcover cover files need to be a lot larger to wrap around the hard board of the book cover.
Do I need an ebook version of my cookbook file? If so, what kind of file do I need?
Many cookbooks are released as ebooks as well, but that is not always the case. Research your target market and other cookbooks in your genre to see if they release both paper and e-editions or just a printed cookbook.
Should my cookbook ebook be fixed format or reflowable format?
A fixed format ebook would look just like your printed book visually. The format is “fixed”. This can be OK if the readers view it on a tablet or bigger screen, but if a person looks at it on a small screen like a phone, the text will be very small because the whole page will scale down to the size of the phone.
A reflowabale format ebook will reflow the text size, page size, image size, etc. to fit the size of the screen or device, but in so doing it loses the original formatting and it a bit more plain (think of a simple website, all the information is there but there is not a lot of fancy formatting.) If you look at this cookbook on Amazon and check the “look inside” feature for the Kindle (ebook), and then check the “look inside” feature for the hardcover (print), you will see how the Kindle book (epub) is formatted more simply. This is a reflowbale ebook.
I think the reflowable format is the best option for a cookbook because people so often look at ebooks on small devices and for ebooks, usually the content is more important to the reader than the visuals. More ebook adaptation information can be found here.
What does it cost to adapt a print cookbook layout to ebook?
It is not possible to give an exact price without seeing the complexity of the cookbook formatting, the number of images, the amount of front and back matter, etc. A wide range would be something like USD$400 to USD$800 to create an epub file from a print layout file that I have created. If I made the print files, then I know that I can make them into ebook files. However, if you are providing files I did not create, I have to check first if they are files that I can work with.
Do the cookbook files that you create belong to me in the end?
Yes, you own the rights to your cookbook files, both the pdfs and the editable (Adobe InDesign) files if you want them. Please be sure to request the editable files at the end of the project if you want them.