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Episode 398: Why Your Cookbook Project Feels Like It's Not Going Anywhere · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker: You're listening to the cookbook
• 0:03
  Speaker: Love Podcast with Maggie Greene,
• 0:05
  Speaker: episode number three hundred
• 0:07
  Speaker: ninety eight.
• 0:10
  Speaker: Welcome to the cookbook Love
• 0:12
  Speaker: Podcast, a podcast that
• 0:14
  Speaker: celebrates cookbook readers,
• 0:16
  Speaker: buyers, collectors, writers, and
• 0:18
  Speaker: clubs.
• 0:19
  Speaker: And now your host, cookbook
• 0:21
  Speaker: author, culinary dietitian, and
• 0:23
  Speaker: cookbook writing coach, Maggie
• 0:24
  Speaker: Greene.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Hi, everybody.
• 0:32
  Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 0:35
  Speaker: How's everybody doing today?
• 0:37
  Speaker: Hope you are all doing well.
• 0:39
  Speaker: I have been working behind the
• 0:42
  Speaker: scenes on a brand new cookbook
• 0:47
  Speaker: Publishing masterclass.
• 0:49
  Speaker: More details are going to be coming out about that very soon,
• 0:53
  Speaker: so stay tuned.
• 0:54
  Speaker: But today's episode is sort of
• 0:57
  Speaker: an in-between Episode, um,
• 1:00
  Speaker: bridging what I talked about
• 1:01
  Speaker: last week with my daily rhythms
• 1:04
  Speaker: and how I believe that cookbook
• 1:07
  Speaker: writers need to be rooted in
• 1:09
  Speaker: some rhythms in your day,
• 1:11
  Speaker: cooking, writing, obviously, and
• 1:14
  Speaker: then things to help you
• 1:15
  Speaker: generate, um, content and ideas
• 1:18
  Speaker: for your books, bridging that
• 1:21
  Speaker: with actually publishing your
• 1:24
  Speaker: book.
• 1:25
  Speaker: And that is what I like to think
• 1:28
  Speaker: about as the hidden cost of
• 1:33
  Speaker: working on a book without really
• 1:36
  Speaker: have any direction in what
• 1:38
  Speaker: you're doing.
• 1:40
  Speaker: So let me start with a few images so that you can kind of
• 1:43
  Speaker: grasp what it is I want to talk about and help you see today.
• 1:48
  Speaker: I want you to imagine that there
• 1:52
  Speaker: is a water skier in the water
• 1:56
  Speaker: Behind a boat that's water
• 2:00
  Speaker: skiing.
• 2:02
  Speaker: And she is enjoying the water skiing, kind of.
• 2:07
  Speaker: But she's going around in circles.
• 2:11
  Speaker: And the reason she's going around in circles is because
• 2:14
  Speaker: there's nobody driving the boat.
• 2:18
  Speaker: The boat is not does not have a captain doesn't have a driver.
• 2:24
  Speaker: No one is directing the boat.
• 2:25
  Speaker: Therefore, the water skier is just aimlessly going in circles
• 2:31
  Speaker: in the water.
• 2:33
  Speaker: It's also like maybe thinking
• 2:36
  Speaker: about preheating an oven,
• 2:38
  Speaker: pulling out all your ingredients
• 2:40
  Speaker: to bake something, lining them
• 2:42
  Speaker: up on the counter but never
• 2:45
  Speaker: deciding what you're going to
• 2:46
  Speaker: bake and never putting the
• 2:51
  Speaker: recipe together.
• 2:53
  Speaker: So everything just sits there.
• 2:54
  Speaker: The oven's preheated, the ingredients are sitting out, but
• 2:58
  Speaker: you've never really decided what you're going to make.
• 3:02
  Speaker: Or what if you packed your suitcase, you went to the
• 3:05
  Speaker: airport, you went through security, but then you're
• 3:12
  Speaker: standing at the gate.
• 3:13
  Speaker: If you could do that in twenty
• 3:15
  Speaker: twenty six with no ticket
• 3:17
  Speaker: because you don't know where
• 3:18
  Speaker: you're going, there's a lot of
• 3:22
  Speaker: energy and effort that we
• 3:23
  Speaker: expend.
• 3:24
  Speaker: There's even excitement about
• 3:26
  Speaker: water skiing and baking and
• 3:27
  Speaker: taking trips, but there's no
• 3:29
  Speaker: direction.
• 3:31
  Speaker: And that's exactly what happens
• 3:33
  Speaker: when we start cookbook projects
• 3:35
  Speaker: without really deciding on our
• 3:37
  Speaker: destination.
• 3:39
  Speaker: We work and we we cook and we
• 3:42
  Speaker: write recipes and we're, we're
• 3:44
  Speaker: showing up and we're doing what
• 3:45
  Speaker: we've talked about doing on this
• 3:47
  Speaker: podcast.
• 3:49
  Speaker: We're taking notes, we're
• 3:50
  Speaker: developing recipes, but our work
• 3:53
  Speaker: isn't really going anywhere
• 3:55
  Speaker: because it's not pointed
• 3:56
  Speaker: anywhere yet.
• 3:58
  Speaker: So what feels like we're doing something for our book actually
• 4:02
  Speaker: doesn't make any progress toward what is important.
• 4:06
  Speaker: And this is where so many of my people on my email list get
• 4:13
  Speaker: stuck and get frustrated.
• 4:16
  Speaker: And all of this comes with
• 4:18
  Speaker: costs, like hidden costs that
• 4:19
  Speaker: most people don't really see
• 4:20
  Speaker: until they're kind of deep in
• 4:22
  Speaker: the process.
• 4:22
  Speaker: And that's what I want to help you to understand today, because
• 4:25
  Speaker: I hear this all the time.
• 4:27
  Speaker: People say, I want to write a
• 4:29
  Speaker: cookbook, but I'm not sure where
• 4:30
  Speaker: to start.
• 4:32
  Speaker: This feels too complicated.
• 4:35
  Speaker: Um, I feel like most of what I cook is just variations of
• 4:39
  Speaker: recipes I see everywhere else.
• 4:44
  Speaker: I hear people say things like, um, I like to have more input
• 4:50
  Speaker: maybe on the layout.
• 4:52
  Speaker: I'm doing food photography.
• 4:54
  Speaker: I'm styling my photos.
• 4:56
  Speaker: Um, they say things like, but how do I get it published?
• 5:02
  Speaker: And there's so many cookbooks out there.
• 5:04
  Speaker: Why would people even want mine?
• 5:07
  Speaker: And all of these sound like
• 5:08
  Speaker: different problems people are
• 5:10
  Speaker: having with their cookbook
• 5:11
  Speaker: writing, but it's really not
• 5:12
  Speaker: different problems.
• 5:13
  Speaker: It's all one thing.
• 5:15
  Speaker: And what that means is that we're working on cookbooks
• 5:18
  Speaker: without deciding and without knowing what we're doing is
• 5:26
  Speaker: building toward, and there are real cost to not making these
• 5:30
  Speaker: decisions about where we're headed with our cookbook.
• 5:33
  Speaker: First of all, we spend a ton of time.
• 5:36
  Speaker: It's not just that things take
• 5:38
  Speaker: longer, it's that you spend time
• 5:41
  Speaker: doing work that doesn't move
• 5:44
  Speaker: anything toward where you want
• 5:47
  Speaker: to go.
• 5:48
  Speaker: When people say they don't know where to start.
• 5:50
  Speaker: What's really happening is that
• 5:52
  Speaker: they're starting in a lot of
• 5:53
  Speaker: different places.
• 5:55
  Speaker: They're working on a lot of different things, but there's
• 5:57
  Speaker: not really any clear direction.
• 5:59
  Speaker: So the book doesn't really fit together.
• 6:02
  Speaker: Their work doesn't fit together.
• 6:03
  Speaker: They end up with pages of content that don't really look
• 6:06
  Speaker: like they fit in a final book.
• 6:08
  Speaker: They're working on layout, but they don't really know why.
• 6:11
  Speaker: There's no structure to anything that they're actually doing.
• 6:15
  Speaker: And then once they actually
• 6:16
  Speaker: determine the structure or they
• 6:17
  Speaker: determine the direction, they
• 6:18
  Speaker: have to go back and redo
• 6:19
  Speaker: everything.
• 6:21
  Speaker: It's like cooking three
• 6:22
  Speaker: different meals just halfway
• 6:24
  Speaker: through and finishing none of
• 6:25
  Speaker: them.
• 6:26
  Speaker: You're putting in a ton of time
• 6:28
  Speaker: and you're making effort, but
• 6:30
  Speaker: you're not accumulating anything
• 6:32
  Speaker: that matters.
• 6:34
  Speaker: And there's no compounding
• 6:35
  Speaker: effect to the work that you're
• 6:36
  Speaker: doing.
• 6:37
  Speaker: So when often when people say
• 6:40
  Speaker: they don't have time to work on
• 6:42
  Speaker: a book project, it's because
• 6:43
  Speaker: there's no direction and they're
• 6:46
  Speaker: spending so much time wasting
• 6:48
  Speaker: time.
• 6:49
  Speaker: The project feels so big that
• 6:51
  Speaker: they just actually want to say
• 6:52
  Speaker: they don't have time to work on
• 6:54
  Speaker: it.
• 6:54
  Speaker: The second thing that I see is that it does actually cost us
• 6:57
  Speaker: money if we don't have a direction for our book project.
• 7:02
  Speaker: Um, when someone tells me they
• 7:05
  Speaker: want help with layout or
• 7:06
  Speaker: photography early on, I usually
• 7:08
  Speaker: understand why they say that
• 7:10
  Speaker: because everybody likes
• 7:12
  Speaker: everything to look really
• 7:13
  Speaker: pretty.
• 7:14
  Speaker: They think, well, if they can
• 7:15
  Speaker: make it look nice, um, it'll
• 7:17
  Speaker: help to make it clear about what
• 7:18
  Speaker: I should be doing, but without a
• 7:21
  Speaker: direction.
• 7:22
  Speaker: It's very easy to invest in the wrong things at the wrong time.
• 7:26
  Speaker: For a book project, you might
• 7:28
  Speaker: pay for someone to take photos
• 7:29
  Speaker: before you really even know if
• 7:31
  Speaker: you need photos, if you need to
• 7:34
  Speaker: be the one taking the photos or
• 7:36
  Speaker: what the photos actually even
• 7:38
  Speaker: need to be for the book that
• 7:39
  Speaker: you're ultimately going to
• 7:41
  Speaker: write.
• 7:42
  Speaker: You spent.
• 7:42
  Speaker: You might spend money on book
• 7:44
  Speaker: design or layout before the
• 7:45
  Speaker: structure of the book is even
• 7:47
  Speaker: clearer.
• 7:48
  Speaker: You might have someone hired for editing before you actually have
• 7:53
  Speaker: a version of the book that's going to be published that needs
• 7:56
  Speaker: to actually be edited.
• 7:59
  Speaker: None of these decisions are bad decisions in themselves.
• 8:02
  Speaker: They're just premature.
• 8:03
  Speaker: It's like furnishing a house
• 8:05
  Speaker: before you even have the
• 8:06
  Speaker: blueprint drawn to build the
• 8:08
  Speaker: house.
• 8:09
  Speaker: The pieces of the furniture are beautiful, but they might not
• 8:12
  Speaker: actually fit in the space that you're actually building.
• 8:15
  Speaker: And then later, you're going to have to redo the work or absorb
• 8:18
  Speaker: the costs of starting over.
• 8:21
  Speaker: The third thing that happens to
• 8:22
  Speaker: people when they start working
• 8:25
  Speaker: on a cookbook without direction
• 8:27
  Speaker: is momentum.
• 8:29
  Speaker: And this is the one that most
• 8:30
  Speaker: people feel the most because,
• 8:33
  Speaker: uh, one of my coaches once said,
• 8:35
  Speaker: there's a half life to
• 8:37
  Speaker: excitement.
• 8:38
  Speaker: We all start out excited about starting new projects.
• 8:43
  Speaker: We all have tons of ideas.
• 8:45
  Speaker: We feel highly motivated.
• 8:47
  Speaker: But then about.
• 8:49
  Speaker: Generally, for my students, it's about ninety days in.
• 8:53
  Speaker: As they start to learn more, their confidence kind of drops
• 8:57
  Speaker: and they start to think things are feeling more complicated.
• 9:01
  Speaker: Or you might notice if you're working on your own, that you're
• 9:03
  Speaker: not opening your document as often, you might feel like
• 9:07
  Speaker: you're slowing down, you're questioning the project.
• 9:09
  Speaker: It starts to feel like maybe you're thinking, I'm just not
• 9:13
  Speaker: disciplined enough to do this.
• 9:15
  Speaker: I'm not ready to do this.
• 9:18
  Speaker: But what's really happening is
• 9:19
  Speaker: that your effort is not creating
• 9:22
  Speaker: any traction.
• 9:23
  Speaker: When you don't know where the work is leading you to.
• 9:26
  Speaker: It's hard to sustain energy.
• 9:29
  Speaker: It's like running and running and running and not really
• 9:32
  Speaker: knowing where you're going.
• 9:35
  Speaker: I want to tell you this is not a motivation problem.
• 9:39
  Speaker: It might feel like it is, but it's not.
• 9:41
  Speaker: It is totally a direction problem, and over time, that
• 9:46
  Speaker: starts to feel like your project is stalling even though you are
• 9:50
  Speaker: still working on it.
• 9:53
  Speaker: And then the fourth thing that
• 9:54
  Speaker: happens is we miss
• 9:56
  Speaker: opportunities.
• 9:58
  Speaker: When someone says to me, I have ideas, but I don't know how I'm
• 10:02
  Speaker: going to take these ideas to someone who would want the book.
• 10:06
  Speaker: That's a publishing path issue, and you have to decide before
• 10:11
  Speaker: you even know if you want someone to want the book is if a
• 10:15
  Speaker: traditional publishing deal is even what you want.
• 10:18
  Speaker: There are specific things that matter early.
• 10:20
  Speaker: If you want to do traditional publishing, like how your book
• 10:24
  Speaker: is positioned, who your reader is, and how you're going to
• 10:27
  Speaker: build relationships and visibility with these readers.
• 10:31
  Speaker: But if you want to self-publish, there are a lot of early
• 10:34
  Speaker: decisions you have to make that are not the same as if you want
• 10:38
  Speaker: to traditionally publish.
• 10:40
  Speaker: Like, what kind of book are you creating?
• 10:42
  Speaker: How is it going to be used and how are you going to print and
• 10:46
  Speaker: distribute the book?
• 10:48
  Speaker: And if you're deep in recipe writing and story writing
• 10:51
  Speaker: without knowing the path, what ends up happening is you're not
• 10:55
  Speaker: making the publishing decisions.
• 10:58
  Speaker: Opportunities may pass you by because you have not decided on
• 11:03
  Speaker: the direction of your book, and you don't put your work in front
• 11:08
  Speaker: of the right people.
• 11:09
  Speaker: You don't ask the right people
• 11:10
  Speaker: to help you with the right
• 11:11
  Speaker: things.
• 11:12
  Speaker: You don't shape your idea in a way that invites a yes.
• 11:16
  Speaker: And often you don't even realize
• 11:18
  Speaker: that the opportunities you have
• 11:20
  Speaker: missed or the money you've left
• 11:22
  Speaker: on the table until much, much
• 11:24
  Speaker: later.
• 11:26
  Speaker: And then the fifth thing that happens is we get overwhelmed.
• 11:29
  Speaker: And this is where everything that I have mentioned above
• 11:33
  Speaker: starts to pile up.
• 11:35
  Speaker: And people start to say things
• 11:37
  Speaker: like, my bottleneck is my
• 11:39
  Speaker: platform.
• 11:40
  Speaker: I'm not a fan of social media.
• 11:42
  Speaker: I'd like more input on layout
• 11:44
  Speaker: and styling and without a
• 11:46
  Speaker: direction for our book,
• 11:47
  Speaker: everything that we do feels
• 11:49
  Speaker: equally important.
• 11:51
  Speaker: We think that recipes matter,
• 11:53
  Speaker: the platforms matter, the photos
• 11:54
  Speaker: matter, the design matters, the
• 11:56
  Speaker: writing matters.
• 11:56
  Speaker: And it's true.
• 11:57
  Speaker: They all matter.
• 11:58
  Speaker: But the problem is we're trying to do this all at once.
• 12:02
  Speaker: And instead of moving forward
• 12:04
  Speaker: with one thing, we're pulled in
• 12:06
  Speaker: multiple directions.
• 12:08
  Speaker: We're just like that water skier
• 12:10
  Speaker: that is water skiing around in
• 12:12
  Speaker: circles.
• 12:13
  Speaker: There's no direction.
• 12:15
  Speaker: There's no filter to what we're doing.
• 12:17
  Speaker: There's no sequence.
• 12:18
  Speaker: There's no clear sense of what actually comes first based on
• 12:21
  Speaker: the direction that we're headed.
• 12:23
  Speaker: So when everything feels urgent, we're not actually getting
• 12:28
  Speaker: anything done because we don't know what to pick that's going
• 12:31
  Speaker: to make a difference.
• 12:33
  Speaker: So underneath all of these
• 12:36
  Speaker: things that start to happen when
• 12:38
  Speaker: we don't have a direction with
• 12:39
  Speaker: our books, we start to doubt our
• 12:43
  Speaker: work.
• 12:44
  Speaker: We start to doubt whether our cookbook will really measure up
• 12:47
  Speaker: against someone else's.
• 12:49
  Speaker: And the thing that I want you to see is that your book will
• 12:55
  Speaker: measure up against someone else's, because you bring
• 12:58
  Speaker: something to the project that no one else can bring to the
• 13:01
  Speaker: project, and that's yourself.
• 13:03
  Speaker: Just remember that you are the
• 13:06
  Speaker: differentiating factor in your
• 13:08
  Speaker: book, your life experience, and
• 13:11
  Speaker: what you bring to the table, so
• 13:13
  Speaker: to speak, is what makes your
• 13:14
  Speaker: book different.
• 13:15
  Speaker: It's just because it hasn't been shaped into something and given
• 13:18
  Speaker: direction yet that you are feeling this way.
• 13:22
  Speaker: So here's what I want you to take from this episode.
• 13:28
  Speaker: Your cookbook is not just a
• 13:30
  Speaker: collection of recipes and
• 13:32
  Speaker: stories.
• 13:33
  Speaker: It is a specific offer to a
• 13:36
  Speaker: specific group of people that
• 13:39
  Speaker: either invites a publisher to
• 13:41
  Speaker: say yes to you through a
• 13:43
  Speaker: traditional publishing deal, or
• 13:45
  Speaker: invites you to create the book
• 13:48
  Speaker: and bring it to life yourself
• 13:49
  Speaker: through self-publishing.
• 13:51
  Speaker: And these two paths ask
• 13:54
  Speaker: different things of you at the
• 13:56
  Speaker: very beginning.
• 13:57
  Speaker: Right now, when you're starting
• 13:59
  Speaker: your project, not just later,
• 14:02
  Speaker: but now.
• 14:04
  Speaker: So instead of starting with recipes, I want you to think
• 14:10
  Speaker: about a decision and put a driver in the boat so that the
• 14:16
  Speaker: water skier is going in the direction and getting somewhere
• 14:21
  Speaker: with a driver in the boat.
• 14:24
  Speaker: This is like thinking about, um,
• 14:27
  Speaker: having our heart on a string
• 14:29
  Speaker: doing something we love, but our
• 14:32
  Speaker: head is not involved in the
• 14:34
  Speaker: project and our head will lead
• 14:36
  Speaker: and our heart will always
• 14:38
  Speaker: follow.
• 14:39
  Speaker: So what do you want with your book?
• 14:44
  Speaker: Do you want a traditional publishing deal?
• 14:46
  Speaker: Do you want a self-publish?
• 14:48
  Speaker: Is this a legacy book for your family, or is this a book for
• 14:52
  Speaker: your community or your audience that you've already built?
• 14:56
  Speaker: And I promise, once you decide
• 14:58
  Speaker: that, everything else begins to
• 14:59
  Speaker: line up because you know what to
• 15:01
  Speaker: focus on, and you know what can
• 15:03
  Speaker: wait.
• 15:03
  Speaker: And you know what a traditional publisher does, and you know
• 15:06
  Speaker: what self-publishing is, and you know what actually is going to
• 15:10
  Speaker: move the project forward.
• 15:12
  Speaker: So what I wanted you to know
• 15:16
  Speaker: today, more than anything else,
• 15:18
  Speaker: is that the work that you're
• 15:20
  Speaker: putting in on a cookbook project
• 15:22
  Speaker: and the dreams that you have to
• 15:24
  Speaker: write a cookbook may feel like
• 15:27
  Speaker: overwhelm.
• 15:28
  Speaker: It might feel like you're not getting anywhere.
• 15:31
  Speaker: It might feel like you're
• 15:32
  Speaker: spending tons of time and not
• 15:35
  Speaker: having any accumulation of your
• 15:37
  Speaker: efforts.
• 15:38
  Speaker: It may feel like you're spending money, but you're not seeing any
• 15:41
  Speaker: results, mainly because you have not chosen a direction for the
• 15:48
  Speaker: publishing for your book.
• 15:51
  Speaker: Because without this direction,
• 15:53
  Speaker: you're in motion, but you're not
• 15:55
  Speaker: moving forward.
• 15:58
  Speaker: And with a direction and a
• 16:02
  Speaker: decision, the work will start to
• 16:04
  Speaker: connect and the decisions get
• 16:06
  Speaker: easier.
• 16:07
  Speaker: In the book starts to become real, all because you've been
• 16:13
  Speaker: willing to decide what direction your book is going in.
• 16:19
  Speaker: So just ask yourself, have I
• 16:21
  Speaker: decided what direction I'm
• 16:24
  Speaker: taking the publishing for this
• 16:25
  Speaker: book?
• 16:26
  Speaker: And if the answer is no, then that could be why you're feeling
• 16:31
  Speaker: overwhelmed or out of time, or like you're spending effort, but
• 16:36
  Speaker: you're not seeing any results.
• 16:39
  Speaker: And once we make that decision and we know whether we're headed
• 16:44
  Speaker: in the right direction, whether our boat has a driver, then we
• 16:48
  Speaker: can start taking the steps toward the publishing that we
• 16:51
  Speaker: have decided that we want.
• 16:53
  Speaker: It makes all the difference in the world.
• 16:56
  Speaker: And the thing about it is, the difference between traditional
• 16:58
  Speaker: publishing and self-publishing are vast and varied.
• 17:03
  Speaker: There are some parts of the
• 17:04
  Speaker: projects that are similar, but
• 17:06
  Speaker: the way we start them is
• 17:08
  Speaker: completely different.
• 17:10
  Speaker: So I hope today that this helps
• 17:12
  Speaker: you to see that your desire to
• 17:15
  Speaker: write a book is a beautiful
• 17:16
  Speaker: thing.
• 17:17
  Speaker: Your desire to share your recipes and stories in a
• 17:20
  Speaker: cookbook is a beautiful thing to just like water skiing is.
• 17:24
  Speaker: But we need to have someone driving the boat.
• 17:26
  Speaker: You need to make a clear
• 17:27
  Speaker: decision about the type of
• 17:30
  Speaker: publishing you're interested in
• 17:31
  Speaker: doing before you start your next
• 17:34
  Speaker: steps?
• 17:35
  Speaker: So if you are interested in learning more about the upcoming
• 17:39
  Speaker: Cookbook Publishing Masterclass, there is a link down below in
• 17:44
  Speaker: the show notes for you to get on the waitlist, get on the email
• 17:48
  Speaker: list, and all the further details will be coming out, and
• 17:52
  Speaker: I'll talk about it more in next week's episode of the podcast.
• 17:56
  Speaker: So that's it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 17:59
  Speaker: This is your host, Maggie Green.
• 18:01
  Speaker: And until next time, have a
• 18:02
  Speaker: great day and keep loving your
• 18:04
  Speaker: cookbooks.
• 18:09
  Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 18:12
  Speaker: You can find out more information at w w w dot dot co.