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Episode 363: 3 Questions Cookbook Writers Are Asking in 2025: Adaptation, Action, and Pricing · Cookbook Love Podcast

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Hi, everybody.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
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How's everybody doing today?
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As always, hope you're doing well.
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I am recording this in the middle of August.
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And I just finished an epic week of training inside Recipe Week Live 2025.
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It was a wonderful opportunity to meet many of you who are
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wanting to write recipes, better recipes, more original recipes.
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And I did a little poll inside Recipe Week Live 2025 Co. 'cause I was curious
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if we're writing recipes for family cookbooks or if we're writing them for our
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business or if we're building a business.
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And by and large, the results of the poll showed that you all want
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to write cookbooks related to.
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Your business, many of you are food culinary professionals, nutrition
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professionals, and writing a book that you can sell for profit is one of the
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things that you are interested in doing.
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Not that your family couldn't enjoy this book as well, but the primary motivator
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wasn't just a legacy family cookbook.
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Many of you who took the class and many of the students inside
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the class, the goal was profit.
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Selling a cookbook and making money off of it, earning royalties.
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And I think this is a really good thing to know before you head into a cookbook
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project because there's a difference.
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The way that we think about the cookbook and perhaps a difference
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in the way that we get it published.
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So today I want to share with you some questions that you guys have
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had based on Recipe Week Live 2025.
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Many of the questions that came up during the course of the week, and
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I thought that this might be helpful for those of you that weren't able to
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attend the week to hear the kinds of questions that other cookbook writers
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have and to get my take on these things.
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So first of all, one of the things that came up a couple of times, and
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I'm gonna summarize this here in the.
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First question is about recipe adaptation from other sources, other
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recipe writers, other cooks, other cookbooks, and how we credit the author.
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Now, this whole question came up on the day that we talked about recipe
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copyright law, and the most important thing to know about recipe copyright law.
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Is that a mere idea?
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Or a list of ingredients or a basic description of a process is not
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generally available or eligible for copyright protection because it's just
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a basic idea or it's a basic list of ingredients, or it's a basic process.
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There's so many of these types of foods out there.
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Everything from.
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Pancakes to scrambled eggs to vinegarette, to a basic formula for a quiche.
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The custard that would go into a quiche bread, basic hydrations for bread.
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How much flour, how much yeast, how much salt, how much water maybe
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the ratios for sourdough starter.
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There's just a lot of things that are basic.
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Processes and ideas, so no one really owns those or can have a copyright protection
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on those basic ideas or processes.
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This is why Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken, anybody else with a proprietary
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mix or list of ingredients in a spice blend or something, they don't
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disclose that because there is nothing.
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That would protect their list of ingredients from someone else
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using them in their product or for sale or in their cookbook.
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These things cannot be copyright protected.
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But what is protected based on something called the idea expression dichotomy,
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is that we can protect our work.
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We can help it to be copyright eligible by.
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Adding more to it than just the basic process or the basic list of ingredients.
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We can add life experiences.
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We can add stories, tips, history, write everything in our own words,
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express everything in our own words, and truly make a recipe our own by.
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Writing everything in our own words.
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I use the example in the class of, if we all, everybody here listening
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was giving the task of making a cranberry gelatin salad, for example.
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And we all were given the task of developing it, writing it, and sharing
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our printed version or our digital version of our recipe in a group.
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Every single recipe would be different because we all expressed how to make this
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salad in our own words and in our own way.
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Now, short of somebody plagiarizing or copying a recipe word for word, which
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is never considered ethical or allowed.
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The recipes would all have their own expression, and that's because
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we are all different people.
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We're all coming to the table and experiences with cranberries and making
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gelatin all completely different.
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Plus, when we're writing recipes, we're writing for an audience of
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people who can use our recipes.
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So we would even perhaps have a difference in the recipe based on
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the audience we're writing for.
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Are we writing for children?
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Are we writing for teens?
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Are we writing for young adults?
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Are we writing for experienced cooks or bakers?
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Are we writing for professional chefs?
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Are we writing recipes for people to use at home or in a professional kitchen?
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There's so many variables about our audience that even just that
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fact alone could change the way the recipe is written the question
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then is, how do I adapt a recipe?
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If I have been inspired by a recipe in my kitchen or something I read or a
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question about how do I adapt these things so that I'm not copying someone else?
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The first thing is that just remember the list of ingredients and the basic
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process is not copyright protected, but your expression of all of those things.
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Is what is protected.
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So the first thing you wanna do is express everything in your own words,
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including all the ingredients and all the instructions following the style that
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you have set forth for the way that you write your recipes, including whether
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you're using imperial measurements or standard measurements, whether you're
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using abbreviations or no abbreviations.
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And the way that you write everything out, you also wanna make it personal.
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You wanna add stories, tips, reasons for your technique, history,
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sourcing notes, basically what's your kitchen wisdom related to this?
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Never copy it word for word.
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And if you feel like you still want to disclose, not if you wanna disclose,
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but if you, are concerned that this recipe still doesn't deviate that
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much for the, from the original.
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You can ask for permission from the publisher to use their recipe, or you
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can change up the process completely.
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Or you can actually just say if everything's expressed in your own
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words, that this is adapted from or inspired by a recipe that I read
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and really giving simple honest.
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Inspiration information in the beginning of your recipes.
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When people buy a cookbook, they want to read your take on things.
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They want to know that you have cooked everything that's in this book.
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They want your voice, they want your judgment.
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They want your lived experience.
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They want your recipes, and that's what Make makes a cookbook copyright
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protected is the fact that these recipes are all an expression.
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Of the author bound in a book and their tried, true, developed,
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written, and tested recipes.
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So specifically, someone in the class asked about a recipe where
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they were curious if they could just change the process and not
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necessarily the ingredient list.
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Even though ingredient lists are not generally copyright protected,
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I still say that you should express it all in your own words.
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You should give credit to the person who inspired you to create
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this recipe, especially since it's a similar set of ingredients, but
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you're going to change up the process.
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So in short ethics of recipe writing say that we don't copy
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anyone's work word for word.
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We always give credit where credit is due.
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We know in the back of our mind that even our own recipe ingredient lists
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and our own basic processes that we may be included in a cookbook because
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they're not copyright protected.
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Someone else could use them as well.
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They could use them as a recipe for their own book.
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They could use them perhaps as, was done in the blog, Julia and Julia, where she
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cooked through the whole entire book and she posted her results on her blog.
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And also, there's nothing to stop anyone based on copyright law from perhaps
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cooking something out of your book, using it as a foundation for a physical product
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that they might sell as a caterer, a personal chef, or as a food business.
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So that's a roundabout way to say that you need to do everything in your power
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to express everything in your own words.
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And if at the end of the day you've written, you've done all that and
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you're still concerned that you have not disclosed perhaps who you were inspired
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by, where you got the original recipe from, you should go ahead and disclose
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that in the headnote of your recipe.
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Question number two is about cookbook writing, being hard, and what's
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the shift from just learning about cookbook writing to actually doing it?
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And the biggest difference is the application of the knowledge in the
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online world today and with social media today, and even listening to podcasts.
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Passive learning is very enjoyable and I would almost go so far as to
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say that we have become a society that is very strongly connected to,
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if not addicted to passive learning.
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We love all the how to information that is out there.
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We love all the how to videos that we can find even short
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videos about how to do things.
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We're hoarding and we're saving a lot of this information because
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we're just passively learning it.
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I bet if you went and looked at all the maybe free downloads you've signed up for,
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and listen, I'm talking about myself just as much as I might be talking about your
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experience, but if I go into Dropbox I, every year I start a new folder in Dropbox
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so I can look back to my 2023 folder.
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For example, and I can see all the workshops I created that year downloads
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that I created that year, but also any programs that I participated in,
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courses that I purchased, or free downloads that I took advantage of
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based on what other people are offering.
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So this is all passive learning until we make the decision
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to say yes, to make space.
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In our calendar, in our brain and apply what we have learned so that
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we actually are making progress on what it is we have learned about.
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So an example of this is I've been thinking about doing some sewing and
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making a gift for my family and some people in my life for Christmas.
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So it would require me to go.
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Onto YouTube, for example, or try to find a course about sewing
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and making this particular item.
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And I could do all of that and I could totally learn how to do it.
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Even buy a course, pay money, invest money in learning how to do it.
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But until I go to a fabric store or somewhere where fabric is sold and I buy
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fabric and I get out my sewing machine and I thread the sewing machine and start
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to sew it, everything is just passive.
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There is no.
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Engagement of me with my sewing machine to finish what it is I learned about.
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And it's much the same way with learning about writing a cookbook.
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Passive learning about writing a cookbook or writing recipes feels very comfortable.
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But the action that we need to take to write our recipes, to develop our recipes,
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to have them tested, to publish them in a cookbook takes a lot of courage.
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And it also takes.
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A shift where you give yourself the gift of time, you take small steps
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to make progress towards your goal.
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And that's the hard part about being educated or the hard part about learning
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is the application of what we have learned so that we get closer to the result or
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the goal that we have set out to do.
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And that.
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The teaching that we have received would lead us to, so in Recipe
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Week Live 2025, I taught all about recipe copyright, laws development,
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writing, testing, and publishing.
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And it was a great week, but the way that we all learned from that
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week truly is to take what we have learned and to turn it into action,
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to work on recipe development, to start keeping track of what we do.
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I have a tool I use called the pre recipe tool that we're using those
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to gather our ideas for a recipe.
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When we write recipes, we start from a blank page and we start to
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actually put words on the page.
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We're saving various versions of our recipe.
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We're having things tested by other people, and then we're taking
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the steps we want to take to get these published in a cookbook.
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So it's the hard part is the yes to ourself to.
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Carve out space on our calendar to take the time for our own dreams and to
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put what we have learned into action.
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That's where the discomfort calls in comes in.
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And that's what we need courage for.
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It's not for all the passive learning that we do, it's for the application
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of what it is that we have done.
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The interesting thing though is once we start to take
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action on what we've learned.
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We don't feel as much resistance.
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We feel resistance mostly when we have a goal we want to accomplish.
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We've learned the how to accomplish it, but we don't do anything with it.
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It feels horrible because we know that we have spent maybe money,
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we've spent time and learning how, but we don't take any steps.
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The momentum trick is to start taking steps.
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Toward the end result, learning along the way, completing little bits at a
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time, getting tiny wins, sharing it with the community, if that helps.
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And then actually doing it is what teaches us how to actually finish.
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Okay.
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The actual action steps that we take.
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So I'm big on learning.
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From learning from classes, courses but also from doing small repeatable
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actions that you commit to taking courageously and confidently to build
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the book that you want to write.
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And then question number three was about pricing for cookbooks on Amazon.
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And I thought this was an interesting question because I started talking
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with my students about recipe publishing and prices that.
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I and some of my students have charged four hour cookbooks on Amazon.
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And the question was, is it, are people really willing to pay
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25 to 30, $35 for a cookbook?
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And it's, so let me talk about this in a couple ways.
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First of all, in the cookbook space.
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It's not uncommon to see new premium print cookbooks that range
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around the high twenties to $40, sometimes even a little bit more.
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So that kind of sets the standard for what cookbooks might sell for.
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And self-published print cookbooks can also.
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Sit right alongside those prices because they deliver clear
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value like other cookbooks do.
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All cookbooks are teaching tools.
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All cook cookbooks have a repeat use resource, which means that you buy it once
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and you can use it over and over again.
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There's tested results and tested recipes in there.
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There's ways to save time in the kitchen.
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There's ways to become more confident as a cook.
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There's ways to learn about different cultures perhaps.
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You, there's stories for you to engage with based on what the author wrote about.
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So there's so much value that's inside a book that if you self-publish.
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And you wanna be sure that you're charging the correct amount in order
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to cover your costs and to have some profit for yourself at the end.
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Remember that we talked in the beginning that.
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A lot of the people that came to Recipe Week Live 2025 wanted to
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sell their cookbooks for profit.
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So just knowing that Amazon does offer a print cost and royalty calculator
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If you want to publish on KDP and you use this calculator to put in
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the specifications for your book what the trim size is gonna be, which
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means what are the dimensions of the.
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Front or the size of the book, it's an eight and a half by 11
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or five by eight or six by nine.
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You can set your specifications for the book.
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You can tell the calculator how many pages you want to have in the book,
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what kind of paper you want to use, and if you're doing black and white
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or if you're doing color printing.
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Sometimes we might see books on Amazon that we think are going to be
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cookbooks that are less than what.
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We might charge, but maybe everything is in black and white on the interior.
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Maybe there isn't a ton of story and it's just recipes.
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Maybe the value that was added by the author just isn't up to snuff, even though
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they may be only charged $10 for the book.
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Most of my students can find a pretty healthy margin if they
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price their book in the mid to high twenties or in the $30 range.
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It's important that you in particular, remember if you're
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going to print in color.
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The page count is going to, of course, bump up the production cost of the
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book and that you can actually make the price of your book something
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you're very aligned with through.
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The usability of your book, you know that it's very usable.
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You know that all the information in your book is correct.
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It's a very valuable book based on images or diagrams or call outs or
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sidebars that you put in the book.
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It's also very purposeful.
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It's maybe a teaching tool talking about history or heritage or
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sourcing food or seasonality.
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Your goal is to obviously help someone have more confidence in their
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kitchen, whether it be with menus or pantry frameworks or shopping
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lists, and that you have designed it in a way that's easily readable.
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It makes sense.
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There's a nice index to follow, and it really does offer
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solutions for your audience.
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So if all those things are true, and we have a cost calculator in KDP to help us.
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Price our book.
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Then the only difference then sometimes between a $15 book and a
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$25 book would be the amount of profit that you decide you want to take.
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Whenever a copy of your book sells, and I think it's important not to get
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wrapped up in some sort of a shame about this or to get wrapped up in
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that you don't deserve any profit from the book because that's not true If
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you are truly creating a cookbook to generate profit or a revenue stream.
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First of all, you need to own that.
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You need to be proud of that.
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You need to be so happy that we have the capacity to have a
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business where we can do that.
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You need to make your book as valuable as you can and charge it at a price
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that is the signal to what the cookbook teaches, how it guides people, and
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how it helps them in the kitchen.
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Price is a signal of that.
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It can be a signal of a very high quality book that's really going to help them.
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So what we might pay for a book or what we might pay for a fiction book
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or a black and white interior, like a novel or even a non-fiction book
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isn't always the same as what we might need to charge for a cookbook again,
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because it's color, because of the time involved in putting the recipes together.
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And things like that.
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So just remember the people do spend 25 to $40 on cookbooks on Amazon.
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Make sure if you're looking at prices, you're actually talking
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about a cookbook project.
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And just know that the way that you price your book is a signal to the valuable
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information that's in the book and all the things that you have created in
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that book for the user of the book.
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Okay, so that is it for the que some of the questions that came out of Recipe Week
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Live 2025 again when it comes to recipe development and testing and writing,
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giving credit where credit is due.
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And a little bit of summary there about recipe copyright laws.
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Then also I talked about the link between passive learning and active doing.
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That by doing things is how we actually apply what we learn.
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And that's the hard part of any project, is the doing part.
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And then the third thing we talked about today is pricing.
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Pricing that you're comfortable with, that you're confident is a
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signal that is really about helping people see the value in the book.
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Meaning that it becomes easy to charge 25.
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To 35, up to $40 for a cookbook that you have written and published.
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If people are shopping for the lowest price book anyway, it might not be
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someone that you're interested in necessarily buying a copy of your book.
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We don't wanna price our work, and it's not a race to the bottom.
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This is a way for you to really signal to people the work you've put into the book.
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The time you've put into the book and the value of the book itself.
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So if you are interested in learning all about how to publish your recipes
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in a cookbook, a polished print cookbook on Amazon, my program cookbooks
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on KDP, is starting in September.
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I will.
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So this is a new cohort of this class.
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There's live instruction.
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Live coaching and video-based instruction where you're gonna learn how to organize
23:54
your content and format your recipes for printing and publishing on Amazon.
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So if you're interested in learning more and you're ready for structure,
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momentum, and support, I encourage you to join the wait list for cookbooks on kdp.
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There's a link below in the show notes or by heading over to
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www.cookbookwritersacademy.com/.
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KDP 2025 leave your name, your email address.
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When the door is open, you will be one of the first people to learn
24:29
about any special behind the scenes, early bird bonuses or bonuses to
24:35
get you to enroll in this program.
24:39
So that is it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
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This is your host, Maggie Green, and until next time, have a great
24:45
day and keep loving your cookbooks.