Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 407: From Cookbook Dream to Book Deal: What It Really Costs

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Episode 407: From Cookbook Dream to Book Deal: What It Really Costs · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker: You are listening to the cookbook Love Podcast with
• 0:04
  Speaker: Maggie Greene, episode number four oh seven.
• 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: All is well here in my cookbook bunker.
• 0:40
  Speaker: I'm recording this episode in
• 0:43
  Speaker: the middle of the afternoon,
• 0:44
  Speaker: which is unusual for me, but
• 0:46
  Speaker: I've taken my walk in the
• 0:48
  Speaker: summertime.
• 0:48
  Speaker: I take it a little bit earlier.
• 0:50
  Speaker: I've done some work, sent some emails, and now taking time to
• 0:54
  Speaker: record this episode because we are headed to a family wedding
• 0:58
  Speaker: later in the week.
• 0:59
  Speaker: And I wanted to get this in the hopper for Scott to process and
• 1:04
  Speaker: get out to you.
• 1:06
  Speaker: One thing that is so beneficial
• 1:08
  Speaker: for me to have direct
• 1:10
  Speaker: communication with people who
• 1:11
  Speaker: want to write cookbooks through
• 1:13
  Speaker: my Facebook group and through my
• 1:14
  Speaker: email list, is having you ask me
• 1:17
  Speaker: questions, things that you are
• 1:19
  Speaker: concerned about, things you're
• 1:20
  Speaker: curious about.
• 1:21
  Speaker: And one of the things that cookbook writers recently have
• 1:24
  Speaker: asked me is if they are going to go into debt writing a book.
• 1:29
  Speaker: So I thought it would be fun today to revisit the topic of
• 1:33
  Speaker: cost of writing a cookbook.
• 1:35
  Speaker: And there's seven different
• 1:37
  Speaker: areas that you have to think
• 1:39
  Speaker: about when you think about the
• 1:40
  Speaker: cost.
• 1:40
  Speaker: And I'm going to go through each of those, offer you some options
• 1:45
  Speaker: for different costs that you might incur and, um, help you to
• 1:51
  Speaker: see what the total costs.
• 1:53
  Speaker: And then the benefit, of course, of writing a cookbook might be.
• 1:56
  Speaker: So let's start with number one.
• 1:59
  Speaker: This is the writing of the book or the writing of the proposal.
• 2:03
  Speaker: The neat thing about writing itself and the act of writing is
• 2:07
  Speaker: it is a very low cost activity from a money perspective.
• 2:13
  Speaker: I don't have to pay anything to sit down with a pen or a
• 2:16
  Speaker: notebook, sit down with Google Docs, and actually write the
• 2:22
  Speaker: cost that many people incur when they want to sit down.
• 2:27
  Speaker: To write is not the actual materials, but just getting
• 2:32
  Speaker: themselves to sit in the chair and do the work of writing.
• 2:37
  Speaker: And your presence in that chair is important because you, again,
• 2:43
  Speaker: create a container that you are working in to write whatever it
• 2:47
  Speaker: is you need to write.
• 2:48
  Speaker: But Google Docs is free.
• 2:51
  Speaker: Writing is free.
• 2:53
  Speaker: You might have to use.
• 2:55
  Speaker: If you use a notebook, buy a notebook.
• 2:58
  Speaker: You might need to buy a pen, or
• 3:00
  Speaker: you might need to find a pen
• 3:01
  Speaker: that works.
• 3:03
  Speaker: But the real cost is creating
• 3:05
  Speaker: the space in your life to
• 3:06
  Speaker: actually write.
• 3:07
  Speaker: Um. Notebooks are not that expensive.
• 3:11
  Speaker: You can get some nice spiral notebooks for a couple of
• 3:14
  Speaker: dollars, and if you want to buy a box of twelve blue or black
• 3:19
  Speaker: BIC stick pins, you can get twelve of those for less than
• 3:24
  Speaker: ten dollars and write your little heart out.
• 3:28
  Speaker: And I highly encourage this.
• 3:29
  Speaker: I think it's a terrific way to start your day.
• 3:33
  Speaker: Um, I write every morning, not always for publication, but to
• 3:37
  Speaker: clear my mind to be intentional.
• 3:39
  Speaker: And I've mentioned this many
• 3:40
  Speaker: times on the show using the
• 3:42
  Speaker: inspiration from Julia Cameron's
• 3:45
  Speaker: The Artist's Way, her
• 3:47
  Speaker: methodology called Morning
• 3:49
  Speaker: Pages.
• 3:50
  Speaker: But writing itself is free.
• 3:53
  Speaker: Okay.
• 3:54
  Speaker: So just remember that.
• 3:55
  Speaker: Um, the cost again is getting
• 3:58
  Speaker: yourself to sit down and do it,
• 4:00
  Speaker: and the space of your life that
• 4:02
  Speaker: will not be able to be reclaimed
• 4:04
  Speaker: during the time that you have
• 4:06
  Speaker: been writing.
• 4:07
  Speaker: But hopefully it will be
• 4:09
  Speaker: fruitful and prove to provide
• 4:11
  Speaker: you with something that you can
• 4:12
  Speaker: publish.
• 4:13
  Speaker: All right.
• 4:14
  Speaker: Second cost is the food.
• 4:18
  Speaker: Now, one thing I want you to see is that you are already eating
• 4:22
  Speaker: something every day.
• 4:24
  Speaker: You may not be cooking every day, but you're probably already
• 4:27
  Speaker: spending money on ingredients.
• 4:30
  Speaker: You're probably already spending
• 4:31
  Speaker: money on coffee or baked goods,
• 4:33
  Speaker: and money is already being spent
• 4:36
  Speaker: somewhere shopping for food and
• 4:40
  Speaker: eating.
• 4:41
  Speaker: So I like to think that my cost to actually write a cookbook did
• 4:47
  Speaker: not go up when it came to the food, because I was already
• 4:50
  Speaker: spending money on food somehow.
• 4:53
  Speaker: Anyway.
• 4:56
  Speaker: If you want to write a book that is very different from what
• 5:00
  Speaker: you're currently spending on food and eating.
• 5:03
  Speaker: Then yes, you may incur more cost to write about that, but
• 5:09
  Speaker: why would you write about something that you're not
• 5:12
  Speaker: currently doing and that you're not currently living?
• 5:16
  Speaker: My suggestion is that you start writing about what you are
• 5:21
  Speaker: already eating today, what you're already drinking today,
• 5:27
  Speaker: about the ingredients you're already buying right now, this
• 5:32
  Speaker: week, and what you're already spending money on anyway.
• 5:37
  Speaker: Write about that.
• 5:40
  Speaker: Write about how much you spend, how you might be able to save
• 5:43
  Speaker: money, how you might be able to make different menus with what
• 5:47
  Speaker: you have on hand.
• 5:49
  Speaker: But that's one way to ensure that you're not going to spend
• 5:52
  Speaker: any more money on food is to write about what you're already
• 5:56
  Speaker: cooking and eating right now.
• 5:58
  Speaker: And that's exactly what I did with my very first cookbook.
• 6:01
  Speaker: And I got a book deal, and the book is still in print.
• 6:03
  Speaker: And I used exactly what I was cooking or baking every day for
• 6:08
  Speaker: my family as the main outline and foundation of that book.
• 6:14
  Speaker: What that meant then is even
• 6:15
  Speaker: when it came time to test the
• 6:17
  Speaker: recipes and to write them and to
• 6:19
  Speaker: develop them, I just used the
• 6:21
  Speaker: time that I was already cooking
• 6:23
  Speaker: dinner for them to be the time
• 6:27
  Speaker: that I would work on documenting
• 6:30
  Speaker: my recipe, writing everything
• 6:31
  Speaker: down.
• 6:32
  Speaker: I'm keeping track of what I was doing during the time I was
• 6:35
  Speaker: actually already cooking.
• 6:38
  Speaker: Okay, so that's zero dollars spent because zero more dollars
• 6:44
  Speaker: spent, I should say.
• 6:45
  Speaker: Because if you're already cooking or baking, you're
• 6:47
  Speaker: spending the money anyway.
• 6:49
  Speaker: And if you're not making any different food, then it's not
• 6:52
  Speaker: like you're buying new ingredients and bringing them
• 6:54
  Speaker: into the house.
• 6:56
  Speaker: So the truth of the matter is, is yes, there are food costs
• 6:59
  Speaker: involved in writing a cookbook, but you're already spending
• 7:03
  Speaker: money anyway, so there shouldn't be a huge increase in the amount
• 7:07
  Speaker: that you're spending.
• 7:08
  Speaker: Now I'm going to talk about photography day in a minute, and
• 7:11
  Speaker: I'm going to talk a little bit about testing in a minute.
• 7:14
  Speaker: But for the actual writing of
• 7:16
  Speaker: the recipes for the book, write
• 7:18
  Speaker: about what you're already
• 7:19
  Speaker: eating, drinking, preparing in
• 7:22
  Speaker: your kitchen right now and you
• 7:24
  Speaker: will have no increase in your
• 7:26
  Speaker: cost.
• 7:28
  Speaker: Number three, if you want a book deal, pitching an idea to a
• 7:33
  Speaker: publisher or an agent is free.
• 7:36
  Speaker: They don't charge you to send them your ideas.
• 7:40
  Speaker: It's one hundred percent free, no cost.
• 7:46
  Speaker: The upside of that is you could get a book deal.
• 7:51
  Speaker: And if you get a book deal, they
• 7:53
  Speaker: will send you money for your
• 7:54
  Speaker: book idea because they want to
• 7:56
  Speaker: partner with you to create the
• 7:57
  Speaker: book.
• 7:59
  Speaker: You write the book?
• 8:01
  Speaker: They produce it.
• 8:03
  Speaker: The publisher would send you an
• 8:04
  Speaker: advance of royalties, which is a
• 8:06
  Speaker: way to make money off of writing
• 8:08
  Speaker: a cookbook.
• 8:11
  Speaker: Now, if you decide that you want
• 8:12
  Speaker: to contract with an agent and
• 8:14
  Speaker: they represent you to
• 8:15
  Speaker: publishers, they generally
• 8:17
  Speaker: charge about fifteen percent of
• 8:19
  Speaker: what you earn from the
• 8:20
  Speaker: publisher.
• 8:22
  Speaker: So if you get an advance, let's just say for round numbers, a
• 8:26
  Speaker: thousand dollars, they would get one hundred and fifty dollars
• 8:29
  Speaker: and you would get eight hundred and fifty dollars.
• 8:32
  Speaker: Okay.
• 8:34
  Speaker: You're still going to make eight hundred and fifty dollars.
• 8:37
  Speaker: You just give the one hundred and fifty dollars to the agent,
• 8:40
  Speaker: and they will help you find the publisher that you want.
• 8:43
  Speaker: And some people love working with agents, helps them to
• 8:45
  Speaker: negotiate their contract.
• 8:47
  Speaker: They get them in the door to publishers that do not accept
• 8:51
  Speaker: unsolicited proposals from authors, but pitching the idea
• 8:55
  Speaker: to them is free.
• 8:56
  Speaker: There is zero cost involved for signing a book deal is free.
• 9:04
  Speaker: In fact, in many cases, like I just mentioned, the publisher is
• 9:08
  Speaker: going to send you an advance of royalties to use while you write
• 9:11
  Speaker: the book manuscript.
• 9:14
  Speaker: Okay.
• 9:15
  Speaker: If you decide that you would
• 9:16
  Speaker: like to have someone review your
• 9:19
  Speaker: contract for you and you do not
• 9:21
  Speaker: have an agent, you can join the
• 9:23
  Speaker: Authors Guild.
• 9:25
  Speaker: And one of the services they
• 9:27
  Speaker: provide to authors is reviewing
• 9:30
  Speaker: literary contracts.
• 9:32
  Speaker: So membership in the Authors
• 9:34
  Speaker: Guild Guild is something that
• 9:36
  Speaker: would have a cost attached to
• 9:38
  Speaker: it.
• 9:40
  Speaker: So for emerging writers who have not yet published a book, the
• 9:44
  Speaker: cost to join the Authors Guild is one hundred and thirty five
• 9:49
  Speaker: dollars a year.
• 9:50
  Speaker: That's a pretty good deal.
• 9:51
  Speaker: And you can get contract review from them for your cookbook.
• 9:56
  Speaker: Uh, deal.
• 9:58
  Speaker: Contract that you get from the publisher.
• 10:00
  Speaker: I think the thing to remember
• 10:01
  Speaker: about that is that, um, it's
• 10:05
  Speaker: probably cheaper than a
• 10:06
  Speaker: literary.
• 10:06
  Speaker: Cheaper than an agent or.
• 10:08
  Speaker: Sorry, cheaper than a lawyer.
• 10:10
  Speaker: Um, and if you're going to find
• 10:12
  Speaker: a lawyer, you maybe know someone
• 10:14
  Speaker: that can review contracts, but I
• 10:15
  Speaker: highly recommend you find
• 10:16
  Speaker: someone who's used to reviewing
• 10:18
  Speaker: book contracts.
• 10:20
  Speaker: Um, but I think that's one
• 10:21
  Speaker: hundred and thirty five dollars
• 10:22
  Speaker: well spent.
• 10:23
  Speaker: So up till now, we haven't had any new costs incurred except
• 10:26
  Speaker: for perhaps joining the Authors Guild if you decide to do that.
• 10:31
  Speaker: Um, number five is when you work with a traditional publisher,
• 10:35
  Speaker: they cover the cost of editing the book, designing the book,
• 10:40
  Speaker: printing the book, and distributing the book.
• 10:43
  Speaker: So to you, the author, there is zero cost photography.
• 10:49
  Speaker: We're going to talk about in a minute, but editing, design,
• 10:52
  Speaker: printing and distribution.
• 10:53
  Speaker: Zero zero dollars out of your pocket.
• 10:56
  Speaker: And that's one of the biggest
• 10:57
  Speaker: benefits of traditional
• 10:58
  Speaker: publishing, in my opinion, is if
• 11:01
  Speaker: you do not want to be a
• 11:02
  Speaker: publisher and set up a
• 11:03
  Speaker: publishing business, partnering
• 11:06
  Speaker: with someone who runs a
• 11:07
  Speaker: publishing business is an
• 11:08
  Speaker: excellent opportunity to have a
• 11:10
  Speaker: beautiful book created that you
• 11:12
  Speaker: don't have to actually create
• 11:14
  Speaker: the book, and there is no cost
• 11:16
  Speaker: to you.
• 11:17
  Speaker: And in fact, like I mentioned
• 11:18
  Speaker: before, they'll pay you in
• 11:19
  Speaker: advance of royalties, hopefully
• 11:22
  Speaker: to write the book and you
• 11:24
  Speaker: actually have a little bit of
• 11:25
  Speaker: income to cover the costs while
• 11:27
  Speaker: you're writing the book of your
• 11:29
  Speaker: time.
• 11:30
  Speaker: Okay.
• 11:30
  Speaker: Number six, the book index.
• 11:33
  Speaker: I did pay several hundred dollars to have the index
• 11:37
  Speaker: created for my first book, but I then learned that publishers
• 11:42
  Speaker: could create the index if you asked them to in the contract.
• 11:46
  Speaker: And, uh, you can take that out of the contract and ask them to
• 11:51
  Speaker: create the index.
• 11:53
  Speaker: Um, if you don't want them to create your index and you're
• 11:56
  Speaker: willing to pay for it.
• 11:58
  Speaker: You could find an indexer to
• 12:01
  Speaker: create the index, and I
• 12:04
  Speaker: recommend one of the places you
• 12:06
  Speaker: might look is the Society of
• 12:07
  Speaker: Indexers.
• 12:08
  Speaker: You can search specifically for people who index cookbooks.
• 12:13
  Speaker: That's a different a little bit of a different beast.
• 12:15
  Speaker: You imagine it's like maybe indexing another work of
• 12:18
  Speaker: non-fiction or a textbook, but it's nice to find somebody who
• 12:23
  Speaker: actually has experience in the cookbook or food book world.
• 12:27
  Speaker: And you can search by type of book on the society of indexers.
• 12:32
  Speaker: So it's possible that you maybe will incur that cost.
• 12:35
  Speaker: But again, remember, if you
• 12:36
  Speaker: don't want to pay for it, you
• 12:38
  Speaker: could negotiate that as one of
• 12:40
  Speaker: the terms of your deal in your
• 12:43
  Speaker: cookbook contract.
• 12:46
  Speaker: So let's talk about photography.
• 12:47
  Speaker: Number seven.
• 12:48
  Speaker: Photography is an expense of the book, but you do not have to do
• 12:53
  Speaker: the photography yourself.
• 12:54
  Speaker: In fact, if you choose to traditionally published, it's
• 12:58
  Speaker: probably better that you let a food photographer take care of
• 13:04
  Speaker: the photography for your book.
• 13:07
  Speaker: If you already are a food photographer and you have
• 13:10
  Speaker: equipment, then you could take the photographs for your book.
• 13:15
  Speaker: But since you already have the equipment, it's actually a good
• 13:18
  Speaker: use of your equipment.
• 13:20
  Speaker: There is no additional cost incurred.
• 13:23
  Speaker: I'm not a photographer.
• 13:25
  Speaker: I did not want to be a photographer, and many of my
• 13:27
  Speaker: students are the same.
• 13:28
  Speaker: They're not photographers and they don't want to be.
• 13:31
  Speaker: So the publisher would pay for the photographer, which they did
• 13:36
  Speaker: for my first three books, and they paid for the illustrator
• 13:41
  Speaker: for my one of my books.
• 13:44
  Speaker: So there were no costs for me incurred.
• 13:47
  Speaker: It's possible.
• 13:49
  Speaker: I, part of my advance went toward paying that photographer,
• 13:54
  Speaker: But I consider the advance to be an advance of royalties.
• 13:59
  Speaker: So the fact that they were willing to pay for the
• 14:02
  Speaker: photographer, that was fine with me, because I knew that I didn't
• 14:04
  Speaker: want to do it.
• 14:05
  Speaker: And I did get, say in the people that were hired to do the photos
• 14:10
  Speaker: for my book.
• 14:11
  Speaker: So photography is a big expense of the book, but you do not have
• 14:16
  Speaker: to do it, and you often do not have to pay for it.
• 14:19
  Speaker: Okay.
• 14:20
  Speaker: Um, so that's my little spiel about photography.
• 14:26
  Speaker: Um, don't expect that you're
• 14:27
  Speaker: going to have to pay for the
• 14:29
  Speaker: photos.
• 14:30
  Speaker: Um, it's something you can talk about with your publisher and
• 14:34
  Speaker: find out if it's something that they're going to pay for or
• 14:37
  Speaker: you're going to pay for.
• 14:39
  Speaker: Um, so those are the expenses that really you maybe would
• 14:46
  Speaker: incur if you had a book deal, but you actually aren't going to
• 14:49
  Speaker: incur that many expenses.
• 14:50
  Speaker: The writing again is free.
• 14:53
  Speaker: Uh, you're already cooking or baking anyway, so you shouldn't
• 14:56
  Speaker: have any more food costs.
• 14:58
  Speaker: Pitching a book to a publisher is free.
• 15:00
  Speaker: Pitching an idea to an agent for representation is free.
• 15:04
  Speaker: Signing a book deal is free.
• 15:06
  Speaker: Getting your contract reviewed
• 15:07
  Speaker: if you join the Authors Guild
• 15:08
  Speaker: might be one hundred and thirty
• 15:09
  Speaker: five dollars.
• 15:11
  Speaker: When you work with a traditional publisher, they cover editing,
• 15:14
  Speaker: designing, printing, and distribution of the book.
• 15:17
  Speaker: And, uh, if you need to have your index created, you could
• 15:21
  Speaker: invest several hundred dollars in having that done.
• 15:24
  Speaker: Or the publisher could pay for it.
• 15:26
  Speaker: If it's negotiated in the contract.
• 15:28
  Speaker: And then you need to have a photography conversation.
• 15:31
  Speaker: Uh, photography for me was free and the illustrations for my
• 15:35
  Speaker: book were free.
• 15:36
  Speaker: They were covered by the publisher.
• 15:40
  Speaker: So when I say free, I don't mean that nobody paid the
• 15:43
  Speaker: photographer or the illustrator.
• 15:45
  Speaker: That's not true.
• 15:46
  Speaker: It just did not come out of my own pocket.
• 15:49
  Speaker: So then people say, well, if I'm not going to go into debt
• 15:53
  Speaker: writing the book, is it worth it to write the book?
• 15:56
  Speaker: Well, that's up to everybody to decide for themselves.
• 16:00
  Speaker: I gained huge benefits of monetary reward and just world
• 16:08
  Speaker: like, uh, impact reward from writing my books.
• 16:12
  Speaker: And if you go back to episode three ninety two, I talked about
• 16:15
  Speaker: the twenty five unexpected benefits of writing a cookbook.
• 16:19
  Speaker: Number one, when I committed to do this and to become an author,
• 16:26
  Speaker: I learned how to lead myself.
• 16:29
  Speaker: I learned how to make decisions.
• 16:31
  Speaker: I learned how to write better.
• 16:34
  Speaker: I learned how to increase my belief that publishers wanted
• 16:38
  Speaker: people to pitch to them.
• 16:40
  Speaker: I learned perseverance, how to stick with something.
• 16:43
  Speaker: Once I started, I learned how to
• 16:45
  Speaker: get myself into a chair to
• 16:46
  Speaker: write.
• 16:47
  Speaker: I learned how to keep going and not quit.
• 16:49
  Speaker: I overcame any self-doubt that I had.
• 16:52
  Speaker: That what I cooked or baked every day was enough to create
• 16:55
  Speaker: the content for a cookbook.
• 16:57
  Speaker: I created benefit out in the
• 16:59
  Speaker: world way beyond myself and my
• 17:01
  Speaker: own family, impacting thousands
• 17:03
  Speaker: of cooks.
• 17:04
  Speaker: Even as we speak.
• 17:05
  Speaker: Families who are eating together, more.
• 17:07
  Speaker: People who are learning how to feed themselves better.
• 17:10
  Speaker: All because of the books that I wrote.
• 17:13
  Speaker: And I did get advances on my books.
• 17:15
  Speaker: The books have gone on to sell.
• 17:17
  Speaker: Some of them have earned out their advances.
• 17:19
  Speaker: So I'm getting royalty checks.
• 17:21
  Speaker: And the benefit even beyond that, from a cost perspective,
• 17:26
  Speaker: is the online courses, the online classes, the online
• 17:30
  Speaker: coaching that I now do as a result of investing the time and
• 17:35
  Speaker: energy into writing these books, becoming a published author, and
• 17:40
  Speaker: now helping other people to write cookbook proposals, get
• 17:44
  Speaker: representation from an agent, get a book deal from a publisher
• 17:49
  Speaker: without an agent.
• 17:50
  Speaker: And the things that I'm able to help people like you do have had
• 17:55
  Speaker: monetary rewards for me also.
• 17:57
  Speaker: But I think the impact that we make on families and on people
• 18:01
  Speaker: and more people feeding themselves, people healing,
• 18:04
  Speaker: learning, having fun in the kitchen, those are really the
• 18:07
  Speaker: things that I think are cost, um, and benefits that are hard
• 18:12
  Speaker: to put a number on, hard to put a monetary number on.
• 18:16
  Speaker: So no, you will not go into debt
• 18:19
  Speaker: writing a cookbook if you hybrid
• 18:23
  Speaker: publish a book, which means that
• 18:25
  Speaker: you pay the publisher to publish
• 18:28
  Speaker: your book.
• 18:29
  Speaker: I highly recommend that you not do that unless you have a large
• 18:34
  Speaker: outlet or place where you know your books are going to sell and
• 18:39
  Speaker: they're going to sell enough copies to cover the cost of the
• 18:42
  Speaker: publishing plus more.
• 18:45
  Speaker: Do you have a very popular bakery?
• 18:47
  Speaker: Do you have a very high end wine room?
• 18:49
  Speaker: Do you do public speaking where
• 18:51
  Speaker: you sell books at the back of
• 18:52
  Speaker: the room?
• 18:53
  Speaker: Do you have a market that's very popular?
• 18:55
  Speaker: Because when you publish with a hybrid publisher, they are going
• 19:00
  Speaker: to publish a book that's very high quality, that looks like a
• 19:03
  Speaker: traditionally published cookbook, but you do pay the
• 19:06
  Speaker: cost up front.
• 19:07
  Speaker: So that's not the type of publishing I'm specifically
• 19:10
  Speaker: talking about today.
• 19:12
  Speaker: But people could go into debt
• 19:14
  Speaker: for hybrid publishing and not
• 19:16
  Speaker: make their money back if they're
• 19:18
  Speaker: not careful about the deal that
• 19:20
  Speaker: they get.
• 19:21
  Speaker: So that's my one disclaimer on
• 19:23
  Speaker: this particular episode, is if
• 19:25
  Speaker: you are working with a publisher
• 19:26
  Speaker: that wants you to pay them, use
• 19:30
  Speaker: caution, ask questions, and be
• 19:34
  Speaker: sure that you know the point at
• 19:36
  Speaker: which you would break even or
• 19:39
  Speaker: start earning money over and
• 19:41
  Speaker: above the cost you get to get
• 19:42
  Speaker: published.
• 19:44
  Speaker: So I think the question is, how
• 19:46
  Speaker: much of your time are you
• 19:48
  Speaker: willing to invest in the
• 19:49
  Speaker: project?
• 19:50
  Speaker: How much energy are you willing to invest?
• 19:53
  Speaker: How much commitment do you have to do this project?
• 19:56
  Speaker: How much love do you have for the process of writing and for
• 20:01
  Speaker: the people that you can help?
• 20:04
  Speaker: Those are the things that I
• 20:05
  Speaker: think are not monetary costs,
• 20:09
  Speaker: but actually have a cost
• 20:10
  Speaker: attached to them, because time
• 20:13
  Speaker: and energy are really just
• 20:15
  Speaker: another name or way to think
• 20:17
  Speaker: about money.
• 20:18
  Speaker: And so is commitment, depending
• 20:20
  Speaker: on what you have going on in
• 20:21
  Speaker: your life.
• 20:22
  Speaker: And so is love.
• 20:23
  Speaker: It's all related to energy.
• 20:25
  Speaker: And that in a roundabout way, is connected also to money.
• 20:30
  Speaker: So let me talk about the
• 20:32
  Speaker: platform side of cookbook
• 20:33
  Speaker: writing.
• 20:34
  Speaker: When it comes to the things that
• 20:36
  Speaker: you need to do, in addition to
• 20:38
  Speaker: writing a proposal to get a book
• 20:40
  Speaker: deal.
• 20:40
  Speaker: Um, email list is one of the
• 20:43
  Speaker: most important assets you can
• 20:44
  Speaker: build that you can stay in
• 20:46
  Speaker: regular communication with your
• 20:49
  Speaker: readers.
• 20:50
  Speaker: You can find email service providers that are free or free
• 20:55
  Speaker: to up to a number of email addresses as your email list
• 20:59
  Speaker: starts to grow.
• 20:59
  Speaker: You're probably going to incur
• 21:01
  Speaker: some costs, but initially many
• 21:03
  Speaker: are free.
• 21:04
  Speaker: MailChimp, for example, is a free email service provider, and
• 21:09
  Speaker: it's easy to get your MailChimp service provider connected to
• 21:13
  Speaker: your website or connected to a landing page where you're giving
• 21:17
  Speaker: away a lead magnet.
• 21:18
  Speaker: So there shouldn't be a lot of costs involved with that.
• 21:22
  Speaker: Um, if you need to create a lead magnet to attract people to your
• 21:25
  Speaker: email list, you can use Canva.
• 21:27
  Speaker: You can use the basic level of Canva.
• 21:30
  Speaker: It's free to use that, create a really nice lead magnet,
• 21:33
  Speaker: something that really helps people and encourages them to
• 21:36
  Speaker: give you their email address.
• 21:38
  Speaker: This is called direct response marketing.
• 21:41
  Speaker: They give you your their email address, and in return, you
• 21:44
  Speaker: offer them a free PDF or something that can maybe help
• 21:48
  Speaker: solve a problem in their life.
• 21:50
  Speaker: And then writing emails on a regular basis is also free.
• 21:54
  Speaker: I highly recommend you have a
• 21:56
  Speaker: little welcome sequence set up
• 21:58
  Speaker: to welcome them to your email
• 21:59
  Speaker: list.
• 22:00
  Speaker: Deliver the lead magnet to them and then create an email for
• 22:04
  Speaker: them on a regular basis.
• 22:07
  Speaker: I have heard that there's a potential that every active
• 22:11
  Speaker: email address that you have on your list could be worth one
• 22:16
  Speaker: dollar per email address per month, which means if you have
• 22:21
  Speaker: one thousand people on an email list, that could potentially be
• 22:25
  Speaker: worth one thousand dollars.
• 22:27
  Speaker: If you have five thousand people on an email list, it could
• 22:30
  Speaker: potentially per month be worth five thousand dollars.
• 22:34
  Speaker: That, of course, is if you're making offers to them.
• 22:37
  Speaker: So email lists are an asset and we invest time to build assets
• 22:43
  Speaker: like an email list.
• 22:44
  Speaker: We invest time to write
• 22:45
  Speaker: cookbooks like a to write a
• 22:48
  Speaker: cookbook, which is also an asset
• 22:50
  Speaker: asset.
• 22:50
  Speaker: So the cost for these two things again is time.
• 22:55
  Speaker: Um, time to post on social media.
• 22:58
  Speaker: If you want to schedule your social media post, you can use
• 23:02
  Speaker: something like buffer, which is free if you want to create your
• 23:06
  Speaker: post in Canva, that's also free.
• 23:09
  Speaker: Um, Instagram is free to use.
• 23:11
  Speaker: Facebook is free to use, but the difference between those two is
• 23:14
  Speaker: they can control who sees the content that you put out there.
• 23:18
  Speaker: Whereas with as with an email list, it's not like that.
• 23:22
  Speaker: It's generally, um, everybody that um, is on your email list,
• 23:28
  Speaker: uh, could receive your email into their inbox and they can
• 23:32
  Speaker: read it there.
• 23:33
  Speaker: Um, email is a very direct
• 23:35
  Speaker: communication tool with your
• 23:37
  Speaker: people on your platform or on
• 23:39
  Speaker: your list.
• 23:42
  Speaker: Um, I'm trying to think what
• 23:44
  Speaker: parts of the platform actually
• 23:45
  Speaker: would have a cost attached to
• 23:46
  Speaker: them.
• 23:47
  Speaker: Uh, mainly if you're, as your
• 23:50
  Speaker: email list grows, you will start
• 23:51
  Speaker: to incur costs for having a
• 23:54
  Speaker: bigger list.
• 23:55
  Speaker: I pay for active campaign, which is where I run my email list
• 24:00
  Speaker: from, and I do pay them for the number of subscribers that I
• 24:04
  Speaker: have, but that would not be something that you would incur
• 24:07
  Speaker: in the very beginning.
• 24:08
  Speaker: You might pay to have a website hosted.
• 24:11
  Speaker: You might pay for a domain name.
• 24:14
  Speaker: Those are costs that you would incur related to your website.
• 24:17
  Speaker: But the actual cost of writing
• 24:19
  Speaker: the book and starting to write
• 24:21
  Speaker: your cookbook proposal is very,
• 24:23
  Speaker: very low.
• 24:25
  Speaker: And I wanted to do this episode so that you know that costs
• 24:29
  Speaker: don't have to hold you back.
• 24:31
  Speaker: Costs are not something that I think are a reasonable reason
• 24:36
  Speaker: not to write a cookbook, at least in the very beginning, and
• 24:40
  Speaker: the potential upside for what you could earn from the cookbook
• 24:44
  Speaker: and what you could create in your own life and in the life of
• 24:48
  Speaker: your family and in the life of people you don't even know is a
• 24:52
  Speaker: very positive upside.
• 24:54
  Speaker: So I hope that I have encouraged you to think today about
• 24:59
  Speaker: expenses and costs in a way that you can see that it's an
• 25:04
  Speaker: investment of your time.
• 25:06
  Speaker: It's an investment of your energy.
• 25:08
  Speaker: It does not have to be a large
• 25:10
  Speaker: expense to be a cookbook writer,
• 25:12
  Speaker: and you can reap great rewards
• 25:15
  Speaker: from it.
• 25:16
  Speaker: And then for the platform building side, it's you reap
• 25:21
  Speaker: rewards from that.
• 25:21
  Speaker: Also, not only perhaps using your email list to show that you
• 25:27
  Speaker: have an engaged readership, but continuing to stay in touch with
• 25:32
  Speaker: your email list and creating products, courses, or programs
• 25:37
  Speaker: to sell to your email list after your cookbook comes out.
• 25:44
  Speaker: So if you are interested in writing a cookbook of your own
• 25:47
  Speaker: and you want to shape a publishable cookbook concept in
• 25:50
  Speaker: thirty minutes where you clarify who your cookbook is for.
• 25:54
  Speaker: Turn your expert expertise into
• 25:56
  Speaker: a publishable concept, and then
• 25:59
  Speaker: use this concept as the
• 26:00
  Speaker: foundation for a cookbook
• 26:02
  Speaker: proposal.
• 26:03
  Speaker: You can head on over to w w w
• 26:05
  Speaker: dot Cookbook Writers Academy dot
• 26:07
  Speaker: com.
• 26:10
  Speaker: To turn your expertise into a book, and you can link that also
• 26:15
  Speaker: below in the show notes.
• 26:18
  Speaker: So that is it for today's
• 26:20
  Speaker: episode of the Cookbook Love
• 26:21
  Speaker: Podcast.
• 26:22
  Speaker: This is your host, Maggie Green.
• 26:24
  Speaker: And until next time, I hope you all have a great day and keep
• 26:27
  Speaker: loving your cookbooks.
• 26:33
  Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 26:35
  Speaker: You can find out more information at w w w dot
• 26:38
  Speaker: cookbook dot co.