Earlier this year, my sisters, cousins and I hatched a plan to create a cookbook dedicated to my Grandmother and the delicious foods that she has made for us over the years. We decided that each of us would submit one or more of her recipes that we make ourselves, along with a blurb about what it means to us. Everyone submitted at least one recipe, and several of us submitted more than one. Then it was up to me to figure out how to make it into an actual book.

Layout/Design

I first settled on using Blurb. The Blurb books were undeniably beautiful, and there were cookbook templates to emulate, although I had to google and search to find them. I began to lay the cookbook out, but almost instantly reached a few stumbling blocks. 1) The templates emphasized photos, but provided somewhat limited space for verbiage. 2) I could manipulate them, but it was labor intensive, and 3) Each printed book was going to be extremely expensive. What finally sent me in search of other options, however, was the fact that proprietary Blurb software had to be downloaded onto my computer. I learned the hard way that the book's files were also downloaded onto the computer, so I could not access work I did on my home computer while traveling with my work laptop. That was it for Blurb.

Then I turned to Cookbook Create. While I liked the interface, and the fact that this site would actually help me to curate my recipes and share and publish them as desired, I was less than excited about the print product. It did not provide for the customization I was seeking, and so I turned to other options.

At the same time I was researching these options, I was working to launch a new website at work. The site was created in WordPress, and I was getting pretty good at manipulating and making changes to pages. While googling for book publishing programs, I found Pressbooks, which is essentially WordPress for books. This interface allowed me to choose from over 52 themes, all of which could be customized through adjustments to the CSS. For me, the best part, was that I could create the book in both Kindle and print-ready PDF formats. Pressbooks is free to create ebooks and print book files, but these will display a watermark. It's only $99 to upgrade to "E-book + PDF Pro", which removes the watermark, and they frequently have 20% off sales. It took me a while to get the files where I wanted them, but I was pleased with the finished product.

Publishing

I looked at a number of publishing tools, including Amazon's CreateSpace, before ultimately deciding on Lulu. CreateSpace wanted me to provide a tax ID# and other information that would have been necessary if I wanted to sell the book, but since this was a project for family, that seemed excessive. If you are looking to self-publish a book for sale, it may be the right option for you. I settled on Lulu because I liked the various options for publishing the book, like paper options, cover stock, color printing and size options. In addition, Lulu also has frequent sales on print books as well as discounts for volume orders.

What I Learned

I printed copies of the book for my grandmother, aunt, mother, sisters, cousin and their daughters and for my nephews. Overall, I was happy with the finished product but there are a few things I will do differently if I make another book.

Wait for a sale: Almost immediately after I upgraded to E-book + PDF Pro, I got an email about a sale. I got the same email every few weeks thereafter. Next time, I will create the book in the free platform and upgrade once I get an email about a sale. It's a negligible amount of money, but why not save where you can? I did manage to catch a Lulu print sale when I ordered the books, which was a bit more significant.
Get some help with CSS: I was able to do some basic customization (e.g. eliminating extra white space/changing some of the colors) of the Pressbooks template that I chose, but with a little more knowledge, I may have been able to do more. I am going to take a three-hour CSS class in a few weeks to improve my knowledge and skills
Leave more of a margin on the cover: I did not really consider the fact that the cover would be wrapped. It's not the end of the world, but next time, I will leave a larger margin on the cover to account for this.

I really enjoyed this process. It was a true labor of love, giving me a chance to conspire with my sisters and cousins on a surprise for my Grandma, who was tickled to receive the book. Now I just need to identify the next book to create!

View a gallery of Mimi's Kitchen images here.
View the online version of Mimi's Kitchen here.