Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast. Do you love to create recipes and cook for your family and friends? Have you perfected a method to do something that is kitchen or nutrition-related and you want to teach others about it? Could your work in your kitchen be used to guide someone else in their kitchen? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have what it takes to write a cookbook of your own. Today I want to share 4 basic steps you can follow to explore your cookbook topic. This is for those of you who haven’t even considered writing a cookbook before, with some tips on what to do to hone in on your ideal reader, and what your cookbook might be about.
- Become a student of food, cooking or baking. Pay attention to what you really enjoy in the kitchen and keep track of what it is that people come to you and ask about. Are they asking for just recipes? Or are they asking other questions about what you do and who you know? Keep track of all of it. Start a dedicated notebook to keep track.
- Challenge yourself to cook and create baked goods without an exact recipe. Make up your own creations. Keep track of what you create and make it again. Ask others to taste it and see what they think. Keep track some more. Your recipes in any book you write can be inspired by what you experience in the world, but at the end of the day, any recipes you publish need to be expressed in your own ideas and words.
- When you meet people and they ask you what you’re up to tell them that you’re thinking about writing a cookbook. When they ask you what about – tell them your possible idea. The purpose of this isn’t for you to hear if they like your idea or not. The purpose is to start to identify as a cookbook writer. Becoming a cookbook writer is a change of identity – from a non-writer to a writer. So just practice at this identification as a cookbook writer.
- Practice believing that you writing a cookbook is totally possible. If I can do it, and if my students can do it you can do it. Your success as a cookbook writer isn’t up to a publisher, it’s up to you. There are many paths to cookbook publication and I talk about the difference between cookbook writing and cookbook publishing in Episode 42, but if you really want to write a cookbook, the commitment, and the decision is up to you. No one can stop you or tell you you can’t and the person you have to face most often in this instance is yourself. Let every cookbook you see published be a beacon of possibility.
