Jinx Minx wrote:

> I'm on this committe that wants to put together a cookbook that it can
> sell
> for a small profit. Has anyone here does this before that can offer
> up
> advice how best to go about it? Places we can get it printed
> inexpensively but aren't cheaply made, free software or websites we
> can use to put it
> together, etc. I use Mastercook at home and it says you can "print
> your own cookbook", but I've never used it for that purpose so I'm not
> sure whether
> it's a good choice for a larger project like this. We're just getting
> started on this project so I'd like for us to start out on the right
> foot.
> Suggestions? Do's? Dont's?

I agree with Barb, but some other points:

I am fairly sure you can import recipes (or even cut 'n paste them) from
word documents or just plain text documents into Mastercook ? If so,
you can choose a simple layout that's easy to read and stick to that.

How many recipes are you thinking of publishing? Are you going for color
printing (on the pages, not covers) or black and white? Are you going
to use graphics e.g. plated pictures of the food on the recipe pages,
etc. How many copies are you hoping to print and/or sell?

What kind of budget does the committee have for producing this (because
you're going to have to cough up *some* money up-front in order to have
them printed etc.)? Not that I want you to tell me the exact amount
<lol> but that has to be a key factor for consideration in this
venture...

If you're not doing more than say, 100-150 recipes, pretty sure it would
easy enough to use your Mastercook recipe manager software, print out a
copy of the 'final' collection and then take that copy to one of those
photocopier/print shops and let them copy and ring-bind them for you.
However, if that's too costly - does anybody on the committee have a
(fairly fast) laser printer? Might work out cheaper to print the
(recipe) copies yourself and buy one of those 'punches' and do the
binding yourselves. Covers might be more of an issue, if you want to
use thick-ish cardboard (or whatever).

Anyway, here's a link to give you some ideas as to what these on-line
places charge for creating/printing recipe books such as yours (and
what you have to provide):

http://www.cookbookco.com/index.html
--
Cheers
Chatty Cathy