Last year my son's school was looking for a fundraiser to help support their afterschool clubs.
Sell chocolates? Sell cookies? Have a carwash? Put on a play? Dog walking? Snow shoveling? Have a Bazaar? Slave for a day? Goods and services auction...
We thought of them all.
Every idea met with resistance.
Not enough money - Too much work - Too messy - We did it last year - The school across town just did it...
We were stuck.
Then someone came up with the cookbook idea.
A quick look on the internet found that there are lots of publishing houses that actually have full packages for making cookbooks for fundraisers.
They will send you a full kit and even sample books.
Choose a main committee of five people.
There are a lot of decisions to make.
Look through the cookbook kits and find which fits your needs best.
Things you should decide before choosing a company: Audience -- Who do you expect to sell your book to? Just the parent body? Bookstores? Style of book -- Spiral, Hardcover, Binder.
A better book will cost you more to print but you can charge more per copy.
Decide if your audience is the type of people who prefer to spend more and get something nicer or will really limit how much they would spend for a book.
Cost and Price -- How many books will you want to order in your first order? You can reorder later.
Check the different price charts.
See what they include.
Theme -- Any good cookbook has a theme.
Health food, Quickie meals, Kid friendly food, Desserts, Ethnic...
Your audience will depend on the theme of the book.
Cover and Dividers -- You can decide the name for the book and dividers later but if you want something specific, like photos, included make sure to use a company that includes that.
Check if it will cost you extra to have original dividers as opposed to their standard ones.
That's it! You're ready to choose a cookbook company.
Now starts the real work.
Choose Sections -- The "cute" names for the dividers can come later but you must decide your chapters now.
Soup, Salad, Appetizers, Main Course, Dessert...
We had a main section with a divider that said Desserts.
Later we made sub-sections such as Pies, Cookies, Cakes and Bars.
The sub-sections didn't have a separate divider, they were just new headings.
Getting Recipes -- This cookbook is a fundraiser put together by a parent body, a community or whoever.
Recipes must come from everyone.
That's how you get a good cookbook.
Send out letters to all the parents.
Explain the project and its goal.
List the names of all the sections.
The cookbook company will send you recipe forms to be filled out.
Make lots of copies and send a few to each parent.
If you think a lot of parents will participate you can make a limit of only 4 recipes per family and only 2 in any one section.
But don't worry about getting too many recipes, a lot of people won't participate at all.
"Kookbook Kickoff Koncert" This is just an idea we had.
An "up and coming" band offered to do a free concert for us.
The day of the concert was the last day to submit recipes.
Everyone was asked to bring one of the dishes they were submitting, already made.
At intermission we tasted and savored all the great foods this cookbook will hold.
The concert and tasting really got everyone excited about the cookbook and looking to help.
Editing -- This is the hardest part of the job.
Let a lot of people help.
Print enough blank recipe blanks to totally recopy every recipe.
Decide what style you want for the recipes.
Do you want the instructions number? Metric measures too...
Let people just sit and copy.
It can be done separately at home but it's more fun to sit five or six people together.
Also, you can also confer on things that sound wrong.
"Do you really think she meant 2 lbs of sugar or did she mean 2 cups?" It takes hours to edit.
Checking -- Professional cookbooks actually cook each item by using the cookbook, but you don't have to.
The very first people to use our new cookbook were people who had put in recipes.
A few errors were caught right away so we just printed up a page of corrections that we included with the cookbooks.
When we reordered we had everything corrected on the second printing.
Finishing Up -- If you don't have a name for the book and dividers, it's really the time to take care of this.
During editing you may find some new people really interested in helping and they may come up with good ideas.
Typing -- The cookbook company will type up the book.
You can save a little money by typing it yourself but it's really not worth it.
Sales -- This is the most important thing (remember, this is a fundraiser).
Start with the kids in the school.
Ask how many they want.
Give examples of who may want - Grandparents, married children, new brides, holiday gifts...
We keep reordering.
People want more and more.
The "organization" cookbooks are the best.
They're made up of recipes that "real people" use.