Have you done this? Thinking of orgainizing one for my DD's school but want to hear the good, bad and ugly before diving it! Any suggestions and tips are appreciated!
RUN AWAY!! Quickly! Go!!!
Just kidding. We did one at DS's school last year, and stupid me was chairperson. Be prepared for *alot* of unpaid hard work (I didn't really mind, because it was for DS's school, and I'm a SAHM mom, so I have more time than someone who works at a paid job.)
We used Morris Press (morrispress.com) and were very pleased. They have a type & save feature that allows you to input recpies over the Internet rather than handwrite them and send them in hardcopy. You get a discount if you use this feature.
The cost will vary depending on how many recipes you have, how many copies you order, and how you design your book. We had 550 recipes and got a *little* fancy with the design (but nothing extravagant), and ordered 1500 copies. Our book cost $4.60 per copy, and we sell them for $12 a copy, so it's a nice little profit. Since they came in (at the beginning of the school year) we've brought in $6500.
If you decide to persue this, you could PM me your email address and I could provide you with the details.
The first thing you would do is to collect recipes. I could send you the form and cover letter we used to do that. Be sure to let all students know that they can collect recipes from family and friends, and be sure that the students themselves submit one (the more people that have their name in print, the more copies will be sold.)
The second thing is organizing and typing the recipes. This is really time consuming. I had a committee of 7, but not everyone will pull their weight, if you know what I mean.
Third, you'll need to proof the recipes after they've been typed. To me, this was the most difficult part, because I'm a perfectionist and very anal. If you're more of a let-it-go type of person, this will not be as difficult! If you use Morris Press, you can print out proofs. I probably proofed our copy 8 times, and even hosted a "proofing brunch" for my committee. Again, I could email you the guidelines that I used if you'd like.
Fourth, you'll need to design your cover and book details. This was alot of fun!
Then you submit it (online) and wait for it to come in (about a month). You don't need to pay until the book arrives. If you need to, you can pay half when you get them, and half 30 days later. This will give you some time to sell some cookbooks. However, you'll get a small discount if you pay all at once, so this is what we did. You do have to pay shipping, but they give you free books (about 10%) to help defer the cost.
Last is the selling. DS goes to a catholic school, so we sold it after all the masses at all the area catholic churches. We have also done several "drives" through school, where we send a form home with the student, and let the parents order them that way. We also sold them at our annual school fair. We've been very pleased with the sales. Be sure to do a big promotion at Christmas time...we offered free gift wrapping of the book with purchase, and the response was terriffic.
A bit of advice: if you are chairperson, be *very* picky when choosing your committee. My life would have been so much easier if I had done this! Thank God for my committee members who did help - I would have gone crazy without them. Do not pick people who want to be on it just so they can say they were on it! Choose people who aren't afraid of behind-the-scenes kind of work.
Looking back, it was alot of work, but I'm glad I took it on. Our cookbook is great, and it's so nice to have all my family recipes in one place. The students get a kick out of seeing their names in print, too.
