Creating a Fundraiser Cookbook?

[mandy200587]

Just ask for the recipes, give the sections and say something besides the typical recipes cause you don't want a ton of the same recipes.

 

[lynninpa]

Our school did them. It was fun and I submitted alot of old family recipes that I use.

As far as a BIG money maker it ends up not to be that great. The PTA Prez ordered too many "extras", so any "profit" was lessened to quite a degree.

It would be more effective to sell advanced copies if you are looking to make a profit. That way you don't order too many extras.

I know the people that worked on it said...."never again".....it is VERY labor intensive and time consuming.

Thanks for the tips, Mystery Machine! From day one, I knew to stay clear of "the extras." Yet wondering just how many copies to start with is a stumbling block.

 

[lynninpa]

We also had a section for "odd things" like playdough and cute recipe poems for children.

Ahhh! That could go under the "This & That" section that Morris Publishing offers! Love the ideas, everyone!!

 

[aprilgail2]

Hate to be the pessimistic one here but my old church has done this fundraiser many years ago and the cookbooks never sold well. We were begging people to buy them up.

I have one and it's wonderful seeing my old friends' recipes in it.

We lost money on this fundraiser! At the end we ended up just giving them away to get rid of them! Not a fundraiser I would repeat!

 

[Lanshark]

Lanshark, how did you bind your books? Thanks for letting me know how much you sold the books for-that was one of my questions

We did the three hole punch and small binder. I think we figured the cost of the book to be between 5-6 dollars. This included the small binder, paper, front cover and dividers (color card stock). Each page was half of a regular 8.5 by 11 piece of paper.

 

[lynninpa]

We did the three hole punch and small binder. I think we figured the cost of the book to be between 5-6 dollars. This included the small binder, paper, front cover and dividers (color card stock). Each page was half of a regular 8.5 by 11 piece of paper.

Thanks for the info, Lanshark. As it stands now, the price through Morris Cookbooks would be about $2.50 per book complete. We are also looking into "doing it ourselves."

 

[totallydisney]

We did this about 6 years ago with the County 4-H clubs. We sold them for $12. We did the work ourselves. We used Morris Press. They sold very well we sold out of all our books. We made alot of money, we even had people want one after they were gone. We sold ours at Thanksgiving time, just in time for the holidays, make great Christmas gifts. As far as alot of the same recipes, we would just list all the names who gave the recipes. We set a limit of how many recipes one could submit. If we needed more we used the extras. It was alot of work, but it was fun. I would recomend doing it.

 

[lynninpa]

We did this about 6 years ago with the County 4-H clubs. We sold them for $12. We did the work ourselves. We used Morris Press. They sold very well we sold out of all our books. We made alot of money, we even had people want one after they were gone. We sold ours at Thanksgiving time, just in time for the holidays, make great Christmas gifts. As far as alot of the same recipes, we would just list all the names who gave the recipes. We set a limit of how many recipes one could submit. If we needed more we used the extras. It was alot of work, but it was fun. I would recomend doing it.

Thanks for the info & tips, totallydisney! It will definitely be a lot of work yet we are very excited about our new project! The committee was formed just this afternoon. Thankfully, I love working with the people who signed on!

 

[lemondog]

Hey Lynn. I am in the midst of doing one for my church right now! We are also using Morris Press. We are actually down to crunch week right now. My co-chair and I have been been feverishly working non-stop for several days trying to get this thing Fed-ex'd to Morris Press by the end of this week.

Ours is a cookbook in honor of our church's 50th anniversary. We received over 1,000 recipes from parishioners, but are limiting it to 800 for budgetary reasons. We are down to 809 recipes...only 9 more to cut! It's just so hard! We used their typensave.com online and REALLY liked this system. We chose to input them ourselves, though, for uniformity.

We are doing the hardcover spiral bound, with custom everything. We're going to charge $20/per, and if we sell all that we are ordering (3,000) we should raise close to $40,000!

ETA: I belong to a very large Catholic church with over 2,000 families, and since this is a commemorative piece as well as a cookbook, we are charging a little more $$. Also, we have done 2 cookbook fundraisers in the past (1961, 1982) and both of those were very successful and sold out completely, including reprints. I am hoping and PRAYING that this one is just as successful. It has been a massive undertaking, that is for sure. A lot of hard work, but i think that's probably because we are producing such a large book with custom dividers, cover, etc.

 

[lynninpa]

Hey Lynn. I am in the midst of doing one for my church right now! We are also using Morris Press. We are actually down to crunch week right now. My co-chair and I have been been feverishly working non-stop for several days trying to get this thing Fed-ex'd to Morris Press by the end of this week.

Ours is a cookbook in honor of our church's 50th anniversary. We received over 1,000 recipes from parishioners, but are limiting it to 800 for budgetary reasons. We are down to 809 recipes...only 9 more to cut! It's just so hard! We used their typensave.com online and REALLY liked this system. We chose to input them ourselves, though, for uniformity.

We are doing the hardcover spiral bound, with custom everything. We're going to charge $20/per, and if we sell all that we are ordering (3,000) we should raise close to $40,000!

ETA: I belong to a very large Catholic church with over 2,000 families, and since this is a commemorative piece as well as a cookbook, we are charging a little more $$. Also, we have done 2 cookbook fundraisers in the past (1961, 1982) and both of those were very successful and sold out completely, including reprints. I am hoping and PRAYING that this one is just as successful. It has been a massive undertaking, that is for sure. A lot of hard work, but i think that's probably because we are producing such a large book with custom dividers, cover, etc.

Great to hear from someone who is also in the midst of creating a cookbook! I wish you great luck, lemondog! I do have one question...if you used typensave (online) just what is it that you need to Fed Ex to Morris Press??

 

[lemondog]

Great to hear from someone who is also in the midst of creating a cookbook! I wish you great luck, lemondog! I do have one question...if you used typensave (online) just what is it that you need to Fed Ex to Morris Press??

Hey Lynn. We are doing a rush order, so everything must be overnighted. I have to FedEx the disks with all the photos (since we are doing custom cover and inserts), plus the contract, plus the personal pages (the 4 free pages you get in front) and the photo and copy for those pages.

The good thing about Typensave is that it does save you $$ and production time in the long run. It also makes it very easy to keep track of how recipes are written, so they can all be done uniformly. It is more work on our end, though, because we are having to input and proof every single one!

Oh yeah and I forgot to mention, we are charging $20 per book.

 

[grlpwrd]

We did this about 6 years ago with the County 4-H clubs. We sold them for $12. We did the work ourselves. We used Morris Press. They sold very well we sold out of all our books. We made alot of money, we even had people want one after they were gone. We sold ours at Thanksgiving time, just in time for the holidays, make great Christmas gifts. As far as alot of the same recipes, we would just list all the names who gave the recipes. We set a limit of how many recipes one could submit. If we needed more we used the extras. It was alot of work, but it was fun. I would recomend doing it.

I used to frequent the forums at breastfeeding.com a lot and some of the great ladies there raised funds for a fellow member. They used Morris Press, too.

I remember there was a link that we could input our recipes and then the people in charge would edit and make the necessary changes.

GL!

 

[lynninpa]

We now have our Cookbook Committee-7 people in all. Thankfully, we all love working with one another and will no doubt have a great time with this project! Anywhooo, on to the next step-giving each person specific "jobs." Any suggestions?