The cost I am paying the publisher is a little less than $3.00 per book, and am doing it as a direct pass through to my family - but remember - this is family and not school. Also - we only ordered 200 copies. When ordering in larger quantities the price per book decreases (duh? right?) and I would have charged $10.00 for the book had it been for a fundraiser.
You can obtain sponsors to offset the price of the publishing if you have local businesses willing to give you $20-$50-$100 to have their name appear on a sponsor page.
You can hold contests to design the cover and the dividers.
You might include some recipies from the kids. Our kindergarteners every year write their recipe for cooking turkey. My son's was kill the turkey, pluck the feathers off, shake a pound of salt on it, cook it at 1000 degrees for 6 hours. I am really not that bad of a cook. But the parents loved the recipes.
This years book has been kept a little simpler because of time constraints. But, we acquired 350 recipes for the book. This year the cost per book is right around $3 and we will be selling the books for $10 each.
The book we did 5 years ago cost us about $5 but we did some neat things that I think made it a quick seller. We had each class have a theme to draw a picture. Example: 5th grade was Dessert and drew a picture of their favorite dessert. We then had a small choose the best picture and used it for the Dessert divider in the cookbook. We also had the preschool children (or Kindergarten if you don't have a preschool) draw their favorite food (make sure the teacher writes on the back what it was!). We then typed their name below the picture and in quotes listed what the food was. We reduced these to very small and asked the publishing company to place them periodically throughout the cookbook. They were hysterical and everybody loved it. Of course, those parents bought them for everyone they know!
We purchase 1,000 cookbooks and sold them right before the holidays. They went like hotcakes!
Just a few ideas! If you're interested in the publisher we used, my emal is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
We're working on a cookbook right now. We did one about 5 years ago which made over $5,000. We only have 130 kids in the school so this was a profitable fundraiser for us. We're hoping to top that figure with this one. We're using the same company we did last time and they've worked out really well. Good luck to you.
First - I am not a big proponent of cookbooks as fundraisers. They are not a big money maker (in my humble opinion) and not something that is good to do year after year after year. Second - I do not work for any company affiliated with PTO vendors. Having used this site as my bible for PTO, however, when I was asked to do my FAMILY cookbook - I came running straight here. (I have a huge family so it was sort of like working with a PTO anyway.) I must say that Rasmussen has made my task very simple. They provide a form to distribute to everyone who wishes to participate. They offer options and are flexible - but make it seem like THEY are the one setting the rules instead of you, so your participants can't get mad at YOU. They allow you to hide behind the vendor. Just this week I sent in my family's 174 recipes and we await the finished product. I have been very pleased with the process so far and as long as sailing continues to be smooth I would certainly recommend them to others.
