thank you for all of your advice i will be checking into all of it but i have another question what if we had each class assigned to a certain food like one does desserts and so on or do u think that would be to much of a hassle and actually make some parents not want to summit a recipe

We're in the process of finishing a cookbook with Morris Press, which has also been a very positive experience. We entered the recipes ourselves online, which sped up the whole process and made it easier for people to put in their own recipes. We had one password for keying-in only and another for recipe editing/management. I also included one of the company's stock forms for recipe turn-in for people who don't have internet access or preferred to turn it in hard copy. We ended up with 200+ recipes (in a 200-student school) in just under three weeks. The book is beautiful, and it was produced without much volunteer involvement. We're making about 50% profit.

There are a TON of 'family' recipes with tribute titles (Grandma Smith's Cookies or Aunt Sally's Special Potato Salad). Definitely point out that this is a nice way to preserve family favorite recipes.

My only issue now is sales-related - we have a ton of books! Any suggestions on sales outlets is appreciated!

We are doing one as a 5th grade camp fundraiser for next year. We sent out a form asking for recipes, and are doing it all in-house. We have also advertised in our weekly school newsletter and on our website. Our original goal was to have it ready at registration, but we still need a few more recipes, so we are going to wait and send out the form at the beginning of next year and try to get recipes from our new families. Our new goal is to have them available at parent-teacher conferences.

We should be able to make quite a bit on it, as we have gotten the paper free at Office Depot by turning in used ink cartridges. I also caught an awesome closeout deal on colored card stock that we will use for the section dividers. Most of it will be in black & white, so we can just run the pages at school and bind them there. I also like the fact that we can always reprint in whatever quantity we need if we run out.

If you would like to see our collection form or the format that we are using for the book itself, please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and put "cookbook info" in the subject line.

Capedad wrote ' I have a ton of tips for anyone looking to do one themselves '

how did you get the word out to parents, newsletter, email, flyer home in folder? whats the best method for getting highest response for recipe input? thanks.

We did a cookbook last year.

We were set up to use G & R also. They seemed to be the best combination of price and services.

Then, we lost a few weeks to hurricanes and could not get our info to G & R in time to get the books back before the holidays.

We found a local printer to print at a reduced rate -- it was hard to even get anyone to even give an estimate. I had a small group of volunteers type the recipes, including myself. I did the layout. I had one parent sell sponsorship space to help further offset the printing cost. I had another go through archives at school to come up with unique 'filler' material.

We had a contest among students to design the cover art. My brother designed a logo for the chapter separations.

One volunteer created indices -- one by recipe title and another by contributor.

It was a very big undertaking. We presold books at a discount for $9. Once they came in, they were $10.

We made about $2000. We printed 1000 and have a few hundred left.We made $300 on them this year without trying to sell them.

Doing it ourselves doubled the likely profit from G & R, but we sure worked for it.

We are thinking about doing it again. It will be a lot easier since we know what to expect.

I have a ton of tips for anyone looking to do one themselves. Ask away right in this thread. Now that school's practically out, I'll be checking in more regularly.

One more thing to Godwin mom
What we are planning on doing is

Every kid in our elementery plus teachers, cafeteria staff, aides act. will have a recipe in the book 500-525 recipes. The children will have two weeks to submit a recipe, if after that they will choose one from our collection and place there name on it.

We are going to save around 30 cents a cookbook by subbmitting them over the web. We are going to have a night in January when we will invite about 30 parents to come in and type the recipes for us.

Also at certain tmes of the year they have special dicounts where they take of like 30 cents a cookbook.

As I said the company that we are going with is G&R publishing 1-800-383-1679
Good luck!!!!