I had an idea for how to put the cookbook together... - 12/04/09 03:06 AM
Stems from my experience putting the Joe Songbook together. I'd suggest doing this the same way. (I do graphic design work, remember. It used to be my business.)
Each of the songs in the Songbook was a word-processing file (MS-Word or WordPerfect); I dumped those into PageMaker, added photos, table of contents, a discography, and links to the songs online, and then converted the whole package to an Acrobat (*.pdf) file and put it on a CD. The 100-plus page book ended up only 1.6MB. Made labels for the CDs, covers and inserts for a standard CD case. Production costs ended up way cheap, which is what I wanted. And no paper--just a computer file configured so anybody could open it, read it, and print out anything they want.
I could do the cookbook the same way. It'd be easy. I'd want the recipes in word-processing documents, and photos of the Whatever-It-Is (*not* photos off the Web--those don't "Acrobat" well). More photos to fill space if and as needed. Since this'd be a promotional tool for the *writers* (since we's all just plain writers who just plain can cook), I would want to include photos of the cooks, and links to sites where one could hear and maybe buy) their music. I'd want photos for the cover, inserts, and label, too. End product would be like the Joe Songbook--an Acrobat file on a CD in a professional-looking case.
There you have it. Might there be any interest in something like this? Production costs would end up under five bucks per, I think. Y'all could sell 'em for a lot more, I think.
Joe
Each of the songs in the Songbook was a word-processing file (MS-Word or WordPerfect); I dumped those into PageMaker, added photos, table of contents, a discography, and links to the songs online, and then converted the whole package to an Acrobat (*.pdf) file and put it on a CD. The 100-plus page book ended up only 1.6MB. Made labels for the CDs, covers and inserts for a standard CD case. Production costs ended up way cheap, which is what I wanted. And no paper--just a computer file configured so anybody could open it, read it, and print out anything they want.
I could do the cookbook the same way. It'd be easy. I'd want the recipes in word-processing documents, and photos of the Whatever-It-Is (*not* photos off the Web--those don't "Acrobat" well). More photos to fill space if and as needed. Since this'd be a promotional tool for the *writers* (since we's all just plain writers who just plain can cook), I would want to include photos of the cooks, and links to sites where one could hear and maybe buy) their music. I'd want photos for the cover, inserts, and label, too. End product would be like the Joe Songbook--an Acrobat file on a CD in a professional-looking case.
There you have it. Might there be any interest in something like this? Production costs would end up under five bucks per, I think. Y'all could sell 'em for a lot more, I think.
Joe