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Above are some delicious blueberry and raspberry jam muffins. The recipe will be in my book. This will not be the picture though because i really have to improve my photography and this blog is a good way to do so

Due to the popular demand, i feel obliged to tell you a little bit more about my book and when i say "my book" i mean the book i'm writting.

I first decided to write a book around Christmas this year. I thought it would be a great idea to write down all my favourites recipes just to keep them in mind. So i started to collect all the recipe i wanted to included. I had divided my book in 6 chapters; each one being an occasion that usually brings me to cook. But since i am a student and that the book contained over 300 recipes, i give up everything. It was too much work. And the summer holidays arrived. I did some shoots for my book...

Then i decided i had to do a book that is easy to handle and i'm used to think that a book with too much recipes is a book that stays on the shelf. I wanted a book i could use myself. So i chose to write a single book on each of the previous book's chapters.

At the moment i'm writting a book about breakfast, it will be an anthology of almost 100 recipes with a picture for each. Indeed i think that pictures are one of the things that help me to choose between two cookbooks. I also want the recipe to be clear. I do love Nigella Lawson, but i think that her recipes are a bit too long (on the paper).

Even if i reckon that this book is the good one i can't help thinking to my old cookbook, which was pretty good too: it gave menus for lunch and dinner...

So please tell me what you think because as you can see i'm still not sure about what to do.

Labels: cookbooks

 Anonymous said something sweet:

I think you might want to get in touch with a publisher before you spend too much time on the book. They probably know what is requested on the market - cause no point doing a book if there already are hundreds just like it.

Find your special thing. Don't do a book "for yourself" but according to the market's needs, after all you want it to sell. If you could work together with people with knowldge from start you would not have to redo things.

But I'm no publisher, nor have I written any books. This is just what life experience tells me. So again, my word of advice is to get in touch with people working with this daily.

06 August, 2005 16:31 

 plum said something sweet:

Fanny, if you found the original too much work, I think it's better to break it into smaller chunks like this. And you might find that when you finish all of them, that you're happy to put them altogether as one volume then!

Has your Neil Perry arrived yet?

07 August, 2005 13:55 

 Anonymous said something sweet:

Definitely agree that it would be good to get in touch with a publisher for advice...as for me, I would definitely buy a book on breakfasts :-)

07 August, 2005 19:33 

 Anonymous said something sweet:

This picture isn't bad. You obviously already use depth of field which is essential for food pictures, maybe a little work on lights, but then what do I know.
There are many many cookbooks on the market already, so getting in touch with a publisher would be a good idea if selling your book is very important. An alternative would be to create it in electronic form, html, with a good structure and search features, and sell it for a low price on the internet as a shareware cookbook. That way there are no production costs. Advertising it would be mostly through your food blog, so you would also need to post content there and participate in the different food blogging events to be crosslinked. Once again, this is advice from someone with no experience in these matters.

08 August, 2005 04:20 

 *fanny* said something sweet:

Thank you so much for your comments. I will definitly get in touch with a publisher; though i think that a book about breakfast is requested on the market. I've always wanted and only found 1 or 2 that were not exactly what i was waiting for.

xoxo

Fanny

10 August, 2005 14:13 

 Ruth Daniels said something sweet:

I too am writing my first cookbook. I never thought it would take so long, but what a wonderful adventure it is so far.

Good luck

10 August, 2005 14:21 

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