Please help. I need your opinions and advice.

Hi Gordon, Dien, and all,

Long post. Thank you for reading. I value your thoughts.

I've broken my own rule not to cross-post, so if you see this elsewhere, please forgive my transgression. I value each and every one of your thoughts, suggestions and opinions on this matter. If you include your email address in your response, I will email you a Thank You gift later.

The problem:

Due to a change in health, I must give up my local work, tutoring immigrants. Local tutoring has been a top moneymaker for me.

I do have a stream of income from related products I've developed over time. When I needed and couldn't find teaching materials, I made my own. Schools, libraries, and individuals do order some of my stuff.

Question:
Gordon, you suggested I prepare an information booklet for tutors. However an easy course would probably be needed for serious prospective tutors. A few times I've hinted or made suggestions on boards, but only one inquiry showed interest.

Should I consider developing something for prospective tutors, or should I drop this for now? What do you think?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ OR:

In a past life, among other things, I taught Foods, Nutrition, and Cooking. I have recipes!

TONS OF RECIPES!!! All kinds of RECIPES.

Recipes that others ask for. No, recipes that people BEG for.

A few years ago, some were made into small recipe books, cookbooks, and cards. People bought them.

I dare say, many of my recipes are older than most readers here.

Some are on disk. Some are arranged as a recipe book, but more needs to be done to them. Something about HTML etc. Oh, and I don't have computerized pictures.

What do you think? I have recipes for most anything, from making your own baby food using your own home grown garden vegetables, to scrumptious desserts full of calories.

Right now, I have a Strawberry Lovers Recipe Book on disk. It's about 50 to 60 pages and needs a bit of fixing up, a cover, and converting to HTML, however that's done.

Mike McGroarty thinks cookbooks are a difficult sell. I agree with him.

What do you think? What would you advise me to do?

Would some people pay for a monthly, bimonthly, holiday, or seasonal recipe collection, or not? If yes, what would you want to see included in such a series? How much would you pay?

What ideas, suggestions, or questions do you have for me? Feel free to speak up. All comments, suggestions, criticisms, gratefully accepted.

Should I junk these ideas and look to do something else? Please speak freely. If you prefer, email me at: [email protected]
Respectfully,
Mary M. Kristoff

P. S.
Be sure to leave your email address for your thank you gift.

Mary




Citizenship Made Easy

Hi Mary,

> Long post. Thank you for reading. I value
> your thoughts.

> I've broken my own rule not to cross-post,
> so if you see this elsewhere, please forgive
> my transgression. I value each and every one
> of your thoughts, suggestions and opinions
> on this matter. If you include your email
> address in your response, I will email you a
> Thank You gift later.

> The problem:

> Due to a change in health, I must give up my
> local work, tutoring immigrants. Local
> tutoring has been a top moneymaker for me.

> I do have a stream of income from related
> products I've developed over time. When I
> needed and couldn't find teaching materials,
> I made my own. Schools, libraries, and
> individuals do order some of my stuff.

> Question:
> Gordon, you suggested I prepare an
> information booklet for tutors. However an
> easy course would probably be needed for
> serious prospective tutors. A few times I've
> hinted or made suggestions on boards, but
> only one inquiry showed interest.

> Should I consider developing something for
> prospective tutors, or should I drop this
> for now? What do you think?

I think the nice thing about courses is you don't have to create the "product" before you collect payment... That is, for a regular course (where people are taught in person), you can collect payment BEFORE you have to give the course.

You could try advertising your course, and give yourself the right to cancel the course if not enough people show interest to make it worthwhile. You could also offer a discount if people paid (say) 2 weeks ahead - this would encourage early payments, as this will help you to know whether to go ahead with it or not.

Do you mean this kind of course (given in person), or a different kind (such as a correspondence course)?

You also have to think about where to find people who might be interested in this.... Does anyone else offer such a thing, to your knowledge? If someone does, you could find out where they are advertising, and advertise in the same place.... If they are succeeding in advertising their course there, you will probably have some success advertising a similar course there too.

> In a past life, among other things, I taught
> Foods, Nutrition, and Cooking. I have
> recipes!

> TONS OF RECIPES!!! All kinds of RECIPES.

> Recipes that others ask for. No, recipes
> that people BEG for.

> A few years ago, some were made into small
> recipe books, cookbooks, and cards. People
> bought them.

> I dare say, many of my recipes are older
> than most readers here.

> Some are on disk. Some are arranged as a
> recipe book, but more needs to be done to
> them. Something about HTML etc. Oh, and I
> don't have computerized pictures.

> What do you think? I have recipes for most
> anything, from making your own baby food
> using your own home grown garden vegetables,
> to scrumptious desserts full of calories.

> Right now, I have a Strawberry Lovers Recipe
> Book on disk. It's about 50 to 60 pages and
> needs a bit of fixing up, a cover, and
> converting to HTML, however that's done.

> Mike McGroarty thinks cookbooks are a
> difficult sell. I agree with him.

> What do you think? What would you advise me
> to do?

> Would some people pay for a monthly,
> bimonthly, holiday, or seasonal recipe
> collection, or not? If yes, what would you
> want to see included in such a series? How
> much would you pay?

> What ideas, suggestions, or questions do you
> have for me? Feel free to speak up. All
> comments, suggestions, criticisms,
> gratefully accepted.

I don't know much about cookbooks (my main method of cooking is heating food in the microwave!)....

However, I know Willie Crawford has his own "Soul Food" cookbook for sale at Chitterlings.com. He also runs his own business forum too... Because of this dual expertise, he might be a good person to ask about his experiences in selling his cookbook....

Hopefully, someone else here might have some experience with this too....

- Dien Rice

Hi Mary,

I just thought of something else....

> Would some people pay for a monthly,
> bimonthly, holiday, or seasonal recipe
> collection, or not? If yes, what would you
> want to see included in such a series? How
> much would you pay?

> What ideas, suggestions, or questions do you
> have for me? Feel free to speak up. All
> comments, suggestions, criticisms,
> gratefully accepted.

One thing I have noticed is that people will often pay MORE for the SAME INFORMATION in a DIFFERENT FORMAT....

For example, information in a book might fetch one price. But if it's on an audio tape, the price people will pay could be higher, and if it's on an audio CD, the price could be even higher still....

Anyhow, I was searching through the "cookbooks" on eBay, after reading your post, to get an idea of what kind of prices cookbooks were selling at there.... The prices seemed to be generally quite low.

However, I noticed that recipes in collections of "recipe cards" seemed to attract higher prices than straight-out cookbooks did (especially if the recipe cards were in an attractive wooden box). So this is something which you might want to investigate further.... You might have more success, possibly, selling your recipes in recipe card format, than in a straight-out cookbook. It's something to test....

However, as I said, I don't know much about cooking and cookbooks (though I'd like to learn more). Hopefully, others here will have some further insights....

- Dien Rice

>
Right now general cookbooks are hard to
sell; but like anything else you have
to find a niche within the market. One
of the hottest areas in cookbooks right
now is the : "low carb cooking": because
so many people are on the high protein low
carb diets. Whether you agree or disagree
with the diet, the fact is "those type of
cookbooks are selling like hotcakes"; do
a search under "atkins", low carbohydrate
diet and under "forums" within these areas.
People are at the boards "begging" for recipes.
If nothing else you could adapt some of your
recipes to fit this eating lifestyle...

below is a link to an Amazon review of
a low carb cookbook...you can see the
strengths and weaknesses of the cookbook
and perhaps build a cookbook which is
better...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0966796314/102-1129949-3607309

> Hi Gordon, Dien, and all,

> Long post. Thank you for reading. I value
> your thoughts.

> I've broken my own rule not to cross-post,
> so if you see this elsewhere, please forgive
> my transgression. I value each and every one
> of your thoughts, suggestions and opinions
> on this matter. If you include your email
> address in your response, I will email you a
> Thank You gift later.

> The problem:

> Due to a change in health, I must give up my
> local work, tutoring immigrants. Local
> tutoring has been a top moneymaker for me.

> I do have a stream of income from related
> products I've developed over time. When I
> needed and couldn't find teaching materials,
> I made my own. Schools, libraries, and
> individuals do order some of my stuff.

> Question:
> Gordon, you suggested I prepare an
> information booklet for tutors. However an
> easy course would probably be needed for
> serious prospective tutors. A few times I've
> hinted or made suggestions on boards, but
> only one inquiry showed interest.

> Should I consider developing something for
> prospective tutors, or should I drop this
> for now? What do you think?

> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ OR:

> In a past life, among other things, I taught
> Foods, Nutrition, and Cooking. I have
> recipes!

> TONS OF RECIPES!!! All kinds of RECIPES.

> Recipes that others ask for. No, recipes
> that people BEG for.

> A few years ago, some were made into small
> recipe books, cookbooks, and cards. People
> bought them.

> I dare say, many of my recipes are older
> than most readers here.

> Some are on disk. Some are arranged as a
> recipe book, but more needs to be done to
> them. Something about HTML etc. Oh, and I
> don't have computerized pictures.

> What do you think? I have recipes for most
> anything, from making your own baby food
> using your own home grown garden vegetables,
> to scrumptious desserts full of calories.

> Right now, I have a Strawberry Lovers Recipe
> Book on disk. It's about 50 to 60 pages and
> needs a bit of fixing up, a cover, and
> converting to HTML, however that's done.

> Mike McGroarty thinks cookbooks are a
> difficult sell. I agree with him.

> What do you think? What would you advise me
> to do?

> Would some people pay for a monthly,
> bimonthly, holiday, or seasonal recipe
> collection, or not? If yes, what would you
> want to see included in such a series? How
> much would you pay?

> What ideas, suggestions, or questions do you
> have for me? Feel free to speak up. All
> comments, suggestions, criticisms,
> gratefully accepted.

> Should I junk these ideas and look to do
> something else? Please speak freely. If you
> prefer, email me at: [email protected]
> Respectfully,
> Mary M. Kristoff

> P. S.
> Be sure to leave your email address for your
> thank you gift.

> Mary

My last link didn't work Mary...
In case this one does not : go to
Amazon and do a search for Nancy Moshier,
author: of Eat Yourself Thin Like I Did
...read the reviews of her book and also
read the reviews of the books under the
category: "other people who bought this
book, bought"...
Lauri's Low Carb Cookbook is one of the ones
where people tell in their reviews what they
would like to see in a cookbook...

anyway...let's try the link again: hopefully
it works this time.
Ok? here it is(gritting teeth)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/redirect.html/ref=nh_books/102-1129949-3607309

In case this is not a market you want to explore;
it might be interesting to visit Amazon anyway
and find out which cookbooks are really selling
and why....

> Long post. Thank you for reading. I value
> your thoughts.

> I've broken my own rule not to cross-post,
> so if you see this elsewhere, please forgive
> my transgression. I value each and every one
> of your thoughts, suggestions and opinions
> on this matter. If you include your email
> address in your response, I will email you a
> Thank You gift later.

> The problem:

> Due to a change in health, I must give up my
> local work, tutoring immigrants. Local
> tutoring has been a top moneymaker for me.

> I do have a stream of income from related
> products I've developed over time. When I
> needed and couldn't find teaching materials,
> I made my own. Schools, libraries, and
> individuals do order some of my stuff.

> Question:
> Gordon, you suggested I prepare an
> information booklet for tutors. However an
> easy course would probably be needed for
> serious prospective tutors. A few times I've
> hinted or made suggestions on boards, but
> only one inquiry showed interest.

> Should I consider developing something for
> prospective tutors, or should I drop this
> for now? What do you think?

> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ OR:

> In a past life, among other things, I taught
> Foods, Nutrition, and Cooking. I have
> recipes!

> TONS OF RECIPES!!! All kinds of RECIPES.

> Recipes that others ask for. No, recipes
> that people BEG for.

> A few years ago, some were made into small
> recipe books, cookbooks, and cards. People
> bought them.

> I dare say, many of my recipes are older
> than most readers here.

> Some are on disk. Some are arranged as a
> recipe book, but more needs to be done to
> them. Something about HTML etc. Oh, and I
> don't have computerized pictures.

> What do you think? I have recipes for most
> anything, from making your own baby food
> using your own home grown garden vegetables,
> to scrumptious desserts full of calories.

> Right now, I have a Strawberry Lovers Recipe
> Book on disk. It's about 50 to 60 pages and
> needs a bit of fixing up, a cover, and
> converting to HTML, however that's done.

> Mike McGroarty thinks cookbooks are a
> difficult sell. I agree with him.

> What do you think? What would you advise me
> to do?

> Would some people pay for a monthly,
> bimonthly, holiday, or seasonal recipe
> collection, or not? If yes, what would you
> want to see included in such a series? How
> much would you pay?

> What ideas, suggestions, or questions do you
> have for me? Feel free to speak up. All
> comments, suggestions, criticisms,
> gratefully accepted.

> Should I junk these ideas and look to do
> something else? Please speak freely. If you
> prefer, email me at: [email protected]
> Respectfully,
> Mary M. Kristoff

> P. S.
> Be sure to leave your email address for your
> thank you gift.

> Mary

Mary,
As was already pointed out, I sell a cookbook from
my website at http://chitterlings.com (currently
undergoing a facelift). I sell copies EVERYDAY.
The niche I chose was country or southern cooking
or "soul food." This was what I grew up cooking
and the website stared out as a hobby. Now
the website gets 15,000+ unique visitors some
days.

A few insights:
I first offered my cookbook only in PDF format
but discovered that more people wanted hard copy.
My printer can do copies for around $2 each so
that made sense to me too.

I have a mailing list from my website which has
over 14,000 members currently. The members
share recipes with each other so the list writes
itself. Many people look forward to each daily
issue and tell me this is the first thing they
read every morning. The list is one of the big
keys to my success. I have sponsor ads at the
top and bottom of each issue. One of these ads
is usually for the cookbook. The other ad has
been for a diet book lately. I also sell copies
of the diet book virtually every day :-)

My site also has a moderated discussion board.
This brings many people back every day. They
swap recipes on the boards and a nice community
has grown around it.

The site, board, and list all feed on each other
and all sell copies of my cookbook.

Cookbooks are one of those products Tony Blake
refers to as "bread and butter products." These
are products that will always be in demand...
products that you can always repackage and resell.
Your cookbook can be packages as an ebook, a
hardcopy book, a website selling member only
access, and or a cd.... among other formats.
I see a lot of people selling cds containig
recipes collections on ebay for example. They
do sell (I've purchased them) and cds are
extremely easy to produce and mail.

Just a few thoughts. Now I need to get back to
my site. It started out very simple but now
I am thinking I need a lot more pictures of my
foods and more bells and whistles to supercharge
sales.

Willie Crawford


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