On Sunday, May 12th, Frank Kelly, MD of Lettertec Ireland Ltd and selfpublishbooks.ie traveled to the beautiful village of Ballydehob, to give a publishing clinic, with a large focus on publishing cookbooks. It was a small and intimate gathering of people who were very interested in promoting the work that they do and companies that they work for or own.
The event was organised by Trish Deseine who is a well-known Irish food writer and cookbook author. She writes a very popular food column in the Gloss Magazine and has published over 25 books in both French and English, the books have won five World Gourmand Awards and many other accolades. For more information, visit the website run by Trish Deseine www.trishdeseinefrance.com
She invited Frank Kelly down to pass on his knowledge as he has helped countless people put a book of this type together over the years. The publishing and printing and printing of cookbooks is very different to standard books such as novels and poetry collections and so they have to be treated differently. The design of the books has to be just right, with the brand to be the same throughout the book, bright clear images and a good size font. We have published a cookbook where all of the images were taken using an iPhone, not even a modern iPhone, it turned out well, but it isn’t something that we recommend.
Many of the people who will be reading your cookbook, will be reading it from distance, perhaps following it as they cook and bake, this is why a larger font, with good spaces in between the sentences is normally best.
Since we are a printing company, we often focus on that side of book publishing, but when publishing a cookbook or recipe book, it is very important to get this part right. Cookbooks require different types of paper, mostly heavier and more durable types, it is always best to discuss this with whoever prints or publishes your book. You also have to choose the size of the book you want and if you go with a hardcover or softcover, hardcovers are the standard but it does depend on your budget.
These are the key areas that Frank Kelly spoke about with the group. Most of the group owned a restaurant or similar food business and wanted the book to represent them and their brand. They had plans to sell the book on the premises or to use it to approach the larger publishing houses with the aim that the publishing house would take them on. This is a good way of getting their attention as they can see that you know what you are doing and have most of the work done for them, saving them time and money.
The clinic lasted approximately an hour with a question and answer section afterwards. If you have a cookbook or recipe book in that that you are interested in publishing, give us a ring on 0214883370 or email us and we will have a chat about your requirements and different options.
We will be having more publishing clinic’s running shortly.
