The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 18. How to Create a Cookbook with Chelsea Cole

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Chelsea Cole is back on the podcast today chatting with us about how to create a cookbook. Chelsea self-published 2 cookbooks and now teaches others how to self-publish their own cookbooks through her program, The Cookbook Lab. In today’s episode we cover, how Chelsea self-published her cookbooks, what she teaches her students in the Cookbook Lab, what it looks like to self-publish, and the benefits of creating a cookbook. If you have ever thought about creating a cookbook or just want to learn more about what it takes, tune in to today’s episode!Check out the show notes (link below) for links and resources mentioned in this episode!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsThinking about starting a blog? Check out the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode18

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm, and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Hey, everybody, and welcome back to another episode. Today, we are talking with Chelsea Cole from A Duck's Oven. We are talking with her for the second time today. She was also on episode number 10. And that day, we talked all about income streams as a blogger. And when we dove into that episode, gosh, there was so much to unpack that we just had to have her come back today because we really wanted to talk a little bit more about writing a cookbook. We know many of you are interested in this topic, so welcome, Chelsea. Thank you. I'm so excited to be back

and cover this today. This is one of my favorite things to talk about. You know, I feel like I say that every time, but I love talking about this one in particular. Well, we definitely love hearing about it. We have so many questions for you today. Now we're going to suggest everybody who hasn't listened to your other episode, they definitely need to go back and listen to that. But do you want to just tell us really briefly again about yourself for anybody who hasn't heard who you are? Yes. Yeah. So I'm Chelsea Cole. You can find me everywhere at a duck's oven. My blog is a duck's oven.com. I started it way back in 2010 when I was a sophomore in college at the university of Oregon, whose mascot is the Oregon ducks, hence a duck's oven. There's like my little origin story.

A few years ago, I self-published my first cookbook and I now teach others how to self-publish their own cookbooks in my program, The Cookbook Lab. My professional background is in marketing and I love chatting all things marketing as well. So those things are kind of my jam. I know people are going to have so many questions about the topic you just mentioned, which is self-publishing a cookbook. I know there are a million different directions you can go when you're a food blogger and you want to create a cookbook. And so you've gone the self-publishing route. Let's just talk a little bit first about why you even decided you wanted to do a cookbook. What inspired you in the first place to decide to create a cookbook? Yeah, I think for a lot of us, writing a cookbook is kind of a dream. Like it's something we'd love to like be able to do someday. And especially I think maybe several years ago, and as food bloggers, you know, we, we talk about food every day. We do kind of one-off projects for our food blogs all the time, but doing something like a cookbook, that's like this big culmination of our efforts is something that is so exciting.

So I had always dreamed of it. My thing, I was a very generalized blogger. I did not have like a niche or anything until 2017 ish. And that also meant I didn't really know what I'd write a cookbook about, you know, with my background being in marketing, I knew I wasn't going to have any luck just publishing a book about the things I like to cook. You only get away with that if you're a food network star. So I needed to have like a hook. So in 2017 ish, my maybe 2016, my mom got me an immersion circulator for my birthday. Immersion circulator is a device you need to use for sous vide cooking. So I was, and I was like kind of hesitant. Like I had talked to her a little bit about it, but I was scared of it. And so she got it for me and it sat in the box for a few months. And then I was like, okay, we're going to tap like one day we're going to tackle this thing. Like I'm going to figure it

out. Did it. And like immediately fell in love. I was like, this has changed my life. I am definitely a carnivore. I come from a family of hunters and fishermen, and it's hard to cook a steak, especially like when you're younger and you're trying to figure out how to cook it. Not, not well done, but well on a grill, it's really hard. And when I saw what sous vide could do to make this process easier for me, and then from there cooking any kind of like difficult food, like how that could make it easier. I was hooked. And so I started trying to find good sous vide resources to like help me learn how to do this. And what I found was all the sous vide stuff, especially at that time was one totally geared towards men to really geared towards like quote unquote food nerds, which I, that was,

that was not really me at the time. I definitely a little more that way now. And there was just wasn't a lot of resources for home cooks and people looking to incorporate it into their like everyday cooking routines was more like big, weird projects and stuff. And I just like, saw such an opportunity for Subi to make the lives of average home cooks easier. And I was like, okay, this is my cookbook. Like I just, I just, once all those things kind of clicked into place in my head, I was like, I need to write a cookbook about this. So I like this was, and this was so quick, like the sequence of events. And so I started Googling and like figuring out how to get a

cookbook deal. I started researching like literary agents and that kind of thing and figuring out like, how do I tackle this? And I pulled some of my favorite cookbooks off the shelves and emailed some of the authors just to ask them if they had advice, like, cause why not? And Melissa Joel one of the book, well-fed just like a paleo cookbook. She responded and told me she's self-published and she told me all the reasons she's self-published. And I was like, oh, I didn't know this was really a thing. And so many of the reasons that she described totally spoke to me. So I was like, I'm going to self-publish because in part, I was really impatient.

I did not want to wait two years to see my book done. And so I'm like, hey, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to do it. And so I did. And about six months later, I self-published my first book. So yeah, that's kind of how it happened. I love that you jumped right in. That's amazing.

Because I think I'm kind of like that too. Like if you put something out there, then you're like, let's just do it. You know, because if you sit on it too long, then I think you can get in your head a little bit and then not do it. Yep. A thousand percent. And what a great tip to reach out to other people. I think that that just speaks to the blogging community.

And then you've gone on to like even create a course that we're going to talk about later, you know, in regards to helping people self-publish their cookbooks as well. So I think that that that's awesome that she was able to kind of start you down that path and have you look at that. So you said it took you about six months to get started or to get it out and publish then. Yep. Yeah. Which is considered fast. And, but I will say at that time I was working, I was in the process, my husband and I were, I don't know like what the right phrasing is here. We were building our first home. Like we weren't the ones building it, but we were like making all

the decisions and everything. And so like, that was crazy. And my mom and I were opening an Airbnb at the same time and like doing a thousand different things. And I still got it done in six months. So it's just, it's everybody's going to be, that's the beauty of self-publishing is you do it on your own timeline. Yeah. So did you have like a resource that you went to in regards to know what to do to self-publish or what would you recommend for people that have decided I want to have a cookbook? I don't want to wait either. And I want to get started. How can they do that? So when I made this, I started Googling like, okay, how do you, there's all kinds of resources for self-publishing a book. There are much fewer resources for how to self-publish a cookbook and a cookbook and a book are wildly different things. You need far different skill sets for each of them.

The only thing that's the same is the platform that you put it on. And so there was one book that I found from my very good friend, Jason Logsdon. He has a book on how to self-publish a cookbook. I got it. He and I will both tell you, we both have very different styles. So it was very important. Again, my background's in marketing. I wanted my books to be colorful.

I wanted the photos to be big and beautiful. The look of my book was very important. Again, my background's in marketing. I wanted my books to be colorful. I wanted the photos to be big and beautiful. The look of my book was very important to me. And that and Jason's are much more educational and dense. They're really going to dive into something and teach you something. So his are black and white and have fewer photos than mine. Mine are much more traditional. So I had to learn how to do a lot of that on my own. Lucky for me,

one of my very good friends is a graphic designer. She's very talented graphic designer. And so she helped me with a lot of that piece for my book. She also co-founded the cookbook lab for me. So she did all of the design pieces within the cookbook lab. And so once it was done, I was like, there was, I, you know, I saw a hole in the market to create my first cookbook. And I was like, there's another hole in the market for self-publishing cookbooks. I actually did another podcast interview with food blogger pro two months after my first book came out. And I got so many DMS emails, et cetera, after that came out and they're like, how do you do this?

And I'm like, guess this is the next thing I'm making. And so that's when I created the cookbook lab. It took, it took a while, but that's how that all happened. Because one of the beautiful things about writing a cookbook is it really sharpens all of your existing food blogging skills because everything needs to be better. Because the thing about a blog post is you can go back and update it anytime, right? Like you get a comment that's like, Hey, you said lemon peel in the, in the ingredients, but earlier in the blog post, you said orange peel. And it's like, Oh crap, my whatever. And you just go back and update it. It's no big deal. You can kind of do that with a cookbook. But even if you do that, there are people who have

already purchased it and spent money on this thing. So it's important that it's a good quality product. I have become a way better recipe tester through writing my cookbooks. I've learned so much more about getting my recipes tested by others, more about print photography, just all these different things that have truly made me better at all of my other jobs. So anyways, that was a tangent. But I think that's something that's really important because it's, it's taken you down a different path in blogging, which is obviously creating this cookbook, but it, like you said, it's sharpened your skills that in turn just makes you a better blogger as well. Right? Yeah, exactly. I think that that's kind of beautiful the way that that kind of works together.

So you saw a hole that needed filled with how to create a cookbook. And so you created the cookbook lab. So how long have you been doing that? And tell us a little bit about what you teach your students in the cookbook lab. Yeah. So, you know, I had no background in course creation before I made this. And so initial launch of the cookbook lab was, let's say, not successful. It was fine. Like a few people and like not great. And so I had to learn a brand new skillset in course creation and marketing, of course, which is this whole other thing. So it was really good to learn from it in the beginning.

I think I had wanted to make it this chunked up course where you could buy different components of it and piece it together. That was just too confusing for people. So learned a lot about that, kind of redid it. We completely overhauled it last spring and relaunched it and have grown the community by leaps and bounds since then. So now there's almost a hundred people in the cookbook lab and it's just become this really great community. And so even it's been really fun to see each person that joins comes with their own skillsets and needs help

in completely different ways. And so one thing that we've started doing that I really enjoyed is last September, we launched a live class series. So once or twice a month, there's a live class that deep dives a particular thing about creating a cookbook. So actually I have one in a few hours and we're going to be talking about like launch marketing for your cookbook and things like that. So we've had lots of guests like Joni Simon came and talked to us about photography for your cookbook. My personal mentor came in November and talked to us about like technical recipe writing. So anyways, it's been, it's been super fun, but yeah. Awesome. So when someone joins the cookbook lab, do they go through like different like modules and things or how does it kind of work? How do they from start to finish? Are they able to,

to launch a cookbook? Is that kind of the goal of the cookbook lab or is it just more teaching throughout? Tell us a little bit more about that. It's a self-guided course in the, with the live class. So it's completely self-guided. And the, I hope with the live classes is that you can just like jump into one at any point in your process. And it's still going to be valuable for you. You don't have to have like been to every class in the series. They kind of stand alone. And those are just designed to be supplementary and give people an opportunity to like actually ask questions live. And I think that there's a lot of value in live learning. I know it's funny. Like I know we all sign up for stuff like that all the time and then forget to go. But then every time I go, I'm like, crap,

I need to be doing this more often. Like this was, this is good for me. So yeah, it will help you publish a book from start to finish. We even have like cookbook templates that you can use that you get access to for different sized books within there. We have a Slack channel community. We were on Facebook for a while, but if I'm being honest, I just hate Facebook so much and I couldn't do it anymore. So now we have a Slack channel where Carly, my co-founder is in there too. And she's supports with design questions and I'm in there to answer any other questions, but yeah, it teaches you how to actually do the whole thing from start to finish and do it well. I am a stickler for a lot of things, like, because

anybody could self-publish a cookbook. Anybody could self-publish a book. I really, really emphasize you need to have your recipes tested by your audience. You need to work with a recipe editor. You need to work with a recipe editor. You need to work with a copy editor. You need to do these things to make sure you're making a professional product. So those are kind of, and you have people it's that this has been another really interesting thing for me. You have people on all ends of that spectrum. Like I have definitely had people come in who are like, do I really need to have people test my recipes? I've made them so many times. I think I'm going to skip that part. And I'm like, yeah, you've made them so many times in your kitchen with

your brain. Like you need somebody else to make it in their kitchen and make sure that your instructions translate to them. And then like you have people on this end of the spectrum who are like, this thing is going to be amazing. I'm outsourcing like even my photography and going to hire this really expensive photographer and go on a tour and like all this stuff. So it's kind of fun. I'm like somewhere in the middle. I'm very DIY and like, well, I was much less DIY for my second cookbook, but I'm like wanting to like save money and do a lot of it myself. But yeah, so that's been really fun too. And so the whole goal of this is to publish your own cookbook via this method of self-publishing. Let's talk a little bit more for anybody who doesn't really understand what that means.

Is that like creating an electronic book for people? Is this like going to be a hard copy book? What does the logistics look like with all of that? Yep. So I am talking about physical cookbooks and okay. So this is like what I'm about to say sounds a little harsh, but I think it's like important to consider. I talk to food bloggers all the time who are like, I think I'm just going

to make an e-cookbook and like, see how that goes. And like, that'll, I'll just like test the waters or whatever. Like, I don't think I'm ready to make a full cookbook. And so these are what I always challenge people with one. When was the last time you bought an e-cookbook and how often do you actually reference that? Like the very strange thing about cookbooks that's still kind of beautiful is we prefer physical books when it comes to cookbooks. And that's unlike any other book, like most other books, you know, people use a Kindle or an iPad or something for that now, but for cookbooks, we want the physical copy. And so consider that. And then two, it's not that much of a leap to go from e-cookbook to physical cookbook. Once you've done all the work of

creating all these recipes, having them tested, putting it like it's not that big of a leap. And so we're talking physical cookbooks. The method that I use and will tell everybody to use is called print on demand. And so what that means is like, I don't have a thousand of my own cookbooks in my house. I'm not doing the fulfillment for this. So there are platforms that are print on demand. Amazon has one it's called Amazon KDP. There's another one that's really big that I use called Ingram spark. And so the way this works is when somebody buys a copy of my book on Amazon, that's when it gets printed and then it gets shipped to them. So you're not on the hook for like fronting the costs of these cookbooks, which that makes it a lot better. They like, there are companies that are designed to do this for you, which is really,

really great. The only downside with some of this is you're out of control of a lot of it. For example, with all the shipping and logistical issues we've had in the past few months, if somebody orders a hard copy of my book, lately it's been a month to get to them, which is really frustrating. But we're in unusual times here. That's usually not the case. So yeah. So do you have to like order a specific amount to start or you can, so you create the cookbook and then you put it, let's, let's use the Amazon example. And then you could just buy one. Like you don't have to have like so many pre-orders or anything like that. You can just start it because you have the hard copy ready to go and you basically just upload it into their system then. Is that how it works? Yep. So you literally just create a PDF of

your book, upload it to their platform, and then they print it. So usually when I publish my books, I buy 10 paperbacks and 10 hardcovers to have on hand, but just for events or if somebody wants to buy a signed one for me or whatever, you don't have to buy anything. You just upload the PDF and then they do the rest for you. It's really cool. That's amazing. Is it a lot more work, would you say, to self-publish a cookbook than to say, have a traditional cookbook deal? And how would somebody know if this was the right path for them? It's definitely a lot more work. So the thing, like the trade-off that you're making here, when you self-publish, you have all the control that you'd ever want over your product. When you traditionally publish, you have support. Those are the things that you are giving up. When you self-publish, you are the project manager. You are the one making everything happen. You are only accountable to you, which is why I encourage my students to set a publish date and say it out loud to their audiences. So their audiences can help hold them accountable to that date. But yeah, it's all on you when you

self-publish. You can hire people. Like for example, for my second cookbook, I hired my sister-in-law to help manage all the recipe testers because I found that to be really difficult. During my first cookbook, it took way more time to manage that process than I expected. You can hire things out like that, but that is kind of the big difference. Whereas when you traditionally publish, they've got editors, they're going to be project managing. They're going to be telling you what needs to happen when, but they are in control of your book. They determine the topic. They determine the title. They determine the cover. They determine the look and feel of it. So that's kind of the thing. And you might be thinking, so? But for many of us, and I'm not

talking about a for hire cookbook in this situation. And so a for hire cookbook would be if Instant Pot wanted to make a soup cookbook and they were like, hey, we want to bring you on to develop the recipes for this. That's like a for hire situation. Not what I'm talking about here. When you are creating a cookbook, it's very personal. And so having control over those creative details becomes important. I have a friend who I met at a cookbook signing event in Portland and she traditionally published. I was talking to her about her experience. She hated the cover of her book and there was nothing she could do about it. And that sucks when you put so much effort into this. And I know another woman who my mentor,

she's written 18 cookbooks. She's a James Beard award winner. She's amazing. Her favorite, the lifespan of a book of a cookbook and, and really any book, is it's usually like super hot in the first really six months and then kind of year. And then from there, sales are going to trickle. One of her favorite cookbooks that she wrote had been out for a really long time and sales had started to trickle. And her publisher decided they weren't going to print any copies of it anymore. And that killed her.

She was so devastated by this. So she's working on getting the rights to that cookbook so she can self-publish it and it can still be available for printing. So anyways, that's kind of like the primary trade-off when you decide to self-publish over traditionally published. So it kind of depends on your personality. Have you ever wanted to start a blog but had no idea where to begin? Or maybe you have a blog that you'd like to update and want some help to make it the best it can be. We know that there are many people out there who have big dreams for their own blog that never happen because they simply feel stuck. The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp is an eight-week course designed to help you create a solid blogging foundation

by teaching you how to treat your blog as a business, find your audience, design a website that is optimized for SEO, all while providing support via online coaching calls each week of the course. There's a private Slack channel for students as well, so questions will never go unanswered. The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp will give you the tools and support to create a blog that has the potential to turn into a profitable business. We are committed to helping each and every student feel empowered and confident with the foundational principles of blogging and the behind the scenes work that goes into it. If you don't want to blog alone, we can help. We keep each round small in order to provide each student the attention and support we believe you deserve during this process.

Since space is limited, get on the waitlist today so we can help you with your blog. The link to join the waitlist is in our show notes or go to sparkmediaconcepts.com and click on the ultimate blog bootcamp. Okay. I have a question. I have two questions, actually. I don't want to forget them. Do you, do you pay recipe testers? No. So all of my recipe testers were volunteer recipe testers. They were members of my audience, people on my email list who just volunteered, which is amazing, but you do pay a recipe editor. Okay. Okay. So that was my first question. Second. So we see now that there's like pros and cons to

self-publishing or having a publisher. Is there a difference in the amount of money that you're going to make in regards to whether or not you self-publish or go through a publisher? Because I'm assuming if you go through a publisher, they are going to also set the price. Is that correct? Yeah. So if you self-publish, then you're the one deciding what the price is as well. Yes, correct. So this is kind of another trade-off scenario. So a publishing house is going to have more resources than you when it comes to distribution. So your book might be distributed more widely, like more copies of it might be available. But when you self-publish,

you keep a way bigger chunk of the money. So when you traditionally publish, you're usually making less than a dollar per book sold. And the thing that a lot of people don't kind of realize about the advance. So an advance is exactly what it sounds like. It's an advance and you don't make royalties on your book until that advance is paid out. And that can take years and years and years. So when you self-publish, yes, you're fronting the costs. It can cost anywhere between 1200 and, you know, I mean, depending on what you want to do, like $50,000 to self-publish a cookbook. But for most people, it's like 1200 to 3000 to self-publish. So you're fronting that cost yourself, but you get to, I like, so for all of my books, depending on the cookbook and the format, I make between two and $5 per book.

So I make far more money per book. You make more money per book. It sounds like, and you're in control for the promotion of it as well. Like you can continue to promote that to your audience indefinitely. Cause then you're in charge of it staying in print. And here's the, another thing a lot of people don't consider in 2022 publishing houses. And you'll find like, I'm happy to share articles about this. You'll find lots of articles about this, but publishers like an author that hasn't built an audience because they're relying on their authors to do most of their own marketing. If you want to do a book tour, that is usually on you.

You're doing that yourself. And like you hire somebody to do that for you and all of that money. So the money for your travel, the money to hire someone to put it on for you, all that stuff comes out of your own advance. So the publishing house isn't paying for this. So they're kind of regardless relying on you to do a lot of their marketing. They might have more, again, more resources. They've got PR people on staff and stuff like that.

They have the logistics in place to send out gift boxes to fellow influencers with your book in it. But you're paying for a lot of that. So this is something a lot of people don't realize. And for me, I just take a more, much more frugal approach to it. I do spend some money here and there, but it's much more frugal and DIY. So everybody's kind of different on the spectrum. So I have a question. You said that they kind of expect you to have a built-in audience if you're going with a publisher. And you're obviously going to want somewhat of an audience too if you self-publish a cookbook.

But I would imagine that the threshold would be a lot lower. So if we have people listening who are thinking, gosh, I just started my blog. I don't have that many page views per month. Maybe self-publishing might be right for me, but is now even the right time is, is there kind of like a minimum number of like social media followers or page views that you would suggest for a blogger before they even consider going this route? I think that the thing I would consider more is how good is your topic? So I approach topic like keyword research and like fully utilize like the Amazon search engines to see how this goes. And like, so that part can be really powerful for helping you use books if you can stand out when people are searching for something.

Or you can have a big audience. So you just have to think about how people are going to find your book. When I self-published my first cookbook, I had less than 2000 Instagram followers. And I made my money back within three months. So it's just like, it's some creativity. And then, you know, you can do your, when it comes to marketing, one of the biggest movers of cookbooks that I've found is when I do local live TV appearances, I always see a massive spike in book sales after that. Are those people going to follow me on Instagram afterwards? Probably not because it's a much older, you know, group of people who's watching daytime TV, but it's a massive bookseller. I think it's just,

it's more like you have this menu of options in front of you for promoting your book and you want to pick three to five things off of that menu and make it work for you. So however, so like if you have less than 5,000 Instagram followers, you don't really have an email list. You're making a book that's just, again, a random collection of recipes you like to cook, and there's no real strategy behind it, you're probably not going to see a lot of sales. Does that mean you shouldn't do it? Not necessarily. If you're just doing this for you and maybe for your family or something like that, go for it if you want to. But yeah. And if you do really hit the nail on the head, You get that, that correct niche. You really find this

need in the market for your cookbook. Is there a benefit to your blog going forward? When you start selling these cookbooks, does you see your blog like page views increase, or is it like a brand awareness kind of thing? What are the benefits when you actually sit, if you're not really using this as a main source of income, what are the benefits of creating this cookbook? Great question. So the, one of the great benefits of writing a cookbook is it improves your eat expertise, authority, and trust with, I think that's what that stands for, right? With Google. And my domain authority has increased significantly since publishing my cookbooks. In fact, so I was at a, I was at tastemaker this past weekend. I was at a speaker dinner and I was at a table with Casey Marquis and he was asking me about the

benefits of self-publishing. And he goes, did you have to register an ISBN when you write your book, which is like essentially a barcode. It's a special type of barcode for books. I'm like, yeah, I have an ISBN. He's like, do you have, I don't remember what it's called, but it's like a Google profile. So if you Google like a celebrity or something, you'll see the box come up in the Google search. And I was like, no, he's like, we need to get you one of those. If you have an ISBN, it can help you get one of those. And I'm like, I didn't, he's like, email me afterwards. We'll figure it out.

I'm like, I didn't know this was a thing. Okay, great. So it's really awesome for that. So it's going to make you again, a greater expert in your field because you've written these books. So, and that's a huge part of my blogging strategy. Anytime I'm doing a sous vide recipe, I link to, of course, my cookbooks available on Amazon affiliate links there. But then I also link to a page on my blog. That's about my cookbooks. So it's incredibly valuable for that. So that's

kind of how it helps you with blogging. So they are like your blog is going to support sales of your cookbook and your cookbook is going to support your blog, which is really, really great. There are a thousand other reasons that are great to write a cookbook, but that's how it helps with your blog. That's awesome. I haven't thought of like the way that they kind of marry each other and help one another in each area. Because I think like you've said, like it's not a huge moneymaker. So you have to be willing to look at the long game here in regards to creating a cookbook. You're not going to become a millionaire likely off of your cookbook, but what over time could

bring more revenue in and how can that work for you long-term? Yeah. And that is such an important thing to consider. My first cookbook gave me so many, it changed my life because it, so what I always tell people is writing a cookbook gives people a reason to talk to you when you're a food blogger. Like that's kind of like this big overarching thing. A cookbook is this launching a cookbook, releasing a cookbook is this exciting event that serves as a pillar in your career. And you get to do things because of that. So like when I launched or when I released my first cookbook, I got to do all kinds of

in Portland, there's all kinds of like makers markets, especially around the holidays and like open houses and things like that. And I got to do all of these things. It was a great way for me to get my foot in the door to go on live TV. And like, so at one of these events, for example, it was for a kitchen, like supply store that chose to carry my cookbook. So my, my cookbook is sold in stores and I was there doing book signings and they put me next to their sous vide like booth. And I was chatting with the woman running the booth and she's like, Hey, we're looking for somebody to do recipe development for our website.

Is that in photography? Is that something you'd be interested in? I'm like, yeah, like that. Absolutely. I'm interested in that. I ended up, I did that for like two years and then ended up becoming that company's marketing director. So that, and you know, that was a huge step forward for me in my career.

That freelance client opened up a lot of other freelance client opportunities for me. So even though I'm not raking it in and sales directly from my book, it's provided so many other opportunities that allowed me to quit my job last year. I think we're going to have so many food bloggers listening to this being like, yes, I'm publishing a cookbook. This is the right thing to do. So you've published two cookbooks now. Is that correct? Yes. Do you have plans to publish more cookbooks and would you ever consider going the traditional route or are you totally set from here on out to self-publish? to self-publish? I don't have any plans for my next cookbook at the time. It would probably be sous vide related. And like, I don't have my last one. It's funny the way things work. Like, and we talked about this a little bit in the last episode, I think, but like my philosophy with

these kinds of things is don't search too hard for the thing you're creating. Like you'll know when it's the right thing to create, because there's going to be so many things like pointing to that to you. So like with my cookbook, I was like, there's no resources for home cooks. I need to, I need to do this with my last cookbook. It was all about my like sous vide meal prep method, like pairing the two of them and stocking your freezer. And I had this like really fun idea for mix and match stuff in my cookbook. And so like it became clear to me and then I made it. So next cookbook is not a thing yet, but would I ever consider traditionally publishing? I would consider it if the right deal came across my lap. I'm not necessarily like anti-traditionally publishing or traditional

publishing. I just, I've learned a lot and there are things that are important to me in this space and I would be a stickler about that contract and it would have to be a big advance. I actually, I've had three different publishers approach me and I've turned them all down in part because of my amazing mentor. When I, when I got one of the first ones, the advance that they were offering was like something like $6,000. And to me at that time, I was like 6,000 bucks. That's great., I'm very interested in this. And I took her the deal, the proposal that they had sent me. And she's like, I'm, there's no way I'm letting you sign this. It was a very educational experience and I'm so grateful for her. And now I really know what I would look for in that deal. So yes, I would consider it, but it would have to be the

right deal. And I kind of want to, in some ways, just to like be able to real life, compare the two. I am not, my last cookbook came out last August and I feel like in some, obviously not to this extreme, but in some way it's like having a baby, like you need some time in between, you need to forget how hard it was to do it. And then like, you'll be excited about it again at some point and make it happen again. But yeah. That's a great analogy. And how about some tips for somebody who is thinking, okay, this is what I want to do. I want to create whatever direction they want to go, but they know they want to do a cookbook. How can they figure out what topic to write their cookbook about?

I have a guide that will help you get started. It's free. And the other thing to do when you're thinking about your topic is start teasing it with your audience and like feeling them out and seeing what their response is. One of my favorite things to do is even if you're like, I think I have kind of a cookbook topic idea in here, but like, I'm not sure yet. Look at your top 10 pages on Google, like see what, what blog posts are performing the best for you. Cause that's a good indication of what people are searching for and something that you maybe have expertise in already. And then just start like talking about that thing more and more with your audience and seeing what the reaction is like. If you get a lot of engagement, a lot of

questions, things like that, that's a good indication that that's like worthy of a cookbook topic. Yeah. And we'll put the link to, you mentioned that you have a freebie that walks them through coming up with that. So we'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes. Awesome. So if anybody is interested and ready to learn more about self-publishing, how can they join the cookbook lab? Yeah. So you can go to aduck7.com slash cookbook lab. So that's where we have all the information about this. And just to give people a sense of what's in there, we really deep dive. So, you know, there's like a getting started section and thinking about like kind of timelines and project management. If anybody is familiar with me, you know, that I'm like a massive fan of

Airtable and like a total nerd about it. I just like did a whole summit dedicated to Airtable bloggers. And so I have like a lot of Airtable templates just like did a whole summit dedicated to Airtable for food bloggers. And so I have like a lot of Airtable templates within the cookbook lab that help you kind of project manage this. And like, you also get access to like my intake forms for recipe testers and like all in like tracking stuff and recipe tracking and like all that good stuff. And it really walks you through the recipe testing process, the photography, the actual building of your cookbook, spoiler alert, why we prefer InDesign over Canva, which like immediately makes people freak out, but I promise it doesn't have to be that scary. And then like marketing your cookbook and all

that stuff. And then in our live class series, it's a lot of me talking, but it's also a lot of really good guest speakers too. So yeah, so that's really fun too. So is the cookbook lab like a certain amount of months or is it ongoing for people then? It's forever. So you get permanent access to it. We repeat the live class series. Like, so this is our first time doing it and it's gotten a good response.

We're going to do it again. So the live class series just restarts once it's done. It's meant to be that each class is like kind of standalone. So you can kind of standalone. So you can kind of hop in and out depending on where you are. If you weren't there when it started, no big deal. Just jump in where you are and it'll circle back around and restart. But you get permanent access and the course itself is totally self-guided and then extra support in the Slack channel.

Awesome. Because I'm sure people do this at such different paces. You know, like you said, you did it really quickly in six months, but what would you say would be the average amount of time that someone, if they want to do it well, could plan to get a cookbook, you know, from, I guess it's kind of when you're thinking about it to print. Probably nine months, nine months to a year is going to be like the average. It depends on what's going on in your

life and like how you can dedicate to it. So for me, I had fully planned. So I actually did another podcast episode right after I was done because it was just a good learning experience for me from a time management perspective. I had planned on like keeping everything afloat and like doing all the things up until launch. And the great thing about self-publishing is you get to approach it however you want to. And so what I chose to do, it was like, I had said, I want my cookbook out mid-August because I wanted it, it was about meal prep

and I wanted it ready for back to school season. And so I, like if July rolls around and I'm like, there's still so much work to do. So I chose to what I refer to as like strategically drop balls. So I was like, okay, I have freelance. So I chose to what I refer to as like strategically drop balls. So I was like, okay, I have freelance projects that I committed to though. I have to do those. And those are like an essential moneymaker for me, but I'm not doing anything else. Like, no, I am not taking on anything new. I am not doing a new blog. I chose not to do a new

blog post for two months. I'm like, that is just needs to be my reality right now because I just wanted the book done. Like I just wanted to be able to like hyper-focus on the book and, and do that. And so I did, but you don't have to do that. You can do it however you want to, which is like kind of the beauty of it. But I think that's important to say too, that sometimes our focus can shift in another way to, to not only serve your current audience, but to also find new people that you can really help and add value to. So I think that that's but to also find new people that you can really help and add value to. So I think that that's important to say that. You took two months off from writing on your blog and that's totally okay. Your blog did not die. Their traffic is still coming.

That's why we build blogs that are optimized for SEO. And we spend time on keyword research and doing all that stuff. That's why we share on Pinterest, you know, all that, all those different things. So you were able to take two months off. You still earned revenue on your blog and you created this other stream of income as well. And so now both can help each other even more. So I think that's important that you shared that. Thanks for, thanks for your honesty in that, because I think too often as bloggers, we talk all the time, how we could work literally nonstop and that's just not good for anybody. And we're going to get really burned out, but you, you set a goal and knew like, this is when I want it out. And so it's okay. If some

of those other things just need to fall back just for a little bit, it doesn't mean they won't be on the forefront again, but your cookbook needed to be on the forefront for a while. And think of the ways that it's helping people in the way that now they're getting to see your content even more and connect with you. So... And I think people can really feel out of control when they get busy. And one thing that was so helpful... I am not a Louis person in general, but a very good mindset shift for me during that

time was to be like, no, I am in control. I'm going to make choices about what I'm prioritizing right now. And that just required like communication from me. So even with my freelance clients, I was like, Hey, I'm committed to these projects that we have going on right now. I'm going to meet these deadlines. I'm not going to take anything new from you for the next little bit. So if you have something you need to tell me right now, but I think just like making sure that communication was in place and just in me knowing, okay, no new blog posts for a couple months. Like that's just, those are the decisions that I made and that made me feel better about it.

So Chelsea, does the cookbook lab only open certain times of the year or can people join all throughout the year? It's open all the time. However, there is about to be a price increase. So this would be a good time to join. I get really hung up on pricing things and like want it to be as really affordable and accessible, but with additions like the live classes and stuff, we've made the decision to raise the cost. So this is a good time to get in if you want to, and I'll make sure we're going to have a promo code for that available. So I'll make sure that your audience has access to that too. Awesome. We will put the link to the cookbook lab

in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on here today and sharing this. I think it's so important that people know that creating a cookbook is not something that seems like this too big dream that they can't ever do, but there's actually somebody out there who's willing to jump alongside them and help them through it. And so it doesn't need to be this dream that you just continue dreaming about, but you can actually make it happen. So thanks for sharing your experience and then helping others do it

and being willing to come on the podcast today and share with our audience as well. If you want to tell them one more time where they can connect with you, that would be awesome. Yes, that's exactly it. I am so excited to walk people through this process and help them achieve that dream. So yes. So again, my name is Chelsea Cole. You can find me

everywhere at a duck's oven. If you are interested in learning more about the cookbook lab, you can head to a duck's oven.com slash cookbook lab. And if you have any questions about this or like want to understand more about the process or anything like that, my DMS are always open. like want to understand more about the process or anything like that, my DMs are always open. I'm very active on Instagram, or you can shoot me an email. My email is chelsea at a duck seven.com, but always happy to chat. And thank you so much for having me on again. This was really fun. Yes. We love talking to you. Thanks Chelsea. Thanks Chelsea. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts.

You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.