Why Not Write a Cookbook?

One of the most popular sellers by any book retailer is the cookbook; any cookbook. Why? Surely we all own way more recipes than we can ever use. I’ve decided that if they’re still selling so well, don’t bother to ask why? Instead, make plans to enjoy the sales of your own cookbook contribution to the culinary world.

There will most likely be an audience for almost any type of cookbook you can think up. Appetizers? Yep, we all have a box load of those recipes, plus desserts, meats, vegetables, pasta, and on and on.

There might even be one using store bought dog food, for all I know – and no, I wasn’t referring to food for Bowzer, I was talking about people-food made from dog chow. Who knows? There already is a small cookbook available for making pet food for Bowzer and Fluffy, which I just happen to own, among dozens of others. And I don’t even like to cook. I’ve never cooked from most of the books I own. But give me a new cookbook, especially one that features lots of mouthwatering pictures, and I’m hooked for a day or so of browsing and dreaming (of eating the dishes after having someone else make the dishes for me).

Take a look at your collection of cookbooks and tell me you couldn’t write one yourself, or maybe that you’ve been thinking of producing one someday. One thing is for certain, we’ve all collected favorite recipes from friends and relatives from time to time, and some of us have even come up with our own versions of green bean casserole. If you love to cook, or hate to cook but have managed to survive anyway, why not write a book about it? Include your favorite recipes along with your own ideas about coping or making do when the cupboard is bare and you don’t want to drive to the supermarket.

Maybe you have some unique experiences, or a background that suggests an unusual perspective on cooking and serving. A “Back to the land” cookbook would be appropriate from someone raised in a commune or the environmentalist movement. “Cooking for a crowd” would be an easy topic for someone reared in a large family, or who cooked meals for and with an extended family. Everyone from the South who attended a rural church knows what “Dinner on the Grounds” means. They’re the get-togethers outdoors following church services where everyone brought a favorite dish that was shared among all the other attendees—in other words, a potluck. However, “Dinners on the Grounds” usually featured only the favorite recipes of families attending, while a potluck dinner suggests that something was hastily thrown together at the last minute.

I have one from a small town in Arizona that even includes a recipe for making corn liquor, or as we called it in the South, “mountain dew.” Not that I ever plan to try the recipe, but the book happens to include lots of recipes from grizzled miners and prospectors who share tips on basic survival cooking over an open fire.

Someday I plan to make a list of all my cookbooks, but the list still won’t include the dozens of recipes I’ve clipped from magazines and newspapers. I would just like to see how many duplications I have! And I have produced three cookbooks to date, one for a family reunion which was presold to the attendees and included old family stories; and one called “Pizza Through a Straw” for dental surgery patients who can’t chew. This idea came during my own seven months of surviving with my jaws wired and I can remember lying in a hospital bed on one of my many hospitalizations during that time and signing copies for other patients that the doctors had given them.

My last cookbook was a collection of my favorite recipes gathered from friends and family over the years. plus my own few creations. Included in the book were brief stories about where the recipes came from, and fond memories of sharing the dishes with friends. It wasn't written for the commercial market, so only about 50 were printed and distributed.

Producing Newsletters for Businesses Is Profitable for Both Writer and Client

Producing newsletters for business clients is one of the more pleasurable projects that I have done. Business owners love to have a professional looking format to get their message out to prospects plus they enjoy being able to educate their customers about their products or services. It doesn't matter if they're in a professional field, or they're in real estate, landscaping, wedding planning, decorating homes, selling floorcoverings, or a myriad of other businesses, a newsletter can both advertise to and educate their customers and prospects. Plus, the public doesn't mind receiving this kind of promotional material, unlike most junk mail that merely seeks to sell something.

As a freelance writer, this is something that can be profitable in any community. Even if yours is a rural community, if there are organic farmers or craftspeople seeking to sell at farmers' markets, a handout that advertises their products while offering nutritional information, recipes, or crafty ideas will garner more loyal customers. Think creatively about who in your neighborhood might profit from a newsletter produced by you.

First of all, write up a newsletter sample to use to approach your prospects. It can be about almost anything. Anyone can learn to use software to layout a newsletter, including embedding photos. If you haven't tried a desktop publishing program before, there's no better time than now. I'm sure you will enjoy this creative, professional format for your writing endeavors. Many of the programs cost very little - you don't need expensive software to create an attractive newsletter. In fact, even with Microsoft Word, you can produce a very professional looking newsletter.

I would advise checking out a book on newsletter production from your library. If the local one doesn't have this type of book, ask if they can do an intercity or statewide library search for you. This is exactly how I learned what professional-looking newsletters should look like. You can also go to local businesses and ask if they already send a newsletter to their prospects and request to be put on their mailing list, or ask for a copy. Collect enough, and you'll have an overview of both the good, bad and ugly in newsletters, and can decide how you want yours to look.

Your goal isn't to copy someone else's newsletter. Study enough of them, and you'll soon see how you can get creative without copying. Most newsletters have much in common, such as two- or three-column format with a large title on the top of the first page. You can also study the fonts used in articles to find the one that is the easiest to read, then use that same font for your own. Most newsletters are written in New Roman Times font, or possibly Helvetica or Arial. Experiment with font sizes until you find the size that is most comfortable to read. For instance, New Roman Times appears smaller than others in the same size, so a 12 point font is often much more readable, while a 10-point of 11-point Arial will usually suffice. Your font size may also depend on how many words you want to include in your articles and how much blank space you have to fill.

All articles in the same newsletter should use the same font and point size, while headlines will be larger. The largest font will be used for your Newsletter title, and can be either a decorative font or a plain one on a block of gray background, or on plain background.

Experiment on your computer until you have a design you like, then print up a dummy newsletter to approach prospective clients. If you don't have a computer, or you don't plan to use desktop publishing software, you can type of a simple, one column newsletter with the headlines in bold type and the rest in plain. Or you can hand-create a masthead (title page) with ink and hand lettering, or lettering created on either your typewriter or computer. If you hand draw a Title page, you can make copies and use the copies to type up the front page of each newsletter. The remaining pages, if any, don't need the title on them.

The very first newsletters I produced were for a church and a volunteer organization, and they were done on a typewriter with a hand drawn title page. But most businesses use computers and they expect any writer and newsletter publisher that they hire to be computer saavy enough to produce their newsletter on a computer. Some businesses will even allow you to use a company computer to produce a newsletter for them. In this case, quote a price that is a little lower than what you could expect for producing it on your own equipment.

I once knew a young woman hired to go into an office once a month to produce a newsletter for a salesperson, and was paid an hourly fee of about $15.00. As a writer and newsletter producer on my own, I would have charged about $250 for the project if the sales person was having it printed, plus printing costs if I had it printed for him. Since I had experience, I would have, of course, been able to produce it much quicker than this young woman. It took her 10-15 hours to do the same thing on the company computer, but the results were slower and not as professional as they could have been had she been working alone without the distractions of a busy workplace.

I would encourage any freelance writer to seek out clients for newsletters. Businesses love them, their customers love them, and you'll enjoy doing this type of work, especially once you've gotten some experience under your belt.

Everybody Loves Hot Air Balloons

A hot air balloon landing in the RV Park in Verde Valley is a fairly regular occurrence.

For starters, let me explain that I have never yet ridden in a hot air balloon. It’s not that it doesn’t look thrilling, or that I wouldn’t love the view from one. Instead, it’s my aversion to cold—and from experience I know it is mighty cold at daybreak, even here in Arizona in summer.

My first up-close experience with a balloon was when I was writing for a newspaper in Washington State and was assigned to interview an eighty-something year-old woman who owned a balloon business. She asked if I would like to watch the launching of one, so I agreed to meet her at some ungodly hour in a field somewhere to get photos and watch the takeoff at daybreak. I did get some great photos (property of the newspaper) from the inside of the balloon as it was being inflated.

Then the woman asked if I would like to “chase” the balloon to its landing spot. What she meant by “chasing” was following by road and trying to figure out where it would land as it dipped behind trees and hills. That’s when I learned that hot air balloons don’t have a specific landing area because it all depends on air currents. So we chased it for miles until it finally started drifting downward, but I couldn’t get close enough in the car to get photos, and I certainly wasn’t going to hike through muddy fields in that damp, frosty air!

Since then, I’ve witnessed several balloons lifting off and landing here in Arizona, and specifically, settling to the ground here in the RV Park outside Cottonwood. This morning was one of those occasions. About 6:30 AM I heard the familiar wh-o-o-o-sh, wh-o-o-o-sh of one overhead and looked out the window to see it coming down over the park, and then grabbed the camera.

Again, this is an instance where traveling by RV increases the chances of witnessing hot air balloons both aloft and landing because both activities often coexist in high-tourist areas with wide open spaces. RVers can find plenty of opportunities to hitch a ride in one, if they wish. I had only seen a precious few balloons aloft before we started RVing.

Above is one of the photos I snapped early this morning.

Sticking to a writing schedule while traveling

One thing I’ve learned during my lifetime of trying to balance making a living while having fun is that there are always sacrifices to be made.

The first thing I learned was that if I worked, I lacked the time to travel. If I didn’t work, I had plenty of time to travel but no money to go anywhere. Bummer. Then I finally discovered my true calling, freelance writing, and that I could custom build a business to fit the traveling lifestyle we desired.

At first I had more deadlines than I could reasonably fit into my travel schedule, so I had to give up several newsletters. I had an entire office onboard the motorhome, so finding space to work wasn’t the problem, but pre-Internet difficulties made my task almost impossible. Cell phone service was unreliable then, plus we seemed to stumble across RV parks that lacked steady electricity, especially during storm season, blowing my schedule to bits. Let’s just say that even this lifestyle got stressful at times. Giving the newsletters up was a real struggle for me since I loved doing them, and my clients were wonderful business people that I enjoyed working with, but it had to be done.

I also published the newsletter Rolling Ventures for RVers who were operating a business while traveling, and being on the road was perfect for meeting RV entrepreneurs with interesting businesses and stories. However, for the reasons mentioned above, it also got stressful so I sold it to a willing RVer who was spending most of his time parked in one place.

When I was finally able to focus on writing articles for magazines and producing occasional projects for clients, my road finally smoothed out. Still, though, I had to be careful to balance writing and traveling because keeping income flowing in was still a big part of the equation.

I quickly learned that although we might be headed across country to a specific region, if I had deadlines, I had to stop occasionally for a day or two and concentrate on writing. And it became apparent that where we stopped was important. Stop in an area where we had friends or family, and my schedule was doomed.

We finally were able to devise a sort of schedule, but subject to change at any time! If we knew we would be traveling, I would get writing done ahead of time. If a new assignment came in while on the road, we would plan to stop for a couple of days where there were no outside temptations so I could focus on work. I could basically choose my own scenery outside the window to inspire my muse, and find a quiet spot to help my concentration level.

When we decided to stop for a few months in our favorite parks, I would let my friends in the park know that during certain hours I would be working so that they knew not to come knocking during those times.

Writing the books was the hardest to do, because my mind was whirring constantly with new ideas and thoughts about what I wanted to write, making the trip a blur. Then again, it was easy because I kept a notebook handy and every time we would stop, I would rush to the computer to get my latest thoughts committed to the hard drive. (This was before the laptop computer.) The book, Portable Writing, actually took several years, but that was because I created an outline for the book, then a sudden illness required that we get off the road for awhile so I could receive physical therapy and recover. I totally forgot the book outline until we moved back into the motorhome three years later, and while getting ready to travel, I ran across it. What a wonderful surprise, like a gift that had been saved for just the right moment!

Even with the outline, it took me three more years to get it exactly as I wanted.

Then almost immediately after it was published, I had the idea for Looking Back. This time, I rushed to the computer and started writing immediately, meanwhile contacting everyone I knew to see if they had stories about the Boomer era that they would like to contribute. With many wonderful, touching essays about events that had been lived and witnessed by the contributors, the book was much richer and fuller than could have been possible if I had written it alone—and it was finished within a year.

So how can you write and travel without sacrificing either one? Schedule writing time. Plan your travels to include time to research and write. Make a to-do list each night for what you want to accomplish during your next day of writing and/or research, and stick to it. If you are writing a book, break the work down into segments (chapters) and concentrate on getting each chapter completed instead of looking ahead at the entire project. A book project can look intimidating unless you break it down into manageable pieces. And find a place to store you works in progress so they don't get shoved into a cranny and forgotten or lost.

Sometimes it’s nice to set aside time to simply travel without thinking about writing. Never get too busy to enjoy the journey, but always stay alert to opportunities that may crop up in unexpected places. There are lots of adventures on the RV highway to enjoy, and worth committing to paper.

(I have been working on a novel for almost three years and can’t seem to get motivated to finish it, but it rests beside my easy chair waiting for the right moment to become a book. In the meantime, I’m also thinking about putting the stories written from my cat’s perspective for his blog into book form. His view on RVing and seeing the country can be found at http://travelingwithinky.blogspot.com.)