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Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,999
Registered: ‎03-11-2010

Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?

Our church is trying to decide whether to do a cookbook for fundraising and someone has mentioned that it wasn't a good idea, to much trouble, etc. (not clear on their reason behind that) but if you have ever been involved in doing a church or family cookbook printing, how well did it work for you and would you ever do it again?  Suggestions please. Thank you !

Honored Contributor
Posts: 20,163
Registered: ‎10-04-2010

Re: Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?

I posted on this before, guess I wasn't signed in.

I don't know anything about doing these. I do buy these books everytime I see one for sale, since I love, "tried and true" ones, that your average Jo can do.

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Posts: 25,929
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?

The community where DH grew up wanted to save the pool but it needed extensive work done so they had to raise a LOT of money.A cookbook was one of the things they did. Everyone who contributed had to be a native from the borough. I sent 2 recipes in DH's name. They were able to raise a phenomenal amount of money , save the pool and have some left over to invest for future upkeep on the pool. the cookbook project was a huge undertaking but they sold a ton of them - had to go into a second and third printing. Personally, I bought 6 , kept one and gave others as gifts. 

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Honored Contributor
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Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?

My students did a cookbook as a fundraiser and we did fine financially, but it's important to use as many free, professional services as you can in the production and merchandising of the final product.

 

Ex.- if you have a crackerjack typist/proofreader that has the time to do THAT part of the job, that's already money saved.

 

Careful planning and sufficient allocated time pay off in the long run.

 

We worked on ours for a whole year.

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Registered: ‎02-22-2014

Re: Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?

Our Ladies Club at our church did one a couple of years ago. We worked for months on it. I did not think it was a good idea from the beginning because of the many internet sites, blogs, pinterest, facebook,  etc. It was all family recipes, etc. We sold them for $10.00 each.

We sold enough to cover the costs of the books and that was it. We still have a few boxes of them left. We even rented a small booth at a craft, bake, art fundraiser fair  to sell them. That was very unsuccessful too.  We had done one several years ago with great success, but that was before internet. I would absolutely vote "no" if it is ever brought up again. I might add we are a well established church (been here about 100 years)  in the community and a main stream demonination.

Wishing you all the luck in the world if you decide to do it.

 

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Posts: 195
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?

[ Edited ]

I vote NO to cookbooks. I use to collect many throughout the years , but finally got rid of them about 15 years ago.   I did cut a few recipes out and placed then in a small photo book for future references, if needed. I use the Internet and take my IPad in the kitchen to cook specific foods that I want to try. This certainly saves me shelving space. 

 

I do donate money when asked to support churches or other organizations. I just don't need more stuff. 

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Registered: ‎01-01-2015

Re: Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?


@newtoallthis wrote:

Our Ladies Club at our church did one a couple of years ago. We worked for months on it. I did not think it was a good idea from the beginning because of the many internet sites, blogs, pinterest, facebook,  etc. It was all family recipes, etc. We sold them for $10.00 each.

We sold enough to cover the costs of the books and that was it. We still have a few boxes of them left. We even rented a small booth at a craft, bake, art fundraiser fair  to sell them. That was very unsuccessful too.  We had done one several years ago with great success, but that was before internet. I would absolutely vote "no" if it is ever brought up again. I might add we are a well established church (been here about 100 years)  in the community and a main stream demonination.

Wishing you all the luck in the world if you decide to do it.

 


I belonged to a church that did two of them, but years apart. The first one was very successful, but like someone else already mentioned, it was done before the internet really took off.

 

I had already contributed my favorite recipes to the first one, so by the time the second one came around, I really didn't feel like I had anything more to contribute to it.

 

I happen to love these kinds of cookbooks though, and will usually pick them up whenever I can. They seem to have the best recipes in them that have been family favorites, and that have been passed down in some families, too. Some of the recipies are real treasures.

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Registered: ‎10-03-2011

Re: Church cookbook ? How'd it work for you ?

[ Edited ]

I was an officer on our elementary school PTO years ago.  We decided to do a cookbook and I headed it up.   It wasn't as easy as it sounds.  You give moms (church members in your case) a deadline for turning in recipes and there are always the stragglers.  Plus, there are errors in the recipes when someone inadvertantly leaves an ingredient out or mistakenly writes the wrong measurement.  So there's a lot of reminding and double checking.  Once all that is resolved, you need to decide how many cookbooks to order.  That's a real shot in the dark. If you order too many and they don't all sell, then you have wasted money and have an inventory of cookbooks to stick somewhere.  Too small of an order and you pay more per piece with the printer.  And if you have to order more they'll cost more in the long run.  You lose money on that because you can't up the price to customers.

 

Honestly, as someone who has actually collected cookbooks for pleasure reading over the years, I'd urge you to come up with another idea.  Organization cookbooks used to be a great thing back in the day - tried & true recipes from people you knew or sort of knew.  But that was before the Internet.  There are recipes galore out there now and with a couple of words in a search box and a couple of clicks of a mouse they're at everyones disposal.

 

I'd suggest a GoFundMe page or a sale of some kind of consumable that could be used personally or given as a gift - ie. Fanny May Candies, Candles, etc.  

 

You could also do a Pizza Hut night w/church people volunteering as servers (work out the details with your local PH - they will give a dollar amount for each pizza ordered, based on size, and servers donate their tips as well).  If you don't have  PH in your community, maybe there's another restaurant that would work out something similar with you.

Your church could host a special ticketed event, like a ladies Christmas Tea or Soup and Salad luncheon, where members would donate food items and $$ to cover the cost of paper & plastic, and tickets to attend would be sold in the community.  Arrange to have a local speaker or musical group who would either do it for free or an affordable fee.  You might even be able to work something out with your local high school band where the band director could select a small group to play Christmas music during the event.  They might like a donation to the booster organization, but it's good networking for the community.