Far be it from me to tell anyone their business* but some of these cookbooks are shit. I'm sorry, but they are. I have a few pieces of advice for you that might help sales a little bit.
1. Pictures, motherfuckers!
I don't know if you've noticed, but people have two eyeballs. One brain, one mouth, one penis or vagina or combination of the two, but TWO eyeballs. This should give you a hint that something important is going on with this whole vision thing.
I need the pictures. How else are you supposed to know if your shit turned out right? Okay, I know what a chocolate chip cookie is supposed to look like. But pozole? I wouldn't be able to pick that out from the center of a lineup unless the item on the right was chocolate chip cookies and the item of the left of it was chocolate chunk cookies.
Give me some hints. If children's books can waste page after page on pictures of some dope kid figuring out that he's not an idiot and just needs glasses, then you can spare the ink.
2. Multi-Use ingredients.
If only one of your 50 recipes uses Marjoram, then skip it. I don't want to spend five bucks on some bottle of crap that I'm only using once. Make it worth my while. They all look like either crushed up green shit or powdery brown shit, so throw me a bone and put the same ingredients in a handful of recipes.
3. Tell me the amounts the way they are at the store.
Don't tell me how many ounces of garlic. Tell me how many cloves. Don't say 4 cups of chopped carrots. Tell me about how many large carrots I need. I'm not a chemist. I don't even know what a "kg" is. Just pretend like you're at the store and tell me based on that. You're supposed to be the expert, so when you tell me "2 Cups Milk" feel free to add which size carton is cool.
4. Bullet Point Procedures
None of this paragraph bullshit. Save the flowery prose for your novel about a chef who solves murders. Just give me the basic steps. If there's something important, put it in a paragraph at the top of the page and if I skip it it's my own fault.
5. Don't get too specific
I like burgers, but I don't need a 90-page cookbook on how to make burgers, especially when most of the variations consist of putting different shit on top of the same kind of burger. A mushroom and swiss burger is not an entirely different recipe from the same meat with onion and lettuce on top.
*Note, when I typed "anyone" I accidentally typed "Antone." I would tell someone named Antone his business, which would either be a name change or putting out a record immediately.
1. Pictures, motherfuckers!
I don't know if you've noticed, but people have two eyeballs. One brain, one mouth, one penis or vagina or combination of the two, but TWO eyeballs. This should give you a hint that something important is going on with this whole vision thing.
I need the pictures. How else are you supposed to know if your shit turned out right? Okay, I know what a chocolate chip cookie is supposed to look like. But pozole? I wouldn't be able to pick that out from the center of a lineup unless the item on the right was chocolate chip cookies and the item of the left of it was chocolate chunk cookies.
Give me some hints. If children's books can waste page after page on pictures of some dope kid figuring out that he's not an idiot and just needs glasses, then you can spare the ink.
2. Multi-Use ingredients.
If only one of your 50 recipes uses Marjoram, then skip it. I don't want to spend five bucks on some bottle of crap that I'm only using once. Make it worth my while. They all look like either crushed up green shit or powdery brown shit, so throw me a bone and put the same ingredients in a handful of recipes.
3. Tell me the amounts the way they are at the store.
Don't tell me how many ounces of garlic. Tell me how many cloves. Don't say 4 cups of chopped carrots. Tell me about how many large carrots I need. I'm not a chemist. I don't even know what a "kg" is. Just pretend like you're at the store and tell me based on that. You're supposed to be the expert, so when you tell me "2 Cups Milk" feel free to add which size carton is cool.
4. Bullet Point Procedures
None of this paragraph bullshit. Save the flowery prose for your novel about a chef who solves murders. Just give me the basic steps. If there's something important, put it in a paragraph at the top of the page and if I skip it it's my own fault.
5. Don't get too specific
I like burgers, but I don't need a 90-page cookbook on how to make burgers, especially when most of the variations consist of putting different shit on top of the same kind of burger. A mushroom and swiss burger is not an entirely different recipe from the same meat with onion and lettuce on top.
*Note, when I typed "anyone" I accidentally typed "Antone." I would tell someone named Antone his business, which would either be a name change or putting out a record immediately.
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