Organization is key cookbook ingredient
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The

So you think you'd like to create a cookbook to raise money for your church and provide members with a church memento?

Here's some food for thought before you put out the call for recipes:

"Have a pretty good idea, up front, how to organize it," suggested Howard Wong, advertising director for Morris Press, the Kearney, Neb.-based publisher of our winning church cookbook. "The organization that's most organized will have a lot more positive experience. The cookbook will only be as good as what they put into it."

Many enthusiastic church members don't realize how much work goes into assembling a cookbook, between gathering the recipes, compiling and organizing them and finalizing the design, Wong said.

The lowest base price Morris Press offers for 200 copies of a softcover cookbook is $2.55 per copy, which they suggest the church sell for $7.

The highest base price for a 3-ring, hardcover cookbook with 1,000 recipes and 3,000 copies produced is $7.05 per copy, which a church may then sell for $10 to $20, depending on how elaborate the design, he said.

Custom covers, hard covers, a three-ring binder design, custom content dividers, personal pages to introduce the book, recipe notes that accompany recipes, and sections of helpful tips all cost more to include.