Over the years, I’ve ended up with most of my grandmother’s old recipes. I’ve also acquired many of my husband’s grandmother’s recipes, as well as his mom’s. That’s a lot of recipes left lying around the house. I’ve kept most of them in a shoe box in my china hutch, but they won’t be there much longer.

I’ve come up with an idea for all these old recipes. I’m thinking about creating a recipe book on my computer. So, what’s this got to do with buying and selling online? The fact that you can do the same thing, and sell them for a few bucks on the Internet. However, there are a few things to remember before jumping the gun.

First of all, if the recipes you’ve gotten over the years, were clipped from magazines or newspapers, they cannot be used. The reason for this is that by law, they’re under a copyright. These recipes can be passed from one person to another, but they cannot be placed in a cookbook to be sold.

Another thing that I’ve run across, are old recipes that aren’t complete. What I mean by this is that most of these are just ingredients. No idea of how much to add, no details on what to set the oven at, just a list of things to throw in. There are also a few that tell you to add a “dash” of this, or a “splash” of that. Unless you can figure out exactly how much that is, you might not want to add this one.

Other than that, it’s pretty much down to deciding which ones to put in your cookbook, and where. If this is something your going to do for yourself, you can do it however best fits your needs. But, if this is something your thinking about selling, think like your customers would.

If you are going to make a cookbook to sell, you’ll also want to think about design. If you’re going to sell it as an ebook, you’ll basically need a cover design, and maybe some pics for the inside pages. If you do this, remember to keep the number of pages down. A four hundred page cookbook might be a little much.

Another option is to create your own cook books. Set it up as you’d like to see it and print it out right there. You can create a nice cover page, add your recipe pages, and then put it all together in a thin binder. Add a few scrapbooking applications for decoration and you’re done. These make great gifts, or can even be used for fundraisers.

Get all those old recipes out of the cupboards and put them to good use. Create your own cookbook and offer the world a healthy slice of the past.

Tags: Cookbook Fundraisers, Create CookBooks Online, Designing A Cookbook Cover, How To Make Your Own Cookbook, Sell Your Cookbooks