Self- publishing Cookbook - The Gluten-Free Deep Fryer on Lulu.com

 I spent yesterday learning to use the self-publishing site  Lulu  I have put my recent crop of recipes using the deep fryer into book form.  It was an interesting struggle to try to decide how to format the book.  Cookery books are usually tightly structured, with columns of ingredients, one luscious photograph to entice but not inform, and very little chit-chat.  Very different from blog-style.

I tried to work with the cook book wizard, but soon dropped out and made a standard word document that I then uploaded.  As I generally write straight into blogger I had to get the text from here, photos from my file, and reassemble a structure that would work without extra information or nipping off to another blog.

I hadn't realised until the end that you were not supposed to include the title information at that stage as you get a separate Cover Wizard, but I figured information twice is better than no information at all.  I could have revised the document and then uploaded it again, which for any future book I would do. The other advantage of this type of publishing is that you can amend the book whenever you want, as they only print on demand.

With this one I am just keen to get my hands on a physical book so that I can start thinking properly about issues like paper quality, binding and size. When I do the next one I will make used of the learning from this time around.

I was pleased with how cheap the book will be.  I last ordered a full colour book full of photographs years ago, a little picture book about Halloween to help my grand-daughters learn to read.  The price has come down a lot since then, making these cookbooks a realistic prospect.

So, I have ordered three copies so that I can see how it could be improved for next time.  Now all I need to do is find some volunteers with a deep fat fryer to give me feedback on how easy the recipes are to follow! Any one out there willing?