Hey there. In this video, we are talking about putting out a sample book. Sample books are just smaller books that help you go through the publishing process. You learn it a little bit better so when you have your big idea, you can do as good of a book as possible. So let's get started.

We all want to dive right into the deep end, put out this amazing, incredible book that is everything we picture in our heads and we dream our first book will be. But that can be really hard to do right out of the gate.

Doing a smaller, less visual book is a great way for you to learn the publishing process, and what works for your style. You will see firsthand how everything comes together and make a lot of mistakes, which you will make, the first time you're doing a book.

Your Style and Expertise Changes

So many people are hesitant to do this step, and I understand. But think about it from this aspect. Look at your blog. If you've been blogging for more than a year, has your style changed? Has your layout changed? Has the way you approach recipes changed?

In almost everyone's case, it has, because you've learned more about blogging. You learn what works for you, what you're good at, and what works with your theme. There's a lot of different things that go into blogging and as you learn more and more about it, your content is changed and it's better, and it keeps getting better and better.

The same thing holds true with publishing a cookbook. With the first cookbook you put out you are going to run into frustrations. You're going to not know what to expect. You're going to wish that you did things differently.

And if it's your first big cookbook, you can end up disappointed by it. And that's a horrible feeling for someone who just went through all this time and energy putting something out. So think about putting out a smaller book first. Make those mistakes with it, when you don't have all these expectations shoved on your shoulders.

How to Approach This

There's a lot of ways you can approach this.

Take your 25 best recipes from your blog. Put them together in a cookbook and get it out there on Amazon as a printed book.

Put together your favorite 25 family recipes and write a book around them explaining why they mean so much to your family.

Showcase your top 30 food photographs and write about the circumstances that went into creating them.

The book only has to be 50 to 100 pages long. We're not talking about a full-length cookbook here.

Take that simple concept and go through the entire cookbook publishing process. Write the recipes, test the recipes, get your book proof edited, laid out, formatted, and on a print on demand printer. Get your book out there on Amazon.

Take your manuscript and put it on the Kindle, iTunes and Nook. Treat it like a real cookbook because it is. Your goal isn't to be number one on Amazon, your goal is to learn the publishing process.

I guarantee if you do this, you will learn so much from this process. You'll learn more about your style, about what appeals to you and about the publishing process. And, your next book is going to be an order of magnitude better than it would have been otherwise.