Feedback requested on testing our first muse

[ABToronto]

I'm very interested in creating an informational product, and have a fair amount of experience and skill in cooking/baking for multiple food restrtictions. There are many products available for cooking for food allergies, but time and again, the comments and reviews reveal that the recipes don't eliminate the necessary ingredients. The good news is that my recipes do.

Monetizing recipes is hard though. Copyright doesn't extent to the actual recipe, and you can find millions of recipes (of varying quality) on the internet. So, I was thinking of layering on value and making the product more unique by including tips, techniques and information as a DVD accompaniment to the cookbook. A 'how-to' course of sorts. Also an attempt to bring the value of the sale up to more than just a cookbook could fetch.

My question is are there other ways to make this feel 'more than a cookbook? Have others augmented their books with added content of some form? Although it seems like it would help the package to have a slick DVD - the cost of creating such a thing seems large (my skills are in the kitchen rather than the editing suite).

Also, assuming I pull enough together for a testing scenario as described in 4HWW, what's a reasonable turn-around time to create the product ready to sell. I think that doing all the writing, filming, editing, etc. would take some time - certainly more than the 4-6 weeks I think I recall the book suggesting.

I'm new, and totally open to any feedback or advice. Your stories have been inspiring. Hopefully mine will be too one day!

Cheers.

[mert]

I imagine that anyone who discovered that they or their child has a food allergy would be looking online for all the info that they could find on the topic - so this could be a good niche. If you make an ebook you could add background info and cooking tips, including sources for special ingredients. Maybe you could add meal plans too. On your website you could have a store or an affiliate program selling or advertising special allergy safe ingredients.

One of my projects for the new year is a foodie blog...although I haven't been posting to it as often as I should. This topic is more or less saturated though so I'm having second thoughts on whether its worth my time to pursue it. I'm planning eventually add some affiliate advertising and possible an e-book with recipes or meal plans.

[ABToronto]

I was thinking of testing and launching just the e-book, then if/when it works graduating to the larger, higher end products like DVD, full colour cook-books, etc.

I guess, I'm torn on the pricing then for just the e-book. In my research similar ebooks (on other niche diets) tend to go for less than $20.

Does anyone have any experience they can share about pricing ebooks?

Thanks!

[Monkiii]

Hey ABToronto,

Are you in Toronto, Ontario? If so would be cool to meet up some time!

Anyway, the way I'd add value would be to sell it as an ebook + members only site (once only payment). Put the video's up in the members only section with a members only forum. Encourage them to share recipes so the value of the site continues to grow. Offer something (like a free copy for a friend or donated discount voucher for a related product / service) each month for whoever ads the best new recipe / forum post.

Having done something similar before, I'd use Joomla with the Community builder extension (free) and add in the Rapid Recipe extension with aMember software (commercial, but both pretty cheap and integrated with Joomla). Make part of the signup agreement that they agree not to disclose information from the members only area.

People can copy recipes, but they can't copy a community.

PM me if you have any questions.

[FrozenCanuck]

Hey I'm in Toronto also ... small world :)

[Monkiii]

Cool! Although I wouldn't say I'm *in* Toronto... but I come through fairly regularly when I venture out of my forest hideaway. :)

Methinks we need a Toronto get together some time...

[ABToronto]

Sorry I was off-line for a while.

Thanks for the ideas Monkii. I'm rethinking the videos for now, since I don't have a camera to do anything with good quality. That might be a nice place to go if things take off and I look to expand.

My next thought is how long is too long between testing an idea (with an unwritten ebook for example) and actually having a product to download. Writing the whole cookbook, and all of the corresponding resources I'm considering will not be a quick project. And I'm remembering that there was a recommended turn around time (fairly short) to keep people interested. I'd love any advice on how to time this so I'm not creating something that doesn't sell, and on the flip side, not taking so long to create something that will, that I turn off my committed 'pre-launch' customers.

...or maybe i'm overthinking the whole thing - which would not surprise me.

[Monkiii]

maybe i'm overthinking the whole thing - which would not surprise me.

Aye. That would be my vice. Suffice to say, Tim recommends choosing a product that takes no longer than 3-4 weeks to manufacture, and this may be why.

Not sure if there should be a distinction between "manufacture" (eg get a book printed) and "create" (eg write a book) though. Maybe that's me overthinking things, too... :rolleyes:

All things considered... I'd say it's better to just do SOMETHING and learn, than to get stuck.