A road to your own cookbook: b-studio experience and recommendations

A cookbook or a recipe book is still one of the best-selling types of books on the market because people love food and like looking at delicious photos and being inspired. For the authors of the book, motivation is most often related to their desire to share the knowledge obtained or inspire others with their chosen lifestyle – whether those are vegan dishes, restaurant-worthy meals or fast snacks.

Creation of the book “Holiday Recipes with NEFF and Gatis Grosbergs” combined the chef’s professional vision and b-studio expertise – creative concept, recipe photos, graphic design, text writing, editing, layout and production of the necessary number of copies of the book. The creative place b-studio (https://bstudio.lv) is suitable for preparing, decorating and further serving professional dishes – using photo equipment, our photographers catch tastes to communicate them through photos.

What should be taken into account in creating a book?

If you want to develop your own recipe book, it is important to define its concept and target audience. No matter what recipes you want to include, be sure that they are correct and also realizable by the reader of your book. Information on ingredients and cooking procedures is mandatory, but it is possible to additionally specify approximate cooking costs, time spent, expected number of portions, recommendations or potential alternatives to ingredients. When thinking about your audience, don’t forget to find out about their shopping habits – will all ingredients be easily available and found?

When our specialists are asked about the key to success of their photos, they have to answer that there is no single formula, but rather several equally important aspects. The photo must be of high quality and have its own mood matching the concept of the book. You should not get carried away with excellence – a “too polished” photo can give an artificial and false impression. Create value and take into account that readers are quite careful – It is better not to use photos from previous books or too similar photos. The photo can reflect what the final result should look like, what dishes to choose, how to decorate. Chef Thomas Keller said: “books should be more inspiring than a guide”. When thinking about other factors, such as sufficient lighting and high-quality after-processing, be sure to choose the right partner.

In our experience, for a book to stand out, the cover must be noticeable, but for it to be easy to use – care must be taken to ensure original and technically correctly composed content. With us, together with the b-studio creative team, it is possible to create a book from cover to cover, and if you need a professional photo and kitchen studio with kitchen equipment – come and create content with us. Paula Freimane has also prepared and photographed her recipes here for the book “The Golden Ingredient”. If you are interested, write to us at bstudio@bsms.lv – we will help you on your way to your cookbook.