Sunday, February 28, 2010

MY COOKBOOK HOBBY AND GENERAL BOOK BLATHER

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to cook, and that I have a decent collection of cookbooks. I've been trying to take some of the pressure off my bookshelves and let go of some of the books that I don't absolutely love and use frequently. I've been going through a few of the more obscure, less-used cookbooks, culling the recipes I really like, and then putting the cookbooks on sale at my amazon store. I've also been going through my huge collection of digest-sized cooking magazines, adding the recipes I really like to my big white recipe ringbinder. The recipes are in alphabetical order, housed in page protectors.

One thing I've been finding kind of funny is that I don't like long, elaborate recipes. I suppose that's proof that I'm not a Top Chef, but I think I'm pretty adventurous about ingredients and cuisines. I like my recipes to fit on one side of a college-ruled notebook sheet. I will edit lengthy instructions to ensure that the recipes fit into my book. I'm really enjoying this, and it's relaxing to do it in the evenings while I'm watching TV with my family. I've been especially productive this past two weeks while the Olympics have been on. I'm going to miss it when they're over and we all kind of go our separate ways after supper.

So far, I've tried to be a purist and keep my blog on the subject of books, however tenuous that subject might be. I'm thinking about writing about other things when the impulse strikes. I'll see if I can tie that in with books.

My amazon bookstore is beginning to do pretty well. I'm going to do a letter of the day sale for the first 26 days of each month. So on the first of the month, any book with a title that starts with A or written by an author whose last name starts with A will be on sale for a 10% discount. On the 2nd, it will be letter B, and so on. I want to see if that helps boost my sales at all. I would like to sell 10 books a day.

February ended up being a slow reading month, only eleven books in all, and two of them rather short, but I'll have a lot of time off in March, so maybe I'll be able to read a lot more.

Happy Reading!

2 comments:

Kristen said...

I am, of course, a fan of the book blog plus, as in book blog plus other assorted stuff about life since it helps give the blogger a personality beyond just what they read. Of course, since I know you anyway, I don't necessarily need it from you, but I thought I'd share the perspective. ;-)

Mellanie C. said...

I come late to this party, as always, but your advice is welcome and appreciated. Been a little distracted lately, and haven't had a whole lot to write about.