USVI-On-Line

I cannot remember what it was listed under, but I recall a post where folks listed villa meal suggestions or favorites. Something along those lines. So, rather than a definitive tropical theme per se, maybe a cookbook of simple, healthy meals for dinner at your villa ... after snorkeling, sunning, chilling all day on the beach and in water ... what do folks do for dinner? Esp. if you are sharing a villa with several other couples and would prefer to relax at the villa than go out for dinner. New ideas are helpful.

Now THAT'S a great idea! A villa meals recipe book! I'd go for that in a heartbeat!

I think that is really really cool too but I don't know if it would have mass appeal where we could raise a lot of money. For example, I might buy several copies of a regular book to give as gifts, but only one villa one.

If I were the one that coordinated, I would only be willing to do it if we could raise a substantial amount of $.

What do you guys think. Say we make $5-7 per book profit, how many could we sell of each type? Profit goes up as the more you order, the less the book costs.

It could be both... a recipe book with recipes good for anyone anywhere, yet still remain in the realm of villa food. It would appeal to villa people and the general public as well!

I think that it should be one cookbook with a section on Villa Vittles.

Perhaps we can market it to villa owners to put into the villas?

If the profit is going to an on-island charity, I would think that we would be able to use that as a hook to get people on island to sell, and to get visitors to buy.

So like recipes easy enough to make on vacation?

djmom wrote:So like recipes easy enough to make on vacation?

That is what I was thinking about that for the Villa Vittles section...salads with Josephine's greens, CBGR recipes, etc.

If the profits go to an island charity, maybe some of the restaurants and local chefs would contribute a recipe or 2.

This is sounding better all the time!

Love it! Keep talking! I am no cook but this makes me want to get one of my Moms recipes to contribute. Love the Villa Vittles section idea, as well as some contributions from island chefs, and giving to an island charity. This could really be a grass roots thing that could fly! I know I would buy a bunch and send the info out to friends...

I also use Blurb for my photo books. Haven't used the cookbook format but they are very good quality if you use the "better paper" for a very reasonable price.
Sounds wonderful...love this thread

Ok, so I'll look into how hard it is to do this. Ideally everyone would type and spellcheck their own recipe.

If I have to re-format all the recipes I don't think I will have time for that. Being a Girl Scout leader for two GS troops, the fall is really busy for me.

So keep on posting ideas. Still a little unsure how we would do the sections. If we did it with villa section, chef section and maybe one more, I am wondering if it would get confusing to navigate with all types of food mixed togetehr?

Pia, that is hilarious about the fire.

Ladies (and Gents) -

I am not a good coook, so I have ntohing to add there, but I can help behind the scenes if you'd like. I am a slow typer, but would be willing to help - love that we can help a STJ charity and I would like to suggest something that goes towards helping the kids of STJ - especially after all the discussions of gangs and such.

Tracy

Ok, I have started looking into this. This is the gist of it.

I think we can find a company that is fairly easy to use and where we can enter the recipes on line. That is a big plus in my book.

Now here is the question. Who is our "target market" for this book? Us? Tourists?

Photos were mentioned earlier as a big plus. They add a large expense (at least color photos do). Like $20 per photo entered. Then there are some that offer photos on the dividers, which doesn't cost as much. Black and white photos? To me, I am not sure if they are worth the space they would be printed on.

Soooo....the question is how much are we willing to pay for a photo book vs a black and white. I think we could make a book with just a few photos for about $8 or less. Then we sell for $15 ish.

Or we do photos and we are talking about a book that might cost $15-20 or more and that we would sell for $30. I don't know if we could get any more than that, no matter how good it is.

I don't know if we can sell enough quantity for that price. But you tell me.

These are very rough numbers of course. I entered that we would sell 500 books. Is that overly optimistic?

How many recipes are we talking about?

Can anyone who has purchased this sort of book recently take a look and see how much it was, the company/publisher and how it looks? The only "family" cookbooks I have are pretty old.

The last thing is upfront expense. Are you willing to order and pay (either in full or at least the "cost" price) for a book sight unseen?