Before he even starts writing, he should see if there's a publisher who wants what he can produce. That will save a lot of work that may never be published.
Pictures are generally overrated. Some of the greatest cookbooks have minimal pictures or just drawings such as Joy of Cooking. And Jeff Smith's cookbooks have virtually no pictures but are great to cook from.
Organization is nice, but there are a couple of different organizational styles that are appropriate depending on the kind of cookbook he writes. Books with narrow focus or topic may benefit from non-standard organization to more accurately reflect the topic.
Even better than organization is a high quality index which is an area usually skimped on. Indexing well is tedious and requires good software and some skill which most chefs will not have.
Bindings that lay flat are also highly overrated to me. These types of bindings usually have poor life span. Other solutions are preferable to me as it's not hard to keep a book open or just insert a marker to make it easy to flip open. Quality binding is much more valuable, even in just a paperback.
Proofreading and testing are valuable.
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The Cake is a Lie! |