What Cookbook Photography Really Costs (and How to Save Without Going Cheap)

Amanda Richardson
3 days ago
6 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Whether it's your first cookbook or your seventh, you have options to save money on this extensive project that you likely didn't even realize you had access to. Cost is the question nagging at all cookbook authors, let me strip it down to the bones for you.

I've experienced a lot in the 8 years since I started shooting food photography, and I feel like I've gained a full lifetime of knowledge shooting in my Charlotte, NC studio over the past 4 years. So let me save you some of the hard lessons.

Cookbooks are hard on the author. They're overwhelming, time consuming, physically demanding, emotionally and financially draining. As a cookbook author you aren't just writing a book and you aren't just writing a recipe, you're doing both and no one really sees both sides of that coin. On top of that you're forced to face what most other authors never have to, photos. High-end, mouth-watering photos. And that's the thing you're typically not an expert in producing, while at the same time they can take precedence over the actual thing (your food) that you're creating this book for.

So how do we solve this equation? How do you get amazing photos, plus the support you need to keep the train on the tracks, all while staying within a reasonable cookbook production budget?

Google it and you find out real quick you need a recipe editor, a manuscript editor, a food photographer, a food stylist, a prop stylist, a creative director, a self-publishing company, a marketing agency, and on and on it goes.

If you're already working with a publisher and you've been given an advance, you're ahead of the game, but you're still faced with finding your photography and styling team. The marketing and creative direction is built in for the most part.

Either way it boils down to the same problem. How do I get the biggest bang for my buck, and how the hell do I actually manage a project of this scale? You suddenly feel like you bit off way more than you can chew. And then, like me, that book and all its recipes that made it almost to the finish line, gets put in a drawer and haunts you for years to come.

Let me help that not happen to you! I learned a thing or two in my own days of cookbook writing, and then I learned a whole hell of a lot more growing into who I am today: a food photographer, stylist, and creative lead on almost all my projects to date.

Let's break things down into bite-sized pieces...

Research Early

Are you still writing your manuscript and testing recipes? Good. Don't wait to start figuring out what you want your team to look like. Here are some questions you can answer right now. Go with your gut and see where it leads.

Do you want to cram everyone in your house?

An entire crew set up in your kitchen, living, and dining areas. Think about it for a minute, because I've seen both sides of this coin, and I obviously have a preferred answer, but this is your shoot, not mine.

Photography, no matter how many physical bodies are in the crew, is a huge production. Essentially, we build a studio in your home. We take over every corner we can find with light stands, c-stands, equipment bags, prep tables, prop tables, tripods, and the list goes on. And every person there is using your bathroom, your kitchen, making unintentional messes, scratching the floors, spilling things. You find yourself laughing and saying "it's fine" when internally you're dying inside.

Maybe you're not as introverted as me, but even the extroverts reading this are chefs who want a clean space, and that's not how it works in close quarters.

Here's the part nobody adds up: all of that is cost. The crew's time, the meals you feed them, the day someone has to fix your floors. A studio holds all of that for you, and it holds it for less.

Let’s keep going…

Do you want to cover travel for the crew?

What's easier, going to a studio where everything is at your disposal, or bringing everyone to you? It sounds glamorous, doesn't it. "I flew in an entire crew to shoot my cookbook." But what can sound equally glamorous is, "I'll be flying out next week and on set in the studio for a few days shooting my cookbook, I don't have to lift a finger." That's luxury, and it doesn't cost what you think. When there's no crew to fly, house, and feed, that money goes straight back into your budget, or into a better book.

Do you want a "yes-man," or an expert?

If you're self-publishing, this one especially matters. Do you want someone who nods along, or someone who guides you to the best possible version of what your cookbook and your food can be? Creative direction is a skill. It's experience and expertise that, even with a good vision as an author, still needs refinement and sometimes some push back on what's right for the cookbook world.

The difference between a nice-to-have and an absolute yes or no gets blurred when you're the one making all the decisions. Creative thinking and producing doesn't happen in a vacuum. You need collaboration to keep things on track. And getting it right the first time, with someone who knows this world, saves you the reshoots and second-guessing that cost you later.

But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing…

How many minds do you want?

We want clear, consistent collaboration, yes. But we don't want to muddy the waters either. In my experience, even with big publishing houses, if there are too many voices in the room, no one is heard, and the end result, aka your book, is what suffers. Too many hands is also just more money and more time, and time is the most expensive thing on any shoot. So keep your team lean and clean, and find a trusted partner.

The Real Math

Here's what nobody tells you about where the money actually goes. It isn't the shoot itself, it's the waste around it.

The most expensive thing on any cookbook shoot is wasted time. Days spent figuring out what to shoot instead of shooting. Reshoots because a recipe wasn't finished or tested. Images that don't fit the layout because nobody locked the trim size before the camera came out. Every one of those is a line item you'll pay for, and every one of them is preventable, if you plan early.

That's the whole reason I keep telling you to start while you're still writing. Not because the book has to be done, it doesn't, your recipes can still be in progress and your words can still be draft. But the planning has to start early, because the decisions that get expensive when they're made late are the ones we can make calmly, now, before they cost you anything.

A mapped-out book shoots in fewer days. Fewer days is less money. It's that simple, and it's the biggest lever you have.

The biggest and best way to make the shoot more financially manageable…

The biggest part of the equation most authors miss. When you reach out early, you can reserve your date and budget toward it over time, instead of scrambling for one big lump sum the moment the book is finally done, or worse, settling for cheap photos because you ran out of runway. Planning early is how quality photography becomes affordable, instead of a debt. And the bonus to that is you have accountability. You end up with a partner who supports and guides you to each deadline so things stay on track and your brain doesn’t go into overload.

The Answer

So here's the formula, built for real life and today's wild-west photography market.

Every question in this article has been quietly pointing at the same answer. A crew in your house is a cost. Flying in a team is a cost. A yes-man is a cost. Too many voices is a cost. And the thing that removes all of them at once is one trusted expert who wears the hats.

That's what I do. I'm the food photographer, the stylist, and the creative lead, in one person. One vision, so nothing gets lost in translation between three different sets of hands. No crew to house, feed, or fly. No committee muddying your book. And a guide in your corner from the very first recipe, so the expensive mistakes never get made in the first place.

It’s an investment in your sanity. It’s an investment in clarity. And it's the thing I wished someone had built for me back when I was the one drowning in the details of my own cookbook.

Because I've been where you are. I had a book that made it almost to the finish line, and then it went in a drawer, and it haunted me. I don't want that for you. Your food is worth finishing. Your book is worth making. And you don't have to do it alone, or go broke doing it.

So start early. Keep your team lean. Find your one trusted Creative Director, like me! And let's get that book out of the drawer and onto the shelf where it belongs.