Episode 678: Successful Collaboration – How to Create a Cookbook with Other Bloggers With McKenna Pulda, Emily Christensen & Amy Coyne

EBT678 – McKenna Pulda, Emily Christensen, & Amy Coyne

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

[00:00:37]   

Whether you’ve considered doing a collaboration with other bloggers or not, you have to listen to this episode. Please promise me that you’ll listen because it is so inspiring. I bet by the end of the interview you are going to be considering who to collaborate with, what project you want to make next.

[00:00:58]   

 Oh my goodness. I absolutely loved my conversation with McKenna, Emily and Amy. They gave us absolutely every detail for their cookbook collaboration that they finished in 2024 that has been a wild success by the way. They talk about how they came up with the topic, the niche, the idea, how they standardized measurements and photography for the cookbook, how they built the cookbook, the tools and organization that they used to do so, and they talked about a really awesome retreat that they did together in person to bring everything together and make sure they were all on the same page and who they chose for self publishing and so much more.

[00:01:38]   

 It is packed. We talked about literally every aspect of doing a collaboration that you possibly can talk about. The key takeaway for me was that yes, the cookbook was awesome. The collaboration produced this amazing product that they love, but the connection that they formed together was by far the coolest thing and the biggest perk for all of them. I know you’re going to love and devour this episode. It is number 678. Enjoy.

[00:02:05] Sponsor   

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[00:03:00] Megan Porta

McKenna Pulda is a former choir teacher, turned sourdough enthusiast, recipe developer and mom of two. Receiving her first sourdough starter four years ago, her love for baking quickly turned into a passion for creating delicious from scratch recipes with a sourdough twist. Since starting her blog, Simplicity and a starter in 2023, McKenna has shared 150 plus tried and true sourdough recipes and also co authored a cookbook, Our Sourdough Table, featuring long, fermented and quick sourdough recipes that are perfect for the holiday season.

[00:03:22]   

 McKenna’s hope is that these sourdough recipes inspire you to slow down, get creative and enjoy every bite with the ones you love. Emily Christensen is the creator and voice behind Country Roads Sourdough where she shares tried and true sourdough bread and discard recipes along with helpful sourdough tips and techniques. After leaving her corporate brand management career to become a stay at home mom, she quickly realized she needed a creative outlet and began hosting local sourdough classes. What started as a passion project quickly took off after a few viral Instagram videos turning her love for sourdough into a full time career. 

Amy Coyne is a sourdough teacher, recipe developer and mom to four awesome kids. She has grown her website over the last two years from 100,000 page views in 2022 to almost 10 million page views at the end of 2024.

[00:04:12]   

 She shares tried and true sourdough recipes on her website and with her Instagram and social media communities. McKenna, Emily and Amy, welcome to E. Blog Talk. I’m so excited to have this panel type talk with all of you about your amazing cookbook collaboration and excited to hear this story. Welcome everyone.

[00:04:31]  Amy Coyne 

 Thank you. We’re so excited to be here.

[00:04:33]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. So excited. So you guys have an incredible story. I was recently doing an interview with Amy and she mentioned this amazing project that you guys put together and I just think it is so cool and why don’t more of us do things like this? So I was like we need to, we need to extend this discussion. Let’s talk about this. So here we are. We’re going to talk about it today so I think we will start. I’m curious just to hear how you guys all came together. Emily, do you want to talk about how you guys met?

[00:05:07]  Emily Christensen 

 Yeah. Yeah. So it’s. I had this. I’ve always wanted to do a cookbook and it’s always been some one of my goals but I was a little bit overwhelmed with the process and getting started and so I just thought you know what would be kind of fun is to do, like, a collaborative cookbook, because I’m still, like, fairly new in this space.

[00:05:29]   

 You know, I kind of grew my social media first before my blog, and so I wasn’t really sure, like, how cookbooks would work or, like, how many I could sell or anything. So I was like, you know, I think it would make a lot more sense to start with a collaborative cookbook. So I decided to.

[00:05:49]   

 I knew I wanted, like, a certain quality level with it, and I want to make sure that the people that I included, we all had similar followings, obviously, that we were all sourdough, since we’re all sourdough people. I wanted people, you know, that had good photography, and I knew that a lot of people love their recipes.

[00:06:10]   

 So when I was thinking about it, I was like, I want to reach out to Amy and McKenna. And I had briefly chatted with Amy just because I think she had wore, like, a BYU shirt, and that’s where I went to school. So I think we had, like, chatted very briefly once, but that was pretty much it.

[00:06:25]   

 And I had never talked to McKenna, but I was like, they seem like we’re all kind of the same vibe. We all have this, like, we all have similar philosophies when it comes to sourdough and a more, like, relaxed, you know, we’re all home bakers, moms. And so I was like, okay, these are who I’m gonna reach out to.

[00:06:42]   

 And hopefully they’re not like, no, we hate the idea. So I reached out to them, and thankfully, I was just like, hey, I want to do. I have this idea for collaborative cookbook. I would love to include you guys. You know, I’m planning to reach out to Amy or I’m planning to reach out to McKenna.

[00:06:59]   

 Like, would you guys be interested in doing this? And they’re like, yes, for sure. I didn’t really have a plan in place. I was like, let’s just meet and chat on Zoom, and we can kind of go from there. So it wasn’t like I had everything set in stone before that. It was just kind of like, I have this idea, and let me see if they’d even be interested.

[00:07:20]  Megan Porta 

 So, Emily, where did you find Amy and McKenna? Did you know them from Facebook groups or how did you even know they existed?

[00:07:27]  Emily Christensen 

 I just. I think we were all following each other on Instagram, but really no chatting other than that. I’m sure we had commented on each other’s stuff occasionally, but I had just found them organically on Instagram, and we had all been following each other. So when I was thinking about who would I reach out to, they made sense because we had similar followings and, you know, like, that similar vibe, like I was talking about. So just reached out to them on Instagram DMs.

[00:07:59]  Megan Porta 

 It’s amazing how much of a vibe you can get from people on Instagram. I’ve made some of my best blogging friends through Instagram, which is kind of weird because it’s not like a collaborative platform in that way, like a, you know, a community, but it works, apparently. So I’m glad you guys all met.

[00:08:16]   

 So, okay, you decided to reach out. They said yes. They were receptive. Yay. And they’re nice people. They’re responsible, thank God. And you guys are all in the same niche, so it kind of just made sense for you guys to move forward. So how did you land on the idea of exactly the cookbook that you put together?

[00:08:38]   

 Because it is a holiday sourdough cookbook, Correct? Yeah. Okay. So, McKenna, how did you guys go about all of that?

[00:08:47]  McKenna Pulda 

Yeah, correct. So, like, Emily was kind of saying when we got on that first zoom call, she was like, hey, like, this was my idea. What do you guys think? And then I think just, like, our passion for sourdough and just knowing our audience really well, we just kind of, like, were spinning off ideas and kind of thinking of cookbooks that we have admired by other fellow sourdough bakers. And while we were talking about those other options out there, we’re kind of. Like, you know what?

 Like, what could we offer that’s a little bit different? There’s a lot of, like, you know, bacon or sourdough cookbooks. And like Emily said, we all kind of have, like, a little bit of a different method, and so we didn’t want to get, like, in the weeds and confuse anybody. So we’re like, okay, where can we all agree upon and what’s something unique and different that we can offer?

 And so that’s when the idea of the holiday cookbook and it just, like, I mean, I don’t know about you, but, like, that’s the time where, you know, more of those, like, cozy gatherings are happening. You want to bake, you know, something delicious. You’re having a lot of holidays, like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

[00:09:48]   

 And so it just seemed like a really easy idea for us to really get excited and to share with our following. So that’s how it kind of all started.

[00:09:57]  Megan Porta 

 So you guys really did find a niche inside a niche, because sourdough baking is a nation itself. But then, oh, my goodness. Holiday sourdough baking. I think that’s so smart.

[00:10:07]  Amy Coyne 

 I was going to say with that too. Like, it was holiday, but it was also kind of fall and winter, so.

[00:10:12]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, okay.

[00:10:13]  Amy Coyne 

 You know, like it could span over probably five to six months worth of recipes. So.

[00:10:19]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, so the cozy season.

[00:10:21]  McKenna Pulda 

 Yes, right, exactly, exactly. And so just like once we started kind of with that as the idea, then it just like, was really easy for like, okay, like, we can include this recipe. How about you include that? You know, and so it just like the brainstorming was really just natural and fluid. And from there we just decided, okay, how many recipes do we want to include?

[00:10:41]   

 And then divide that amongst the three of us to make sure that we could all showcase our tried and true recipes for our cookbook.

[00:10:49]  Megan Porta 

 And then. Yeah, that’s amazing. And then how many did you end up having total? How many recipes in the book?

[00:10:54]  McKenna Pulda 

 Yes, we had 75 recipes and so each of us contributed 25. We did have a variety of like, recipes that we did currently already have on our blog, but then we also wanted to include a good handful of new never before seen recipes as well.

[00:11:10]  Megan Porta 

 Okay, awesome. And then I know with sourdough baking, it’s imperative that you get the measurements right. I mean, with any baking. But I think, I don’t know, I’m not a sourdough baker, but I assume that with sourdough baking it’s even more important. How did you get on the same page with that? Because I know each baker does things a little bit differently. Amy.

[00:11:30]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, so that was something that we realized pretty early on in the process. I feel like we were asking each other, okay, how many grams do you use for a cup of flour or for sourdough discard, you know, or whatever we were using. And we realized we were all a little bit different.

[00:11:47]   

 And so we were, at that point we were like, okay, wait, hold up. We’ve got to make sure that every recipe is standardized to these numbers. And so we all agreed on what numbers it would be for flour, for discard, for all of that kind of stuff. We measured, we did all of our recipe testing in weight measurements, in grams, and then we would convert that to the cup measurements for people that want to use cups.

[00:12:12]   

 So that was kind of how we did that was just like that early on conversation. And then making sure that we all kind of use the same ones and to kind of go along with that. We also ended up talking at the same time about like, what are the photos going to look like?

[00:12:25]   

 Because we all took the pictures in our own house, and we have different lighting, different backgrounds, you know, all of that. So we talked about. We wanted it to be, like, kind of, you know, cohesive look, neutral colors. We’d, like, send pictures to each other. Oh, I just photographed this. Like, does that go along?

[00:12:41]   

 We didn’t use, like, really bright backgrounds or anything. We tried to keep, like, pretty neutral backdrops and things like that.

[00:12:48]  Megan Porta 

 So for the photos that came from your blogs, did you just. Did you redo those photos or did you just choose ones that align?

[00:12:55]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, I reshot every.

[00:12:57]  Megan Porta 

 Did you? Okay.

[00:12:58]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah.

[00:12:59]  Megan Porta 

 Wow.

[00:13:00]  Amy Coyne 

 I think you guys did, too, didn’t you?

[00:13:02]  Emily Christensen 

 Yeah.

[00:13:02]  Amy Coyne 

 Or most of them, anyway. Yeah. If they didn’t. Yeah.

[00:13:07]  Megan Porta 

 So, you guys, this is a committed project. You guys were, like, all in. Like, we’re gonna make this the most cohesive, awesome thing ever.

[00:13:15]  Amy Coyne 

 We really did want it to feel like it was all made in the kind of the same place or that, you know, we didn’t want it to look out of place. And I think, honestly, like, we’ve had a lot of good feedback about the photography in the book and how it does look, really like, they’re like, who took all your pictures?

[00:13:33]   

 And, like, we did it.

[00:13:34]  Megan Porta 

 Like, you tricked everyone. I love it. That’s amazing. I love that you thought through that, too, because I can see that being something that gets missed. Like, oh, we should have thought through the photography. So I love that you guys thought about. About that.

[00:13:49]  Emily Christensen 

 Yeah.

[00:13:49]  Amy Coyne 

 If anybody wanted to do this, like, I would say do that early on is think through those, like, the photography. Think through, like, using weight measurements or, you know, things like that so that things come out the same.

[00:14:00]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you decided on all of that, and now it’s time to put the cookbook together. You guys clearly needed to have a little bit of organization to do this, because, you know, I assume you’re living in three different spots, three different humans, all putting your resources together. So, Emily, how did you go about the organizational part of this?

[00:14:21]  Emily Christensen 

 Yeah, so we didn’t use any fancy things. All free resources. So the first was Google Docs. So that’s how we organize. Like, we had. We met together often via Zoom to just, like, chat on things. But we decided, like, okay, what are our categories going to be for the recipes? And then within those categories, we want to make sure there wasn’t, like, you know, 30 breakfast recipes and then, like, five of the breads or whatever.

[00:14:50]   

 We wanted to be, like, pretty even throughout. So we met together, figured out, like, okay, what recipes do we want to work on like brand new recipes, which ones are going to be existing ones from the blog and kind of built out what that would look like in a Google Doc of just like who has which recipes.

[00:15:08]  Megan Porta 

 That’s very organized. I love that you guys did that.

[00:15:11]  Emily Christensen 

 We tried to. I mean, with three people, you have to stay organized and.

[00:15:15]  Megan Porta 

 Absolutely.

[00:15:16]  Emily Christensen 

 You know, it was nice too because we were like accountable to each other. So I tend to be more of a procrastinator. And so like these two would be like, yeah, I’m done photographing my recipes. I’m like, okay, yeah, I’m like super close. So that was really nice. But then as far as we had like three to four months to take all the pictures, develop the recipes.

[00:15:44]   

 So it was kind of a tight turnaround. Looking back, like, it was really busy for those few months. But then as far as like coming up with a name, we just, you know, we all would like text each other like some ideas. And then we just kind of kept refining until we got to where we were, which is Our Sourdough Table.

[00:16:09]   

 And then as far as like the actual like photographs and putting in the recipes, we’re going to talk about our in person weekend here next. But before that we were like, okay, everyone should have in the majority of their recipes and their photographs into Canva. So we were on a paid Canva so we could share it all together so we could all be in that same account and project doing it together.

[00:16:36]   

 But we just like popped in our photos into there. And then we had purchased a cookbook template off of Etsy. Actually we purchased several so we could kind of mix and match them together. But we figured out like, what’s our template going to be for our recipe card? That way they were all following the same exact thing.

[00:16:57]   

 Like, you know where we’re going to put preheat the oven at the top or were we going to put it down at the bottom with the baking? Like all of those things we thought through so that it was like very cohesive among all of ours. So you couldn’t tell like whose recipe was whose.

[00:17:12]   

 We wanted it to feel like one book. Not McKenna’s recipes, Emily’s recipes, Amy’s recipes. We want it to all be together.

[00:17:20]  Megan Porta 

 And say the name of your book again in case people want to go because I assume it’s on Amazon. Can people get it on Amazon?

[00:17:26]  Emily Christensen 

 It’s on Amazon. It’s also on Lulu. You can find it on any of our websites. But it’s called Our Sourdough Table. Like O U R okay.

[00:17:34]  Megan Porta 

 My sister is obsessed with sourdough baking, so I’m gonna get her your cookbook. I’m excited. Sounds amazing. Okay, cool. So you guys really did approach this in such an organized fashion, and I feel like we could all learn from all of this. Like, having the same Canva project and having a pro account and all of this is like, okay.

[00:17:57]   

 Yeah. And then you gave yourself. Did you say four months to get all the photos done or what was the project completion date in total?

[00:18:07]  Amy Coyne 

 We met around maybe, like, in April of this of last year was like, when we first met and started talking about the idea. And then I think we had wanted everything to be done by, like, August, middle of August.

[00:18:20]  Megan Porta 

 Wow. So having more manpower, woman power, really can fast forward the project. And then something you said, Emily, I think it was you about. Oh, yeah, you’re. Because you said you were a procrastinator. I feel like this would be a really good project for procrastinators because you have this built in accountability. You don’t have a choice.

[00:18:39]   

 Amy and McKenna were keeping you on track. So if you’re a procrastinator, do a collab.

[00:18:45]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah.

[00:18:46]  Emily Christensen 

 They were always texting. They were always way ahead of me. I’m like, okay, I’m coming. I’m like, yeah, doing six recipes a day.

[00:18:53]  Megan Porta 

 I’m gonna get this done. So, McKenna, tell us about this magical weekend that you guys had. You had a retreat weekend, right?

[00:19:03]  McKenna Pulda 

 Yes.

[00:19:03]  Amy Coyne 

 I wish it was as relaxing as a retreat.

[00:19:07]  Emily Christensen 

 Yeah, yeah, sure.

[00:19:10]  McKenna Pulda 

 No, this was a very packed full weekend. Two days, basically. But no, this was the highlight because, like you said, none of us are local to each other. And so this was going to be our first time actually meeting in person. And so Amy did the work of finding this adorable Airbnb. So not only just to have a place where we could come together and really just work hard on this cookbook to get it all wrapped up before presenting it, but also, this is going to be our place where we were going to be taking photos for the cookbook.

[00:19:46]   

 So we wanted to make sure that it had the right aesthetic that we were looking for, because most likely we were going to use a picture for the cover and, you know, about the authors and whatnot. So she found this adorable place. It was so cute. Instagram worthy, of course. Right. And so it was like, I think, like, three, three and a half hours, conveniently for all of us.

[00:20:07]   

 So not like one person had to drive, like, so much more than the other. And so we found a central hub. And, yeah, it was, like, late August, and we all got there on a Friday evening. And like, I actually came with. I had a four month old, I believe, at the time.

[00:20:23]   

 So my mom joined me to help with my baby because I was still nursing. But I like walk in, I’m like, hey, mom, this is Amy and Emily. And it was like, straight to work. Like, no, like, let’s relax. Amy and Emily, like, already have, you know, pictures going. I was like, okay, let’s, let’s go here.

[00:20:43]  Amy Coyne 

 So straight to business.

[00:20:46]  McKenna Pulda 

 But no, a lot of planning, like, even went in before the trip because we had to plan out, you know, what were we gonna wear. It took us a while try to color coordinate what we wanted to wear for the cookbook. And then also just talking through, we wanted to have fresh recipes in the cookbook from each of us together, not just single photos of each recipe that we took by ourselves.

[00:21:12]   

 And so we brought, I don’t know, like, maybe like one or two per category from each of us so that like we said we could take like a collective, like, here’s a breakfast, you know, category, and then the recipes would start. So we had to, you know, with Sourdough, we had to do a little, a little extra planning with like, trying to coordinate and make sure all the stuff, like, looked good and, you know, what, not freezing beforehand, hand.

[00:21:35]   

 But we did that and then we talked through all the different kind of props. So like I said, the kitchen was very darling and it actually had some like, really beautiful, like, cutting boards and things that we were able to showcase during those photo shoots. But we also brought, like, plenty of napkins and plates and platters and all that kind of stuff for the photo shoots as well.

[00:21:56]   

 So beyond like picture taking, we were also trying to make sure that, you know, we were taking videos for content to showcase for, like, marketing to our followers. So a lot of behind the scenes kind of, you know, videos were taken and, and whatnot. All the while. Yeah, it was like crunch time photos, crunch time, looking on Canva and like proofreading and basically like stitching this whole cookbook together.

[00:22:25]   

 Yeah, these ladies are insane. Like, again, like I said, I had a newborn, so it’s like definitely on some fumes by the end of the night. And they’re just like, okay, you could totally go to bed. And they’re like, still working an hour or two after. We were like, you guys are insane.

[00:22:39]   

 But no, a lot of hard work was put in this cookbook, but something that we can be just like, so proud of. I think it turned out really beautifully. Oh, and Then the last thing I totally forgot we had a live, so that was, like, the final. We had a live, so.

[00:22:54]  Amy Coyne 

 So we were.

[00:22:55]  McKenna Pulda 

 That was like our big reveal. We were kind of teasing.

[00:22:57]  Megan Porta 

 I love that you. So you made the most.

[00:23:00]  McKenna Pulda 

 Yeah, yeah, for sure. No moment wasted, your time together.

[00:23:05]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Isn’t it funny how when bloggers get together, they. You would think it would be, like, super relaxing and chill, but all we want to do is work and get to business. It’s like that every single time I host a retreat. It’s like, oh, my gosh. We just worked so much, but it’s all out of love.

[00:23:26]   

 It sounds like you guys did that as well.

[00:23:28]  Amy Coyne 

 We did. It was. It was a. It was a great weekend, but I was exhausted by the end of it.

[00:23:34]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:36]  Amy Coyne 

 I don’t even think. I think we, like, doordashed every meal. Like, we didn’t even, like, leave the house. Like, we were just, you know, trying to get all the pictures we needed and all the video and. And that was the first time we’d met each other, too, but it felt like we were best friends, like, immediately.

[00:23:53]  Megan Porta 

 Absolutely. It happens like that. Yeah.

[00:23:56]  Emily Christensen 

 I think that was, like, the best thing that came out of this is just, like, the friendships that we made between us, you know, because now we text each other all the time, like, hey, did you notice this? Or, like, hey, I started doing this, or I started using this app or this thing, and it’s helping my business.

[00:24:14]   

 Like, we are supporting each other in our businesses and, like, bouncing ideas off each other. I mean, me and Amy, like, roomed at Tastemakers. Like, we have just become really good friends through this. And I think that was, like, the best thing out of this.

[00:24:29]  Megan Porta 

 Best perk ever. Beyond anything else you probably have taken away, honestly. So, Emily, what else aside from, like, photo shoots and doing your live, what else did you do at the retreat as far as, like, did you plan anything ahead of time? Like, okay, we’re not going to be together all the time, so we have to think ahead a little bit.

[00:24:53]  Emily Christensen 

 Oh, yeah. We had, like, a whole shot list of things that we needed. And, like, during the day, we were shooting because we didn’t do artificial light, so it was all natural light. So we were very. I mean, Amy did bring her big lights, but for the most part, we needed our. The natural light.

[00:25:12]   

 So during the days, we would just, like, shoot all of our pictures. And then we also, like, planned out in advance, like, here all the posts that we’re gonna do. And then at the weekend, we decided, like, every. We wanted to post like once a week, an Instagram reel. And so we assign those out, like, who’s gonna be in charge of which one?

[00:25:32]   

 Like, what would it be on? And we want to make sure that we had, like, we filmed everything to make sure that we had enough content for. Because we launched in October and we promoted all the way till Christmas. So we needed an Instagram reel for every single week. So we took videos of everything.

[00:25:54]   

 And yeah, then we kind of just talked about, like in the evenings we talked about, okay, what is our promotion? Like, what is our strategy going to look like? You know, are we going to offer discounts? How often are we going to send send out emails from each of our platforms? You know, what is our website page going to look like for each of us?

[00:26:15]   

 We talk through kind of all of those, like, backend logistics things as well.

[00:26:20]  Megan Porta 

 You guys thought through it all and then ultimately you decided to go the route of Lulu, correct, Amy? And why did you choose Lulu for self publishing?

[00:26:30]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, so we looked actually at a lot of different options. Part of it, we had kind of a little tighter timeline because we wanted to get it out for like the holiday season. And so really we kind of ended up with like an Amazon option or a Lulu option. And Lulu we ended up ultimately kind of deciding to go with.

[00:26:49]   

 And we liked a lot of things about it and there were some, you know, maybe a few drawbacks too, about some things. One of the big things, we really love the quality of it. When it came down to it there. Lulu’s a print on demand business, so we didn’t have to pre order like a bunch of cookbooks.

[00:27:05]   

 Like they when, you know, we could upload our file and then they would print it off. So we uploaded it and then they sent, we purchased, you know, our copies and we looked at it and we’re like, okay, that looks great, or no, we need to change this. And then we’d have to order another copy.

[00:27:21]   

 And so before we could give it, get it out to other people. But we really liked their quality and we were able to offer the book as a coil bound book, which was what a lot of the people wanted. A lot of our community loves that coil bound. We also could offer as a hardback and a soft cover and then the digital version.

[00:27:43]  Sponsor 

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[00:28:02]  Amy Coyne 

 So we liked that Lulu had all of Those options, there weren’t any shipping logistics like Lulu, you know, took care of all of that. And then the other thing that was really big for us is that Lulu would split all of the payments for us so that we each have like our own account.

[00:28:18]   

 So none of us has to do like the extra work of figuring out who got paid. And so with three people, that was kind of the, maybe the clinching point for us, like in going with Lulu, just that made it so much easier for us tax wise and everything. And then we also like that they have worldwide printing locations, so they have printers all over the world.

[00:28:41]   

 So anybody, like in our community could purchase that book. And that was something that we really liked in general. And then they also do frequent promotions, so we didn’t actually have to really use any of our own coupon codes, like, and take off of whatever our profit was going to be. But we could use their promotions to do that.

[00:29:02]   

 So those were some things we really liked about it. Lulu takes, I think, about 20% of whatever the price is, and then we end up getting like 80%, but then we have to split it three ways. So that was something that we had to think about when we were pricing the books and print on demand.

[00:29:20]   

 This may be a con. It’s more expensive. And so our book ended up being, you know, a little bit more expensive just because it is like a print on demand option.

[00:29:31]  Megan Porta 

 What did you price it at? Can I ask quick?

[00:29:34]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, I think it was at. Now I’m gonna forget the numbers. Emily, do you remember what they were?

[00:29:39]  Emily Christensen 

 I think it was $39.99 for the coil bonded soft cover. Right. And then the hardcover, I think it’s.

[00:29:49]  Amy Coyne 

 Like $59 or something. That’s something we learned too. Amazon only carries the soft cover because the hardbound, it’s just cost prohibitive for them to do a hardbound with print on demand. So that’s what it ended up being. Most people, I would say purchase like the $39.99 one. So it was a little bit of a higher price point.

[00:30:08]   

 That’s kind of a con, you know, but we were working with a short timeline. So it also the other thing, we ended up eventually getting a customer support representative, but that was a little bit difficult at the beginning. We had a lot of questions and they do a good job responding, but it usually takes them 24 hours.

[00:30:27]   

 So that was something that was maybe a little tricky, especially trying to get it set up. But eventually we now have a contact there that we work with. And so that’s made it better.

[00:30:38]  Megan Porta 

 Gotcha. Okay.

[00:31:40]  Amy Coyne 

All in all, I feel like we’ve been pretty happy with how everything has gone with Lulu. And it was definitely, like, I think the best option for us, like, in our circumstances. But I do think, like, it’s good to, like, shop around and look at different places to see what would fit your needs the best.

[00:30:48]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Lulu. I know a few other bloggers who use them consistently for their cookbooks, and I love it. Just love the, like, you guys mentioned coil and hardbound. You can pick whatever kind of cover you want. Yeah.

[00:31:14]  Amy Coyne 

 And ultimately the quality is really good. So, like, we really, like, we felt really good about, you know, maybe a little. A little higher price point, but people are getting a really good quality product. Right.

[00:31:28]  Emily Christensen 

 And surprisingly, nobody complained. Like, I barely got any complaints about it taking a long time to ship, because it does. It’s like two to three weeks once you order. And, you know, I was worried about that since, you know, with Amazon, it’s like everyone expects to get something next day. But I think, like, they set the expectation up at the beginning with Lulu. And so, you know, we didn’t receive maybe like, one or two complaints in total, you know.

[00:31:56]  McKenna Pulda 

 And I think, too, it was, like, early before, like, the holiday season, especially when you want to give like, this as a gift. And so we were able to prepare our audience of, like, hey, this would be a wonderful gift option. And so the time constraint didn’t feel so tight, you know, So I think that also helped in our favor.

[00:32:11]  Megan Porta 

 Right. That’s great. And I actually love that you guys priced it a little bit higher. I think more people should do this because think of all the. The love and the collaboration and all of the stuff that goes into a cookbook like this. I just feel like you absolutely deserve $39.99 plus some, you know, so good for you guys, because I think people are afraid to do that.  They’re like $9.99. For my cookbook that I’ve work on, like, no, you need to charge so much more than that. So well.

[00:32:41]  Amy Coyne 

 And also, we are split. We’re splitting this three ways too. So every time somebody purchases, like, we’re not each actually getting, you know, all that much for this cookbook, but when you put it all together right, then it is. It adds up to that.

[00:32:58]  Megan Porta 

 How did sales go for you guys initially and how are they going now, Amy? I guess.

[00:33:00]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah. Okay, so we’ve sold, I think we just looked at it, like, about 2,500 cookbooks. So I feel like you guys. Yeah, so it definitely has gone, like, pretty well. Like, we had a big response to the cookbook, and considering like, most of that was during those, like, three months, three, maybe four months, January, I feel like we had.

[00:34:24]   

 I mean, people are still ordering it now, but it. We haven’t been pushing it as much. We’ll probably, you know, redo for the next fall baking season or whatever. We’ll promote it a little bit more and stuff. But definitely it’s been a really good response, and I feel like we’ve hit or almost hit our goals for what we’ve wanted with this project.

[00:33:56]  Megan Porta 

 Oh, you guys should be so proud. That’s amazing. All your hard work paid off. I’m so happy for you. Okay, let’s talk about the things, like the marketing type stuff, the marketing plan, Instagram going live, all that stuff. Emily, how did all of that go? Yeah, just give us a scoop.

[00:34:11]  Emily Christensen 

 So we decided early on we wanted to do some live bake alongs. So we did one in October, November and December each month, one of us took it and then the other two just hopped on and we would answer questions. And that was actually really fun. I think our audiences really liked getting on.

And we would pick one of the recipes from the cookbook, we would talk about the cookbook, and then we would bake along with them. So we would give them advance notice if they wanted to, like, buy the ingredients to actually bake it with us then, or they could re watch it later. So I think that was really fun.

We picked ones that were like, ones that they would be working on, like in November. Like, we did a pie crust. And so we like picked things that were like, very relevant to what was, what they would be baking at that time. We also, like I kind of talked about earlier, we did weekly, we had an Instagram reel going out.
  

And I think another perk of us doing this together is, you know, we’re doing shared Instagram reels. So like it was showing up on all three of our pages. And every time we like did a live, you know, we each got like a lot of follows from each of those lives because we do have a similar audience. 

You know, we’re all sourdough. And so like the sourdough people want to follow other sourdough accounts because, you know, we all have. We all are doing sourdough, but we all do different recipes and things. So like, I think that was good for us too because we were able to like, get our audiences to go to like, our friends as well.

[00:35:58]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah. And I still get people that will be like, oh, I made Emily’s recipe. Or like, oh, I made, you know, like, I feel like that people, you know, the people who really know us, like, they know that we’re friends and that we’re all like supporting each other. And I’ll get comments about your guys stuff or things or people will say, hey, I followed Emily because you recommended or you know, things like that. Yeah, so.

[00:36:09]  Emily Christensen 

 And I think we even still do that. You know, it’s just like we’ve created instead of like competing because like, obviously we’re on the same page, like on the same space. And you know, obviously we all want to succeed, but like, like we care about, like we’re all going up together. Like, we all want to win together. Not like I want to win and you guys go to the side. And I think that has been so great.

[00:37:31]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Especially when you’re working on one project together, you. You have to collaborate. If you don’t, you’re going to sink. So you kind of have to come together. Did you guys enjoy the marketing part of it? Any of you can answer that.

[00:37:45]  Emily Christensen 

 I mean, my degree is in marketing, so for me, like, marketing and like, yeah, marketing, you know. So I think it was fun. We did play around with Google Ads. Well, we had met with them about Google Ads. We never ended up pushing the button to like, do it. The biggest drawback was because we weren’t on one of our webpages.

[00:38:08]   

 We couldn’t get the back end to do tracking. So like, if you’re gonna host on Lulu and you do like any Google Ads or Pinterest ads or Facebook ads, you don’t actually know how many people converted because you can’t put any backend stuff on Lulu. So for us, it was like, Google Ads was gonna be a big investment, and we wouldn’t actually be able to know how successful it was going.

[00:38:33]   

 And so for us, we were just like, we’re gonna shy away. We did end up doing Pinterest ads and Facebook ads. We could at least see, like, click rates and things like that. So we just did it more so as a learning for us and kind of because none of us had done Pinterest or Facebook ads before for our business.

[00:38:52]   

 So I feel like it was a really good opportunity for us to, like, we’re all splitting the cost. Like, let’s just play around with things and actually, like, understand how to do them. So that way, in our own projects moving forward, like, we had an idea of. Of what we were doing with those.

[00:39:07]  McKenna Pulda 

 Yeah.

[00:38:11]  Amy Coyne 

 And I would say back to, like, your marketing question, because I don’t have a degree in marketing, and sometimes I’m thinking, would somebody want to buy something from me? That feeling of, how do I market this? I think that for me, it helped me to get in the headspace where I was like, I really believe in this product.

 I really believe in this cookbook that we’ve put out together and these other incredible women who are making these recipes. And just, like, I feel like we have a really good quality product, and it would be doing a disservice to my community if I didn’t tell them how much I loved it. And so when I could get in that headspace, then I felt like I could market this, you know?

[00:39:47]  Megan Porta 

 Yes, I know.

[00:38:54]  McKenna Pulda 

 Going back to, like, the collaboration again, like, through all of this, like, our businesses are still very fresh and new, and we’re still learning as our own business owners. And so to have each other in each other’s corners and, like, learning about Pinterest ads or what you know, or how to do Facebook ads, it was so, so nice to be able to bounce back and be like, did you understand what they were saying?
 

 How do we do this again? So, again, that collaboration was so key to not, like, feel that overwhelm or just, like, incapability to do this marketing for the cookbook. So it’s really nice.

[00:39:29]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Yeah. Having different. So many different people. You can tap into all the different skills and marketing background. That’s your valuable, Emily. That’s a valuable resource right there. Okay, so do you guys. Did you guys get through and. Okay. I’ve published A cookbook. And I had a massive mistake. I tell people about. My sister called me the next day and she was like, sit down. You might want to sit down first. And it was big, you guys, it’s so embarrassing. I don’t even like to talk about it. It makes me sick. So did you have any experiences like that where you realized you needed to go back and correct things? 

And if so, how did you do that? Amy?

[00:40:06]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, we did. We did have a few. A few like that. And it was. None of them, I don’t feel were like insanely crazy, but it does feel like, oh, my goodness, we put something out there. We had 10 people proofread this. How could we have not caught this? These couple things, I think they happened maybe three times, three or four times.

 And people were very kind about it. And so we were able to just say the corrections to people. And then the nice thing about Lulu is because it’s a self publishing, we could re-upload the correct document. And so we were able to tell people, like, okay, if you got one of the original copies, change this, this and this.
  

 And I don’t know if it was any measurements that were off. I think it was more like the baking time or temperature was left out or there were a couple things like that that we were just like, how did we not, did we not know that? Or like, I think that in one of my recipes I had called for, I put an ingredient or hadn’t listed the ingredient, and it was like a half teaspoon of something, you know, something like that.

 But it was in the written part. So there were some things like that. But overall, people were very kind about our mistakes and we were able to fix them and re upload those corrected versions to Lulu. So now there won’t be ones going out further. So that is a benefit of self publishing?

[00:41:34]  Megan Porta 

 Yes, because for mine it was like, well, we’ve got 8,000 of these that are all wrong or whatever the number was. Like, yeah, we just have to go through those. And then also, just for other people who are doing this, just. Do you guys, any of you have any encouragement about this piece of it? Because I feel like people don’t start because of this. Like, if it’s not perfect, I don’t want it to be in the world. But I feel like, no, it needs to go out into the world, even imperfect. What do you guys think of that?

[00:42:57]  Emily Christensen 

 Yeah, absolutely.

[00:42:58]  Megan Porta 

 Yes, do it.

[00:43:00]  Emily Christensen 

 I mean, the whole project, you know, it’s like you could wait until you knew all the details, like when I reached out to them. I had zero details, worked out, I didn’t have where I wanted to publish it, how we were going to publish it, what recipes we were going to. It was just like, I have this idea and I want to do it. So like you just have to like go for it. You just have to do it and you learn along the way. You know, we, I feel like we all learned so much through doing this project. And just now like Amy has a cookbook coming out this year that she’s doing through a publishing company. I’m doing a self published one this year. Like I feel like it has taught us a lot about just like doing the process of going through a cookbook and so like just do it even if it’s not going to be perfect. You know, if you don’t start, you’re never going to start.

[00:42:57]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, it’s been incredible too to see how like I, I really feel like we found maybe like something that a lot of people wanted like in our community and we’re able to work together to put out a product that we, that we really loved. But we didn’t know like Emily said how it was gonna turn out. But we really felt like that we were helping people with the product and it was just really like a day at a time that we were like, okay, we’re just gonna, we just did a little, little piece at a time and then it all came together. And so I feel like you don’t have to know how it’s all gonna turn out or how you’re gonna market it from day one.  

You just need to pick your recipes and put em on a calendar of what day you’re gonna take em and shoot em. So it just, it just is a little piece at a time.

[00:43:44]  McKenna Pulda 

 It was so eye opening, just realizing like how supportive our communities are. Like, oh my goodness. You know, Emily started off with this awesome idea and us knowing our audience well and just like, oh, I think they’re really gonna love that. And then getting that affirmation, like if we would have had that self doubt and not put out this product, that would have been such a shame.  

 An opportunity lost. And so to get over that fear and, and yeah, just to be rewarded and to connect our separate communities together was such a cool experience and everyone was just so supportive.

[00:44:19]  Megan Porta 

 It’s also well said you guys. So there’s another piece of this that I think is often overlooked. You don’t think about it until you have to deal with it. And that is customer service. I imagine with 2,500 sales. You guys have had to. You have been dealing with customer service, correct? How do you deal with that, McKenna?

[00:44:39]  McKenna Pulda 

 Correct. So it’s been an interesting experience because we’re all bloggers. And so we definitely, you know, we received the comments, hey, like, this didn’t turn out. So we have, you know, experience in that realm. But like, when it comes to a certain product, we all have like, courses or ebooks. But this was like our first, like real big experience working specifically in sales.

 And so we were very fortunate to have an overwhelming positive experience. But is life. And there were a few sour apples in the batch, but, you know, customer service. And just like those customer relationships are of course important for any business. And so to take that very professionally. Going back to kind of like what we keep saying, it was so nice to have each other in each other’s corners because we would receive these requests or these complaints.
 

 And what was tricky about having the print on demand is like, people didn’t always understand that we don’t have the actual product. We’re not the ones who are shipping or taking your money. And so, you know, when there would be complications, they would like, DM us or send us emails and like, okay, like, I will gladly and happily help you out, but I need to get in contact with Lulu and then they can, you know, sort figure this out out for you.

 So that was hard to explain. And kind of like Amy said too, like, sometimes we’re in this Amazon, like, shopping era where it’s like, I want it now, I wanted it yesterday, really, and like, fix my problem. And we’re all small businesses and so to like, graciously, you know, help people in like a timely manner was a little bit challenging. But it was so nice to always be like, hey, I received this. This is my response. Amy, Emily, you know, do you guys, like, think I’m missing anything or whatnot or like, they may have like, taken care of quest or whatnot that we didn’t know about and, oh, this is what I said.

 And like, this is the attachment. But, you know, so like being able to share their experiences and then that just made it way more streamlined and yeah, easy. But again, you know, everyone has been like, really, really sweet for the majority of the, of the customers and we’re grateful for.

[00:46:50]  Megan Porta 

 I mean, when you have that many customers, you’re bound to have some issues, right? I mean, absolutely, 100% so.

[00:47:00]  Emily Christensen 

 It was hard too when people would, like, reach out via DMs, but, like, we all have big Instagram followings. And so, like, I mean, when you’re getting hundreds of DMS a day, there is. It’s just impossible to keep up. So I feel like people would get frustrated if we didn’t respond the first time.
 

 And I think that is one tricky thing with Lulu. If they like go down Lulu, but then they reach out to us, you know, because most of the time there’s like email. If you have any issues with your order, email us at blah, blah, blah, you know, for support. But since they didn’t really see that, and I’m not sure that that is, maybe something Lulu could work on is like making sure that’s very clear how you can get in contact with them if you have any issues with your order.
 

 But they thought, like, it would be quick to reach out to us. But when you’re getting hundreds of DMS a day and, you know, we’re all moms and we’re like doing this full time. Ish. While also being moms and, you know, keeping our house in order and whatever. So it’s. I do think some people got frustrated that we weren’t responding right away, but that is kind of the nature of with Lulu not having that kind of that contact email.

[00:48:13]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, that’s good to know. Overall, are you glad that you went with Lulu?

[00:48:16]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, I think so. I think especially for this project specifically, like, they, they did a really good job and we, we knew going into it kind of what, like pros and cons. There’s pros and cons to any publishing route that you choose to go. So this was definitely for the time frame for the project. I think it was the best choice.

[00:48:40]  Megan Porta 

 Okay. And then I guess to wrap up. First of all, thank you, ladies for sharing this. I’m so inspired by this and I know that others will be as well. So to wrap up, I’m going to go through just each of you, if you want to give either some parting wisdom for people who might be considering a project like this, or maybe something important that you learned that you feel like you should share. Anything that comes to mind about just keep in mind food bloggers doing similar projects. What do you need them to know? So, Amy, I’ll start with you.

[00:49:12]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, so I was thinking kind of about this, and this thought kept coming to my mind a little bit, is that we rise by lifting others. And I really feel like that is what this project taught me. And I think the best thing out of this entire project, and I think for any food blogger, if you wanted to do a collaboration with somebody else who is in A similar niche is by working together, like, we have all grown our followings and we’ve built this lasting friendships that have helped us in our business.

[00:50:39]   

 That you can’t really put a price on that. And so I really feel like that that was worth the entire cookbook, no matter how many copies we sold.

[00:49:46]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Amazing. All right, Emily, what about you?

[00:49:48]  Emily Christensen 

 Yeah, I think I kind of talked about this a little bit earlier, but, like, just. Just do it scared, like, and stay consistent. Like, don’t. Don’t focus so much on I’m gonna fail. You know, when I. So I started by just teaching sourdough classes. And it was after I had my second son, I quit my marketing job and I was like, okay, I’m gonna teach classes locally.  

So I just like slapped a logo onto Canva and got started. And the first time I published, like, classes in my area, as soon as I published it, I immediately was like, this is going to fail. Nobody is going to sign up. I should just delete this. This is, like, embarrassing, you know, Like, I’m trying to do this and people are gonna be like, what a loser.

 You know what I mean? But I pushed past that and I kept going and like, I ended up selling out of the class really quickly. And I feel like that has kind of been like, at every step of the way, I could have said, like, okay, this is like, embarrassing, like, posting on Instagram, like, I am such a loser, you know, like, nobody is going to follow my Instagram or whatever.

 I could keep letting those, like, self doubts get in the way of doing any of these. You know, I could have said, like, Amy and McKenna would never say yes to doing a project with me. Like, who am I, you know, compared to them? And it’s just continue to put yourself out there, stay consistent, and like, like, good things will happen when you just keep pushing forward.

[00:51:22]  Megan Porta 

 Wow, so many good words here. Okay, McKenna, you have a lot to live up to here.

[00:51:30]  McKenna Pulda 

 Oh, way to save it to the end here. No, I mean, Emily, like, hit it on the head. But I have this quote by Julia Child. I grew up loving her, but she says, no one is born a great cook. One learns by doing. And Emily, just like, that’s like that message, right?

 When I first brought the idea of starting a blog to my husband, I was really scared. Like, is this, like, really something that I want to do? Like, I’d only been baking sourdough for a couple of years. Like, what do I know that someone would actually, like, look to me to learn from?
 

 But here we are. We have growing businesses. We now have a cookbook that we have created and shared with others. And that’s just because taking the leap of faith, right? And being able to put yourself out there even if you don’t know what you’re doing. And we were just texting last night about just blogging in general and just like, man, some days you just, like, feel like you’re flying off the seat of your pants and just hope things. That will work out.

 But you’re never going to learn, you’re never going to grow if you don’t take those opportunities. So don’t let fear or just the opportunity or the possibility of rejection or whatnot scare you from trying, because you will learn and you will continue to grow if you keep pushing yourself too.

[00:52:41]  Megan Porta 

 Wow. You guys. Okay, I need to become a sourdough baker because I want to hang out with you three. You’re so positive. We’ll hang out no matter what, you know?

[00:53:48]  Amy Coyne 

 We’ll bring the sourdough right.

[00:53:50]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, you’ll bring the sourdough. I’ll bring the comfort food. I don’t know. Oh, it’s so good to know you guys. And I’m really grateful for this conversation and congratulations on your amazing collaboration. I’m so excited to get a copy in my hands. So, yeah, I think just to end, let’s just reiterate, like, what your blogs are, and then I’m going to have one of you say the book again just in case somebody didn’t write it down. So, Amy, go ahead and say your blog and the book.

[00:53:21]  Amy Coyne 

 Yeah, my blog is Amy Bakes Bread. And then the book is Our Sourdough Table.

[00:53:27]  Megan Porta 

 Okay, and Emily, your blog.

[00:53:28]  Emily Christensen 

Country Road Sourdough.

[00:53:30]  Megan Porta 

 Okay, McKenna.

[00:53:29]  McKenna Pulda 

 And mine is Simplicity and a Starter.

[00:53:36]  Megan Porta 

 Awesome. Okay, we’re going to put together a show notes page for you ladies. If you want to go look at everything we talked about today, head to eatblogtalk.com/cookbookcollab. So go check that out. Go check out all these ladies blogs and their amazing cookbook, and I hope you’re inspired to create something of your own. Thank you for being here and thank you for listening, food bloggers. I will see you next time.

[00:54:04]  Megan Porta 

 Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Please share this episode with a friend who would benefit from tuning in. I will see you next time.