The Pantry Cookbook is Now Available for Download!

The Pantry Cookbook is now available for download!  You can read it online, or download it for reading, here at Google Docs.  It's free!  If you want to, you can even print out copies.  These files are formatted specifically to be printed by CreateSpace, at 7 by 10 inches, in black and white, on white paper.  You will have to pay the printer if you have copies printed, but you won't have to pay me anything.

I will caution you, however, that you might want to wait on printing until I have a chance to review my proof copy from the printer.  It should get here on Wednesday.  I'll post with the go-ahead to print as soon as I have reviewed the book.  [Update: the copy has arrived, and looks great!  However, I do want to revise a few small things.  I estimate that the book will be ready for printing in December.]

Some more about printing, and copyright stuff: instead of US copyright, I am using a "Creative Commons Attribution", so that this book can be easily used as a fundraising tool.  The text of the attribution is as follows:


This book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. This means you are free to share (copy, distribute, transmit) the book, and you are also free to adapt the work, so long as you attribute the work to Michelle Clay. You may not use this work for commercial  purposes, with one exception: you may sell copies of this book so long as all profits go to support food banks, school or community gardens, or similar non-profit programs that address hunger or nutrition issues.

 So, if you are raising funds for a cause that has something to do with hunger or nutrition, you have my blessing to sell printed copies or sell digital copies or sell it online (all of which can be done easily through CreateSpace), so long as the profits go to the cause.  May this be the easiest fund-raiser you've ever done!

Incidentally, part of my reason for doing this is my disgust at all of the fundraisers I was forced to participate in as a student.  There is nothing as demoralizing as selling cheesecakes or candy or wrapping paper or Girl Scout cookies only to have 75% or, yikes, 90% of your hard-won cash go to the company that makes the shoddy product that nobody wants to eat.  (Well, at least Girl Scout cookies are tasty, if you like highly refined food-like products.)

With this fundraiser, you can set the price of the book yourself.

Uploading a book to CreateSpace is free.  From there, you can print copies of the Pantry Cookbook using the Author's Discount for something like $5 per copy, plus shipping.  If you pay the $39 to be upgraded to the Pro Plan, it's closer to $2.50 per copy.  (Sorry, I'm sleepy from a rough night with the baby, and can't seem to find the specific price on CreateSpace right now.  But those numbers are pretty close.)

If you want to just order one single copy and don't want to bother with the rigamarole of uploading and setting up an account, then you are welcome to order a copy from my account.  As soon as it's approved and posted to Amazon, it should be available at list price of $9.85, which will earn me a few bucks with each copy sold.  And maybe if I'm lucky, I'll make back what I spent on the cover art!  :)

Happy fundraising!

Post Script: I have set up a page for the Pantry Cookbook on Facebook.  I can't seem to figure out how to add a "like" button on my page here, but if you would like to receive Facebook updates on the cookbook project, please visit the page and "like" it.  Thanks!