Contributing Recipes for Cookbooks

[confiseur]

I would be gratefull for some advice here....

I have been asked to contribute ten recipes such as chocolates, desserts, confectionery etc to an upcoming book. My name and a profile would also be mentioned and the standard would be so that a keen amateur chef would be able to reproduce it.

The fee would be $500, this would be for my time and the preparation and presentation of the recipes for photography. There would be no further fee irresepective of how many books are sold. The IP rights would also go over to the publishers so I could not use those recipes.

This doesn't seem like a great deal to me but having no experience in this area, am I being naive and should I take the money and run or should I hold out for a bit more, try to claim back the IP rights etc.?

Any input gratefully received.

Many thanks to everyone who has the time or inclination to reply.

[Chris Amirault]

What sort of book is it? A local "meet chefs in our community" sort of thing or a book targeted at a (multi)national audience and backed by big capital and a publishing corporation?

[confiseur]

I am a professional and so are the other guys...will be about 6-8 of us all contributing 10 recipes.

It is aimed at the serious amateur/commis-professional audience. It will also be stocked by an upmarket supermarket chain in addition to the usual outlets. The publishers are heavy hitters. Published in Engish only.

[Kerry Beal]

I guess it's just a decision about whether it is worth it to you for publicity more than anything - but I'd sure want to retain the rights to use my own recipes. That's probably where I would be pushing. And since you don't get any royalties - you might want to see if you could get a few bucks more from them at the front end.