Always a tough question...

[Cronker]

...When does a recipe become "yours"?

for example, if I was to write a cookbook with my favourite recipes, a lot would be adapted from others.

i guess there is very little new that hasn't been tried before.

so where is the line drawn?

[Lisa Shock]

Copyright law covers the instructions, not the ingredient lists.

 

The thing to ask yourself is, who is your audience? Would they pay for recipes that are the same as, say, the red & white check-covered cookbook, barring changes to an ingredient or two?

 

If you look at members here who have publish books successfully, they all have something in common: their books offer unique recipes or techniques.

Edited October 2, 2017 by Lisa Shock (log)

[Shalmanese]

5 hours ago, Cronker said:

...When does a recipe become "yours"?

for example, if I was to write a cookbook with my favourite recipes, a lot would be adapted from others.

i guess there is very little new that hasn't been tried before.

so where is the line drawn?

 

There's an infinity of recipes on the web now. Nobody is buying a cookbook in order to accumulate more recipes. It's fine to credit and say "I originally got this recipe from X and made the following tweaks Y'.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Yes and yes. But you know what? I am so glad that Vivian Howard has found a way to successfully market an old school printed cookbook. She did that by offering a lot more than can be found on the web.  She is our home girl, and I am so proud of her! 

[Tri2Cook]

2 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

Yes and yes. But you know what? I am so glad that Vivian Howard has found a way to successfully market an old school printed cookbook. She did that by offering a lot more than can be found on the web.  She is our home girl, and I am so proud of her! 

I think that's what Shalmanese was getting at. You have to offer something more, photography, stories, specialized education, etc. to make people want to buy a printed cookbook. So many people post recipes from books with the "adapted from" disclaimer that it's usually pretty easy to find the one you want without buying a book. The secret to selling printed cookbooks is exactly that... offer them something more than they can get by just googling the recipe. 

[cakewalk]

On 9/29/2017 at 10:09 PM, Cronker said:

...When does a recipe become "yours"?

for example, if I was to write a cookbook with my favourite recipes, a lot would be adapted from others.

i guess there is very little new that hasn't been tried before.

so where is the line drawn?

I guess we all draw our own lines. An example: there are two cookie recipes that I make frequently, they're among my favorites. I follow the list of ingredients exactly. But I change the shaping rather drastically. One was originally part of a sandwich cookie, and I made it that way the first time. I felt the filling wasn't all that good and it did nothing for the cookie itself, which I thought was excellent. So now I make only the cookie, and I roll it out thinner and bake it so it is crisp. Is that now "my" recipe? I don't know. The other one has a similar story. I use the exact list of ingredients, but the instructions for shaping it make a thick, doughy cookie. I never made it that way, not even the first time I used the recipe. Again, I roll it out very thin and bake it to a nice crisp cookie. (I love nice crisp cookies.) Neither cookie bears any resemblance to the original recipe, even though I do not change the ingredients. Are they "mine"? Well, my friends seem to think so! (And so do I.) I don't know if there's an answer to your question. But maybe if your intended end product is different than the intention of the recipe developer, you're onto something new. And it's "yours."