For those with a passion for cooking and a knack for creating unique recipe variations, sharing your culinary creations can be both fulfilling and profitable.

One of the most effective ways to start is by launching a recipe newsletter blog.

For example, I chose to build this newsletter blog on Beehiiv. I’ll certainly be posting data on how this project grew from zero because we are following the same processes in our niche that we are blogging about today for the recipe niche. The reason I write about cooking as a newsletter for passive income, is because I know amazing cooks who really could make a passive income blogging about their skills and passion - and I hope to inspire them with before and after case studies.

Newsletters not only allows you to connect with fellow food enthusiasts but also paves the way for publishing your very own cookbook. Here’s a step-by-step guide to use powerful new AI tools to help you embark on this delicious journey.

How to Create A Recipe Blog That Earns Passive Income:

1. Shocking Sales Numbers: Understanding what’s trending in the cookbook market ensures your product meets current demand.

2. AI-Writing Tools Are Amazing: A well-structured and well-written recipe newsletter increases customer open rates, shares and sales.

3. Everything Revealed: A solid marketing plan at the start can help you reach profitability instead of getting no results.

Aims of this 3-Hour Set Up:

1. To help you identify a profitable niche and concept for your cookbook.

2. To assist in outlining a passive income recipe newsletter.

3. To guide you through how to use ChatGPT and other AI Tools to save hours of time every day.

Find Out What’s Cookin’!

Before you start, cook what you love, but find out what recipes people are actually searching for. Use research tools like Helium 10 for Amazon and Everbee on Etsy. Find out what is selling and dig into the keywords that people are using to search and find these top selling products. This is the secret key to creating recipes where there is a high demand and that’s where you can connect up revenue streams to make this a passive revenue stream.

Hour 1: Conceptualization and Planning (4 x 15-minute segments)

15 Minutes: Cook Up Your Cookbook Concept

• Use Amazon Best Sellers list to identify trending themes in the cookbook and recipe market.

• Install the free browser extension from Helium 10 and visit the listing page for each best selling Amazon cookbook. The extra insights, sales data and keywords that people use to find these top selling recipes are the gold we have come to mine.

• Create a spreadsheet and start to collect ideas we can flesh out into original recipes.

After a general cook book search in Amazon, I click on the first best selling listing and scroll down to find out the categories where this book is selling at the top.

Then I can use the Amazon Best Sellers page to drill down to those categories and find a few of the recipe books and cook books that match the style of meal I’m preparing for the next recipe newsletter.

Here are some amazing results from just one example!

Using the Helium 10 Xray Tool, we can get a better idea of the actual sales volume for each of the cookbooks. After a bit of sluthing…

It’s easy to see that there is a hungry market for cookbooks! (sorry for the pun)

Cookbook Sales $80,000 Revenue

Is The Research Tool Worth It?

Check out all the data in the free chrome extension. Starting out in the correct direction is such a good idea!

15 Minutes: Compare What’s Up On Esty

• Use the free Everbee browser extension to compare different top selling cookbooks on Etsy. Collect more keyword data, sample recipe titles and take note of image ideas that catch your eye.

Type in your search and start making a spreadsheet of the top monthly search phrases.

You can make the most of this by stepping through the first letter of the alphabet and uncover more and more data. Collect all the good stuff.

Sort the search results, then open each of the listings.

Once you find the recipes and cookbook products that are making sales… now we can drill down into this listing and learn what we can about creating our own variation.

Gold Mine!

My own recipes may not sell as well as the recipe book covers that I can promote as an affiliate. My own recipes and my happy stories about tasting chocolate mouse for the first time at a friends house when I was 22 years old… might bring in the audience… but the MONEY might come in from a very unexpected quarter.

Sure I want people to rave about my lifelong mission to re-create that first, most-perfect-chocolate-mouse-I-ever-tasted… but, I have to put my ego aside and be prepared to let another star have the front stage on my newsletter! (because I will get a cut of their paycheck… it’s alllll good.)

15 Minutes: Generate Content Ideas

• Now that we have an idea of the recipes selling best, we can use ChatGPT to brainstorm recipe names and recipe ingredient variations. We can now start building new variations of our own recipes for these hot selling food themes.

• Prompt: “Please create a list of 25 nearly-clickbait style recipe titles for budget-friendly family meals based off this sample list of 10 article titles”

Hour 2: Content Creation (4 x 15-minute segments)

45 Minutes: Newsletter Setup Time!

Set Up Your Newsletter Blog

Choose a platform that integrates both blogging and newsletter features, such as Beehiiv, Substack or Revue. This way, every time you post a new recipe, subscribers get it directly in their inbox.

Five Point Newsletter Structure:

1. Build your newsletter to have the same structure and layout for each issue.

2. Start with the personal story about the recipe with a hook at the start that you promise to reveal at the bottom of the newsletter issue.

3. Include a featured kitchen tool section.

4. Provide the recipe.

5. Finally, finish your personal story and reveal the answer to the question or the hook you used in the start of the story.

If you don’t have a brand name in mind, use ChatGPT to help you craft a list of 20 different recipe newsletter ideas and put together the parts that stand out to you.

• Use Beehiiv to set up all the basics about your new newsletter. Use the simple default settings to get started. We’ll host a special training tutorial on how to make the most of the cool AI Tools in the Beehiiv Newsletters, but for now we want to get started and verify our site with Google Webmaster Tools to star the process of getting listed in the search engines.

15 Minutes: Recipe Time!

Craft Engaging Content

• Recipes: Clearly list ingredients, measurements, and step-by-step instructions. Include high-quality photos of the dish from different angles. This is where we can link Amazon products for affiliate revenue.

• Stories Captivate: Share the inspiration behind each recipe. This is what will connect your audience to YOUR recipes. Was it a childhood memory? A dish from your travels? Personal anecdotes make your content relatable. Brainstorm some actual, real experiences and then ask ChatGPT or WriteSonic to rewrite your story into a longer format.

• Prompt: “take this personal story about how I first discovered my love for wonton soup and expand it into a long and detailed story , start with a nearly clickbait beginning and reveal the answer in the final lines of the story — begin with an emotional story of going on my first date with a partner I had loved secretly for months — finally we met at a small restaurant near by. Was it the love or was it really the wonton soup?”

• Use ChatGPT to generate the story around the top selling recipe theme.

• Have ChatGPT summarize the product description for a kitchen cooking tool listed on Amazon SBA (shipped by amazon).

• Prompt: “Create 5 variations of the following recipe. Make only slight variations to the ingredients”

• Prompt: “List 10 street foods from around the globe that’ll make your taste buds do the cha-cha.”

Hour 3: Publishing and Marketing (4 x 15-minute segments)

15 Minutes: Make It Look Tasty

• Social Media: Share snippets, photos, or short videos of your recipes on platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.

15 Minutes: Publishing Options

• Medium.com MiniNet: Create your own dedicated publication on Medium and import each of your recipes. (We talk more about the power of connecting different blogging platforms in a different business plan.)

• Collaborations: Follow fellow food bloggers on Medium and engage with their content. Find food publications that accept guest posts. Find the affiliate programs for cooking products so you can build many income streams from your cooking stories.

• Engage: Keep a small daily routine for engaging in the community of cooking bloggers on Medium and in LinkedIn Groups. Take note of those with engagement and activity so you can share your future recipes. Respond to comments, host Q&A sessions, or run polls to decide your next recipe.

Build and Nurture Your Community

Engagement is what sets your content apart from the ocean of recipes out there. People love a story and people want to connect and to be heard. The more you promote other authors and encourage subscribers to share their versions of your recipes, the faster your own following will grow.

Gather Feedback

Use your newsletter as a testing ground for developing your cookbook. Ask subscribers for feedback on your recipes, on the clarity of your instructions, and especially find out what they’d like to see next. This ensures your eventual cookbook meets the needs and expectations of your audience.

Plan Your Cookbook

While you continue to return to Step 3 and create new content around a new recipe, we always have the aim of building 12 to 20 recipes so you can publish your first cookbook. It doesn’t have to be a large cookbook, but it will add credibility to your newsletter and also boost the growth curve of your loyal following:

• Curate Ideas Every Day: Be sure to use the free keyword research options on Everbee and Helium 10 and keep building out your spreadsheet of the best selling and most popular recipes. Not only can you create your own flair for your cookbook, you can also refer your readers to these top selling cookbooks through your referral link.

• Add Value: Include exclusive recipes that haven’t been featured on your blog.

• Design: You can ask ChatGPT4 to browse the Canva plugin to find a range of premade design templates, or you can consider hiring a five star professional on Fiverr for layout and design to ensure your cookbook is visually appealing.

Publishing Options

• Self-Publishing: Platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing or Blurb and even Etsy Publishing allow you to retain creative control and earn higher royalties. Once you have self published a Hardcover style book on Amazon, you can apply to have Verified Author Status on your Medium Profile which immediately makes your profile stand out.

• Traditional Publishing: If you’ve built a significant following, traditional publishers might be interested. They handle production, distribution, and marketing, and while they also take a larger cut of the profits, these deals can help you dramatically grow your lucrative email newsletter.

Celebrate and Expand

Once your cookbook is out, celebrate with your community. Your book is now another revenue stream and a powerful way to build your newsletter subscribers. It creates a feedback loop of growing your passive income potentials.

In conclusion, your love for cooking and creating new recipes REALLY CAN be the foundation of a thriving online community and a successful recipe newsletter that grows into a hardcover cookbook. With passion, correct research into what is actually selling, along with consist posting and engagement with your followers, your love of cooking can take you places you’ve only dreamed of. Happy cooking!

Many small businesses and individual creators struggle with the time-consuming and complex process of creating and monetizing a blog about recipes and cooking. The journey often seems complex and overwhelming unless we break it down in to small steps you can follow.

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