Decide what sets your recipes apart from the cookbooks already on the market. You will need a theme that catches someone's eye and makes them want to buy. As an example, are you promoting home cooking, international meals or 30-minute recipes? All of these are good examples of cookbook themes.
Gather the recipes you will use in the recipe book. You can publish the recipes from your personal stash of treasures. Check with your relatives for your family's tried-and-true recipes. If you are part of club or school that is publishing the book, get recipes from every member. Get as many recipes you can, since it is better to have too many to publish than too few.
Take pictures of every dish. Even if you don't use all of them, you will be glad you have them standing by.
Work on formatting the recipe book. Add photographs and pull quotes and tidbits of information pertaining to the theme. If you have a desktop publishing expert or graphic designer who is a good friend or part of the group, so much the better. This will save money as you with expenses.
Put the recipes together with the graphic designer to see how it all looks in draft form. This will help you to see if you have enough recipes, pictures and other art work.
Check into binding processes. Do you want to use a plastic spiral binding or will you be going for more of a "hard-bound" type of recipe book? Check with the publishers. Some publishers may only work with certain types of books.
Use a publisher! This is very important. A publisher is responsible for printing and distributing your recipe book. There are so many rules that an uninformed individual or club would be at a loss to remember them all. Shop around to find the publisher that is right for you.
Find out as much information as you can up front on how much the process will cost. You don't want to have any nasty surprises.