Frequently Asked Questions

When you register as a member of Eat Your Books you can choose from one of 3 options:  

• Limited Membership - you can add up to 5 books to your Bookshelf. 
• Monthly Membership US$2.50 per month
• Annual Membership US$25 per annum

We feel that we are offering a valuable service to our members which is worth a small fee. Unlike other free sites that rely on the members to provide the data, we have invested heavily in setting up the site and providing the data for their use. Additionally, we have taken the decision at EYB to be an advertising free site - we feel that our members would prefer to pay a small fee and the site to be clutter free.

Yes you can purchase a Gift Certficate for a one year membership by clicking on the link on the Community Page.  The Gift Certificate will be sent to you for you to deliver.  Depending on your preference you can either forward it on via email or copy and paste it into another document.   The one year membership only begins when the recipient creates an account and redeems the voucher. 

No it's not possible.

Once you have made a payment for either monthly or annual membership through PayPal, your membership is automatically renewed.   For annual memberships we will remind you a few days before the renewal date.

No, if you choose not to continue using Eat Your Books, you simply cancel your subscription payment with PayPal.  Should you cancel part way through a month or year there is no repayment of any part of the fees.

If you decide to cancel your membership you can stop your PayPal payment by going to your Account Page (click on your username in the top right hand corner) and clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.  Should you cancel part way through a month or year there is no repayment of any part of the fees, but you can continue to use Eat Your Books until the paid period expires.

If you became an Annual member before December 2010 annual memberships have to be renewed manually.  You will see a Renew option - you can do this at any time and it will add 12 months to your expiry date if done before that date.  Or 12 months from the day you renew if after that date.  Members will be reminded when their membership is due to expire.  Annual payments will be auto-renewed thereafter.  If you choose not to renew - the membership will expire and there is no need to do anything else.  We will keep your Bookshelf details for some time in case you change your mind.

We accept PayPal accounts and all major credit cards - Visa, Amex, MasterCard.

If you fail to make a payment for a monthly or annual subscription, you will not have access to the site until a payment is made. We will store your My Bookshelf data for a limited payment and will always let you know before your data is removed.

We only ask you for personal information that we feel will enable us to personalize your EYB experience. We have tried to keep it to a minimum.  You can choose to include further information about yourself.  We encourage everyone to write a short profile of themselves so a Bookshelf becomes more than a list of books, but a personality.
We would NEVER give your email address to anyone without your permission.

As detailed in the Privacy Statement, EYB will not provide any 3rd party with your personal details. These are contained on a secure server and every possible measure is taken to ensure they are protected.

To change your password and email, click on your Username in the top right hand corner and select My Account.  If you change your email - you will be sent an email to your new address to verify it.   You will need to click on the link before you next sign in to your account.

To change your username, please contact us at info@eatyourbooks.com.

We will store all data contained in your My Bookshelf for a limited period – we will always advise you before we remove it. 

When you become a member of Eat Your Books your Bookshelf exists but it's empty.  To enable you to search for recipes in your cookbooks you need to list the cookbooks you own.  You can then use EYB's extensive searching facilities to search for recipes in your indexed books.

We have more than 95,000 cookbooks listed in the Library – but there are still a lot more out there.   To get a missing book added to the library – go to Import Books and add in the ISBN.  These ISBNs will be added to your Bookshelf once we import the book details.   Rarer books and those without ISBNs will not be added right now though we are looking into affiliate agreements with other booksellers who trade in older and rarer cookbooks.

We are not yet able to add books without ISBNs but we do plan to add that feature in the future.  We also plan to allow members to add magazines.

An indexed book means that the recipe name and all the main ingredients for every recipe in that book is stored. So you can search for recipes by the recipe name, the ingredients it uses, the book it's from, or the author. We have also categorized recipes by: ethnicity, recipe type, meal type, special diet and occasion. So you can find out, in seconds, if you have a recipe in your cookbooks for Greek Beef Casserole. We do not have the complete recipe on EYB - you have to refer to your cookbook for all other details.

You may find some of your favorite cookbooks aren't indexed. You can request for a book to be indexed by clicking on the Request Index under the book cover.   The status will change to Requested which you can see as the link is grayed-out.   Priority to index a cookbook is based on the number of requests we get AND the number of Bookshelves the book appears on.  You will know if we are going to Index it as the status will change from Request Index to Index Soon and it should be within 4 weeks.  The default order for books in your Bookshelf is by date indexed, so you will see when one of your books is Indexed.

Sometimes less-requested cookbooks may take a while to get to the top of the indexing pile. Or, if you are the only person who requested it, it may never get indexed.  There is now a feature that allows you to index your own books and magazines if you wish.  Click Indexing in the left navigation (this feature is only available to paid members).

If you have a Limited membership you can have up to 5 books on your Bookshelf.   Once you subscribe to a monthly or annual membership there is no limit, you can put all your books on your Bookshelf.

We usually only index one version of a book and then link all other editions to it.  In the Library you will see the Indexed edition featured, and the linked books listed.   To add one of the linked books, select it and click on the +Bookshelf button on the Book Details Page.
Some books have UK and US versions, we have indexed some of these separately, so you will see two indexed versions. Choose the one that you own. For example, several of Nigella Lawson's books have both the UK and US versions indexed.

No, you only need one Bookshelf. You simply tag your cookbooks with a Bookmark that indicates which location the book is in.  Many members use this feature to keep track of their cookbook collections in different parts of their house.  If you have the same book in two different locations, you can add two different location tags to the same book.

Yes you can. At EYB we have categorized thousands of books and recipes, so you can search for books by Ethnicity, Occasion, Special Diet, Course and General Categories such as Soups, Cakes. However we knew people would want to create their own as well so we created Bookmarks. You create your own Bookmarks with names that have meaning to you – these are some things you can use Bookmarks for:
Location of cookbooks
Planning a Menu
Marking a cookbook or recipe as a Favorite
Marking recipes that you want to try out later
Keeping together favorite recipes for a particular food – such as Tomatoes, Zucchini etc
You’ll probably find many other ways you can use Bookmarks to help you organize your cookbook collection.  For more information on Bookmarks go to the How To section.

We don't have the full recipes on the website - Eat Your Books is not a recipe site.  We could not reproduce all the recipes from cookbooks as that would be a breach of the author and publisher's copyright.  EYB helps you find recipes in the books you already own.  You use the ingredients or other criteria such as recipe type, ethnicity, etc to find what you are looking for in your books, then pull that book from your bookshelf to cook from.
 
If we reproduced all the recipes in full, then many people would never buy the books.  We are a site for people who love their cookbooks and want to get more use from them.

You can only find recipes in books that have been indexed by EYB.  So the book can be in the EYB Library but not yet be indexed and the recipes are not yet available in your searches.

If by chance there is a recipe missing from a book that has been indexed, please let us know by clicking Report an Error at the bottom of the page.

As you will know by now we are not a recipe site! Eat Your Books lets you search for recipes in your cookbooks by ingredients. It's unlikely anyone would want to search for recipes by basic ingredients such as oil, flour and sugar. Most people have these basics in their cupboard, so we decided not to include them. Always refer to the recipe in your cookbook to ensure you have the complete list of ingredients.

The list of store-cupboard ingredients that we exclude, unless they are a main ingredient of the dish or are in significant quantities, are: salt, pepper, baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar, cornstarch/cornflour, cooking spray, water, butter, vegetable shortening, eggs, milk, all-purpose/plain flour, self rising/raising flour, granulated/white sugar, light-brown sugar, dark-brown sugar, confectioner's/icing sugar, vanilla extract/essence, olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, red and white wine vinegar, basic red and white wine, Dijon mustard, chicken/beef/vegetable stock, white and yellow onions, garlic, lemons.

Sometimes the indexers come across an ingredient that has never been used before - surprising when we have more than 11,000 ingredients.  In that case they enter new ingredient and we then replace it with the new ingredient when it is added to the database.  We are working our way through to replace them all but it may take a little while.

Yes you can using the Only Show filter.  In the same way as you can filter your results by adding in ingredients or categories you can also take them out.  When you add an item to the filter box it defaults to 'add in' just click on the green circle and it turns red and the item changes to 'take out'.   For more information on how to use this feature go to How can I exclude an ingredient or category in a recipe search?

As you will have realized by now Eat Your Books is not a recipe site - it helps you find recipes in your own cookbooks.  However, where a recipe 'officially' exists on the internet we will link to the recipe.  At EYB we respect the value of recipes and an author's copyright - so we will only link to an author's or publisher's website or where they have given permission for a recipe to be published such as in a magazine.  See the book Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi as an example with links to the Guardian newspaper where these recipes first appeared.

If a recipe has an online link you can add it to your Bookshelf, even if you don't own the book, and it will be included in all searches.  You can also Bookmark it.  EYB only links to official recipes on the internet that have been approved by the author or publisher.

Yes you can - you can filter your search results to just display online recipes by clicking on the box on the right hand side that says "Online Recipes".   This is particularly useful if you can't find a recipe in your own collection - search the Library and if you find the one you want you can add it to your Bookshelf.

The Personal Recipes feature means you can now add your own personal recipes to your Bookshelf.  You can use the the EYB indexing tool to help you organize and find all those recipes from friends, magazines, newspapers etc that you've saved over the years.  You may have them neatly catalogued or not!  Either way you can now include all these recipes in your searches. 

By registering as an EYB member you become a member of the EYB community - these are people, like you, who own and love to use cookbooks and food magazines. By sharing your enjoyment of owning a cookbook or discovering a recipe that you love with other members, they will be grateful and reciprocate. By becoming an active member - everyone benefits.

Notes are any comment on a book or recipe by an EYB member.  It could be a review, an error correction, a suggestion of a variation, etc.

Reviews are external reviews of books or recipes by newspapers, magazines or blogs.  We will not carry the review but will have a link to the 3rd party website/blog that carries the review.

We are continually updating and improving Eat Your Books based on feedback from our members. If you have any suggestions for improving the site, post your ideas to the Give Us Your Feedback discussion in the Forum. Or send an email to us by clicking on Contact Us.

At the bottom of every page is a "Report an Error" tag, click on this and let us know what the error is and which Book or Recipe it's in. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the site is error free, it probably isn't, so we appreciate your help to make it so. If you don't have a mail client installed, mail us at errors@eatyourbooks.com.

We plan to introduce a mobile interface so that owners of any smartphone will be able to view Eat Your Books.  This will include enhanced shopping lists.

We plan to add this feature that will allow you to set up a wishlist for books you would like to own.  In the meantime you can create a wishlist bookmark where you can store this information.

We do have plans to enhance Shopping List.  Feaures we plan to add include:
• Create your own store cupboard so items you know you always have in stock do not appear in your shopping list
• Enter quantities
• Add other items to the shopping list
• Email or text the shopping list to someone else

Yes, we have recently started indexing food magazines.  We ran a survey on the Community page to find out which are the most popular magazines with EYB members.  So we have indexed Cook's Illustrated, are now working on Bon Appétit, and in the next months will be doing Gourmet, Saveur, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine as well as the top magazines in the UK and Australia.

Absolutely, we would love you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.