Useful iPhone/iPad Recipe App – Paprika

I am an avid reader of Real Simple magazine, and I love the recipes. They’re usually very easy and interesting, and I’ve found several great ones over the last couple of years. So, when I saw that Real Simple had an iPad recipe app, I decided the $4.99 was worth it, even though I already pay for a magazine subscription.

Thankfully, I read the reviews first, and let me tell you, they weren’t pretty. Most of them were complaints about the ads Real Simple runs on the paid app. Why they run ads on a paid app, I don’t know. But I do know I can’t stand ads, which meant the Real Simple recipe app wasn’t for me.

While reading through the reviews, a couple of people mentioned an app called Paprika, which copies recipes directly from Real Simple (and other websites). It sounded interesting, so I did some research. Here are the deets that were interesting to me:

  • Price: $4.99
  • Captures recipes from popular recipe sites such as RealSimple.com (view the complete list)
  • Lets you organize recipes by category, which you can customize
  • Lets you schedule meals
  • Lets you specify and load ingredients to a shopping list

I’ve been using it for a month or two now, and I love it. Since I was using the old fashioned method of looking through books, writing down recipes/ingredients, Paprika has been a huge time saver. I wish I’d bought it months ago! Plus, now I can toss all the old Real Simple magazines I’d been keeping because I liked the recipes. Bonus for a clutter-fiend like me :)

I did research some other popular recipe apps, but none of them looked as robust, and I really like how Paprika captures online recipes. Most of my research consisted of reading other blog posts about recipe apps and then reading some of the reviews on iTunes.

In summary, Paprika does everything a reluctant cook needs.

Why not to add photos to your blog or social media

Someone asked me why I don’t add more photos to my blog entries. Well, I have a very simple answer for that – they’re annoying and unnecessary, unless the photo adds something to the blog entry. I can’t tell you how many times I had to scroll past a picture of a quill on a writing blog.

I realize adding photos is supposed to make people like your blog more and get them to come back, but I just can’t do it. When I see a stock photo on a website, I just think about how the person who wrote that blog entry wasted my time by showing me another picture of a stack of books. Really, it doesn’t add anything.

My philosophy for blogging and social media is to write content that is relevant and worth reading. If someone takes three seconds to read what I wrote, I don’t want them to feel like I’ve wasted their time.

Having said that, I fear I’m wasting your time by writing about this topic. So, here’s what I want you to get out of it. The next time you’re having dinner, reconsider adding the 30th photo of something you ate that day with a comment like “Dinner, go me.” Ask yourself whether that’s really what you want every single one of your facebook or Twitter friends to read. If you really really really have to add that photo, how can you make it more relevant? What about adding a link to the recipe? That would be something I’d find interesting.

The kinds of photos I do like? Ones that add something to the content, like an info graphic or comic. For a mommy blog, I’m okay with seeing seven pictures of a mom’s kid in one blog entry. But please spare me the bleached stock photo of an office cubicle or a photo of people shaking hands as if they’ve just ironed out an agreement that will result in a Pax Romana that will last through the 21st century and beyond.

The Research Starts Today

I always thought I should finish writing and editing a novel before really digging into the research of publication. Now that I have a very rough first draft, I’ve begun to look around for publishing tips. I already subscribe to a few agent blogs (BookEnds, LLC is my favorite for advice), and I read various book blogger and writing blogs, but I’m nowhere near ready to start the process of trying to get published. I was procrastinating without even knowing I was procrastinating.

Until today.

As I browse through The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, I see how much research can go into the publishing process – from finding an agent to promoting your book, and I am woefully behind. I’m not going to let this stall me, though. I’m a technical writer, and one thing technical writers do best is research. There’s much more to publishing than I thought, and it looks to me like the author can contribute a lot to making a novel successful – instead of leaving all the work to the handlers (book agents, publishing companies, etc.). I love the thought of having some control over the process.

To start, I’m doing the following:

  • Since my novel is chick lit, I’ve added several chick-lit-centered blog feeds to my Google Reader… specific book bloggers I didn’t know about and a few writer blogs. I haven’t found any more agent blogs, but I’ll keep looking.
  • I’m considering joining the Romance Writers of America. I met some people from the Tucson chapter at the Tucson Festival of Books last weekend, and they highly encouraged it. There are two chapters in Phoenix, and once I join, I just have to figure out which one I want to be affiliated with. (In case you’re interested, Desert Rose and Valley of the Sun RW.)
  • I’m doing specific research on comparable books and have solicited help from friends (thanks, K!). I guess I need to compare my novel to something other than Bridget Jones’ Diary.
  • Since I love outlines, to do lists, and document plans, I’m thinking of what I’d include on a publishing and marketing plan (social networking goals; working with my personal networks through friends, political circles, and mom groups; taking advantage of traditional methods, such as bookstores, book bloggers, etc.;  and a few other things, like getting my hometown paper to provide coverage and developing better media contacts.

That’s about as far as I got. I did have to remove a few blog subscriptions to make time for reading the new blogs, but I’m already loving it. It feels good to really entrench myself in something I already enjoy so much.

I know what at least one of you is thinking… “But if you’re doing all that, when are you going to find time to write?” I don’t have an answer to that, other than spend less time doing dishes and stop watching The View (my guilty pleasure). Oh, and spend less time blogging but more time reading at the gym. It’s all about balance, right?

Googling for friends

There’s this great website that many people don’t know about. It sends a powerful statement, but be careful how you use it. I’ve used it with friends who’ve asked me dumb questions before, and I’ve been tempted to use it with people I’m working with (see my previous post, So, you want to be a technical writer) but have been able to avoid the temptation to use:

Let Me Google That For You

When someone asks you a lame question, plug the keyword(s) into Let Me Google That For You, and then send the lamer the return URL. They get the info they’re looking for and realize how lame it was for them to ask you. Perfect!

So, you want to be a technical writer

I’ve been working with a client’s employee on some documentation, but the employee has very little technical writing experience. He created a document in Word and manually changed fonts, added spaces, etc. Basically, newbie stuff that’s easy enough to fix. He told me that he’d created hundreds of documents in his career, but no one ever told him to use a template or how to create the documents. So, he made it up as he went along. That’s fine, how was he to know there was a better way?

I enjoy training, so I talked to him about styles, why we use them, etc., and then I showed him how to apply them. Showing him the tech writing ropes has been fun, because he’s excited and positive about learning new things.

He immediately applied what I taught him and was making progress on the document, but then he hit a wall. He was importing images and couldn’t figure out how to use the drawing tools. What he did after this is why he won’t make a great technical writer – he stopped working on the document until someone could tell him what to do.

When I talked to him again, he told me what he was having a problem with.

Me: Did you look in the help?
Him: No.
Me: OK, did you google it?
Him: No, I wanted to ask you about it.

This is a big red flag for me when working with other writers. A good technical writer is curious, diligent in research, and should always always always be the first person to use the product’s help. I wish I could say this incident was rare, but I’ve run into plenty of other writers, usually newer to the technical writing game, who lack the curiosity and problem solving skills needed to be efficient and successful.

That’s not to say that this employee won’t eventually produce decent documentation, the positive attitude and eagerness to learn will go a long way. But without someone to hold his hand and guide him through the process, it will be a long time before he becomes an expert.