Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food
Useful Tips, Interviews, and Stories to Inspire Food Writers and Bloggers
A guest post by Rebecca Lang
My heart leapt when my publisher, Oxmoor House (now Time Inc Books), told me I was going to sell my cookbook on QVC, the television shopping channel network.
Before becoming a talent on QVC, though, I had to be trained on the [Read more…] about Selling 16,000+ Cookbooks on QVC in Minutes
Author and and television personality Joanne Weir tells you how she works the audience into buying her latest cookbook.
A guest post by Joanne Weir
I’ve been really lucky with book sales and people often say “Oh, I forgot that you always sell a lot of books.” I want you to know that it took me a while to get the hang of selling books, but I do have a few pointers that work for me:
1. I hold the book in my arms the whole time, with the title facing out, and I [Read more…] about 6 Secrets to Selling Cookbooks at Events
Food writer and cookbook author Jody Eddy, before her talk at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA.
It’s not every day that a new cookbook author joins the ranks of dignitaries such as Al Gore and Tina Fey. But Jody Eddy did, by speaking at Google headquarters.
The co-author of Come In, We’re Closed: An Invitation to Staff Meals at the World’s Best Restaurants, Jody’s oddessey to the Googleplex began when publicist friend Carrie Bachman made a request.
Cliff Redeker, who books speakers for the Google talks, wanted travel information about Iceland for a future trip. Eddy is working on a cookbook with an Icelandic chef, Gunnar Karl Gislason, so she and Redecker began a conversation. Eventually, he invited Jody to speak about her new cookbook.
The Google speaker series began in 2005 and features hundreds of authors, musicians, chefs, economists and politicians. Redeker now arranges [Read more…] about A New Cookbook Author Scores a Google Talk
Nancy Hachisu makes rice bran pickles in her Japanese farmhouse. Photo by Kenji Miura. (Courtesy of Nancy Hachisu)
When I met Nancy Singleton Hachisu in Mexico in 2010, I was taken aback by the sight of another woman in her 50s at a food blogger camp.
Over our week together, more surprises came. Nancy had moved to Japan to teach English 22 years earlier, married her English conversation student —- an organic farmer, and raised their three boys in the Japanese countryside, living and working on their farm.
My head was spinning. How did a blond white woman from an upscale California neighborhood live in rural Japan with her family and mother-in-law, where there were no others like her? Plus, she spoke Japanese with ease, established an English immersion preschool near her home, and cooked traditional Japanese meals with her husband. How did she do all this with such gusto?
Fortunately, now there’s a 400-page cookbook to explain, called Japanese Farm Food. (Disclosure: I helped Nancy with the book proposal.) A hefty hardcover with a spine wrapped in indigo cloth, the cookbook features stunning photographs of Nancy’s food, family, and life on the farm and off. Personal essays make the book almost memoir-ish, but in a no-nonsense, affectionate way, not confessional or nostalgic. Simple vegetable-forward recipes are based on seasonal fresh produce from the family farm, flavored with classic ingredients such as miso, sake and soy.
Nancy began her writing career in 2008, with two magazine articles published in Japanese about Slow Food and Alice Waters. A year later, she took Stanford Continuing Studies writing classes and started a blog called Indigo Days at the encouragement of fellow writers, about [Read more…] about Q&A: Get Out There and Build Relationships, Says Book Author Nancy Hachisu
Debbie Koenig hosted a potluck for her book, selling out on Amazon in a day. (Photo by Bennington Photographers)
Your cookbook’s coming out and you’d like lots of bloggers to cover it. How about an event where all their posts appear on the same day and drive sales?
Debbie Koenig coordinated a potluck party for her first book, Parents Need to Eat Too: Nap-Friendly Recipes, One-Handed Meals, and Time-Saving Kitchen Tricks for New Parents (Morrow, 2012). A book marketing executive turned food, diet, and parenting writer, Koenig sold out Amazon in one day, when bloggers reviewed her book and posted recipes.
In this guest post (the first on my three-year-old blog), Koenig explains how a virtual potluck for bloggers works, and why hers succeeded.
By Debbie Koenig
I first heard the term “virtual potluck” three years ago, when Monica Bhide was preparing for the publication of her cookbook Modern Spice. Monica hosted the potluck as a one-night-only, online gathering of food bloggers, all cooking from her book and
[Read more…] about Promoting Your Cookbook with a Virtual Potluck
Signing copies of the revised edition of Will Write for Food, at Omnivore Books in San Francisco, last July. (Photo by Heather Lunan)
Your food-based book’s coming out, and it’s time to line up all the events that lead to good sales. What are the most important events to plan for a book launch?
Australian Blogger Katrina Meynink emailed me with this question. Her book, Kitchen Coquette, is coming out later this year. Here’s my list:
1. Target bloggers who are likely to review your book. Your publisher has put aside copies to be sent to media, which includes bloggers. So target the authors of food-focused blogs in your home town, bloggers who like to review cookbooks like yours, and others who might qualify. Come up with a long list to [Read more…] about 5 Tips for A Successful Book Launch
One of the benefits of being a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals is the insider information I get in the monthly teleforum for the Editors, Publishers and Writers section.
Recently a first-time cookbook author provided real numbers about her experience. That’s rare.
While I can’t direct you to the presentation, I can give you a few nuggets that lift the veil on what happens in a food writer’s first book deal and in subsequent marketing of that book.
First, let’s look at the costs to produce the cookbook. The publisher paid the author a $15,000 advance. From that she:
What was left for her? Do the math. Nada.
Her book came out in Fall 2009. The lone publicist at her publishing company handled the [Read more…] about Inside an Author’s Cookbook Advance and Expenses
