Market Your Cookbook
MARKET YOUR COOKBOOK by Pam White
Divine recipes, luscious photographs - this is your first
cookbook and you look forward to those big royalty checks. So
what's your marketing plan for this book? What are you doing to
increase sales?
New writers often think the publisher arranges for all
publicity. Not true. As the writer, you have most at stake so it
will benefit you most to take a proactive stance when it comes
to promoting and selling your cookbook.
Much of the research can take place while you are planning and
writing your book. Visit bookstores and study the cookbooks that
are on the shelves. Note the different types of cookbooks and
who are writing them. Discern which books are your direct
competition for sales. Create ways to make yourself stand out.
After your book is at the publisher but before it is released
contact magazine editors, ezine publishers and website owners.
Ask if they will review your book and wait for a reply before
you incur the cost of shipping.
Write articles or offer excerpts from you cookbook to magazines
that cater to your audience.
Tap your local newspaper for interviews and reviews. Pick up the
phone and ask for a feature reporter (look for bylines in the
features, lifestyle, or Sunday special sections) and offer
yourself up as the subject of an article.
Build a website using your name or your book's name as the
domain. Take all those published reviews, articles, newspaper
features and anything else anyone has said about your book and
link to it, or excerpt it. You can also use quotes from reviews
in any press release you send out.
Once your book is published call bookstores as far as you are
willing to travel and offer to do a book signing, cooking
demonstration or reading. Do not give up. Keep calling and
planning and promoting. Bring along giveaways to book signings.
Have bookmarks, recipe cards, or notepads printed up with your
name, website and book cover prominently displayed.
Don't stop with bookstores. Check out cookware stores and
gourmet shops that will stock your cookbook, and who might even
welcome you to demonstrate your recipes on a busy Saturday.
Ask all your friends to help spread the word by joining
food-related discussion lists, setting up book signings in their
local bookstores, and writing reviews of your book.
Contact television and radio stations to see if they are looking
for a feel-good news story or if you can be a guest on one of
their shows.
Having a new cookbook out or being a local published author is
newsworthy, but how do you keep the marketing effort up long
term? Find a way to connect your recipes with events. Dessert
cookbooks are easily linked with holidays like Valentine's Day,
Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, and weddings. Healthy food
cookbooks are great for January (New Year's resolutions), spring
(getting ready for summer clothes) and right after a new medical
report comes out about the danger of fat, meat, sugar, wheat
allergies and junk food.
If you want ongoing coverage from local, regional and national
news media send out announcements on your expertise. Include any
food science and nutrition background you have to widen your
appeal as an expert.
Donate your cookbook as a prize or to be auctioned off for
charity. Not only will the lucky winner learn who you are, but
so will all the other readers, listeners and viewers as the
contest or auction is promoted for the weeks leading up to it.
The key to marketing your cookbook is persistence. Try
everything above, then go back through the list again and again.
Marketing your cookbook successfully can be likened to making a
snowball. You start with a few individual ideas, add on more
each day or week, and soon you've got a snowball whose momentum
will carry you, and your cookbook, out into the world.