Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 390: From Guesswork to Clarity: The Path to a Traditional Cookbook Deal

Transcript

Episode 390: From Guesswork to Clarity: The Path to a Traditional Cookbook Deal · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  You are listening to the Cookbook Love podcast with Maggie
• 0:05
  Green, episode number three 90.
• 0:10
  Welcome to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 0:13
  A podcast that celebrates cookbook readers, buyers,
• 0:16
  collectors, writers and clubs.
• 0:19
  And now your host.
• 0:20
  Cookbook author, culinary Dietician, and Cookbook writing Coach Maggie Green.
• 0:31
  Hi everybody.
• 0:32
  Welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 0:35
  How's everybody doing today?
• 0:37
  Hope you're all doing well.
• 0:38
  It is a Friday here as I record this show, some quiet time here in my house.
• 0:46
  Gonna have a short work day today.
• 0:48
  Have one of my sisters and her husband coming over and we are headed out to a
• 0:53
  retirement party for my brother-in-law.
• 0:56
  So that should be a lot of fun this evening to get together with my
• 1:00
  family and enjoy time with them.
• 1:04
  Then tomorrow I'm gonna be heading outta town to celebrate
• 1:08
  my mother-in-law's birthday.
• 1:11
  That'll be good too.
• 1:12
  She, uh, lives nearby, but we're gonna spend the day and evening with her and,
• 1:17
  um, enjoy celebrating her birthday.
• 1:20
  So I hope you all are doing well.
• 1:23
  I am excited to be here.
• 1:24
  Gosh, when I said episode three 90, I was like, wow, I'm
• 1:28
  almost at the 400th episode.
• 1:31
  Um, that's a amazing thing I have to remember sometimes to.
• 1:36
  Um, sit with something like that and look back at all that
• 1:40
  I have been able to accomplish, mostly because I have obviously
• 1:45
  listeners who listen to the show.
• 1:47
  And more and more I am hearing from those of you who are using
• 1:51
  what is presented here on the show.
• 1:54
  Not only interviews with cookbook authors, but things that I talk about related to
• 1:58
  cookbook writing, and you have used it.
• 2:01
  To get your own proposal written, to pitch it to agents and publishers
• 2:06
  and also, um, have used it to self-publish your own cookbooks.
• 2:10
  So it's very exciting.
• 2:12
  Um, there's something called, one of my coaches called Taught Me.
• 2:16
  It's called the Value Bank.
• 2:18
  And when we have something like a podcast.
• 2:21
  We're putting value out into the world.
• 2:24
  We're making deposits in the value bank, and all of these many episodes
• 2:29
  have been deposits in the value bank.
• 2:31
  And this is also me building up a body of work, um, something that.
• 2:37
  Is present in the world out there to help people connect it to
• 2:41
  something obviously that I love.
• 2:43
  And also then something that I can, uh, live my life from.
• 2:48
  Earn income from writing cookbooks and teaching people how to write cookbooks and
• 2:52
  about the business of writing cookbooks.
• 2:54
  But this is what marketing means, is making deposits in a value bank.
• 3:00
  And you make these deposits in the value bank and they sit there and they.
• 3:07
  Grow interest, hopefully, and they grow over time and they build an
• 3:13
  asset for you, but sometimes the value doesn't come back right away.
• 3:18
  And I think that's the hardest part about getting a business started or
• 3:21
  maybe starting to build your platform for a book that you're writing is
• 3:25
  we get impatient because we want the results to come back to us.
• 3:29
  Faster.
• 3:30
  Like we're making deposits, we're putting things in the bank, and why can't we
• 3:34
  start getting a return on our deposits?
• 3:38
  But I want you to remember that regular deposits of valuable information put
• 3:45
  out into the world that help your people have a better life, learn something new,
• 3:51
  feel better, and ultimately have more joy, meaning, and purpose in their life.
• 3:57
  Is highly valuable and it will come back to you in spades if you continue to show
• 4:04
  up and do the work of making deposits.
• 4:08
  And that's exactly what this podcast has been for me.
• 4:11
  In addition to that, I've learned, um, a little bit about
• 4:14
  what I like, what I don't like.
• 4:16
  I've obviously interviewed a ton of amazing cookbook writers.
• 4:21
  PR agents, I mean pr, uh, specialists, agents.
• 4:25
  I've talked to, people who've worked on cookbook projects.
• 4:27
  I have a request for maybe, uh, talking to some other people who have worked
• 4:32
  on cookbook projects behind the scenes rather than just the author, but maybe
• 4:36
  some other people that do, uh, the work that's required to get a cookbook.
• 4:40
  Um.
• 4:41
  Edited, designed, photographed, printed, and then distributed to the
• 4:46
  people that, uh, want to read it.
• 4:48
  So this has been a body of work that's obviously grown over time.
• 4:53
  I started the podcast in the fall of 2018, and here we are in the.
• 4:59
  Late winter of 2026, and I'm still continuing to put out shows every
• 5:04
  week, but I've learned a ton from it.
• 5:06
  I've met a lot of wonderful people and I have continued to,
• 5:09
  uh, put the value out into the world and it does come back to me.
• 5:12
  I do hear from people and, uh, I do get clients, people who enroll in my
• 5:18
  programs from these, this podcast.
• 5:21
  I'm thrilled to, um, have this body of work out there.
• 5:25
  And I maybe have mentioned this before, but I've always loved radio.
• 5:28
  I've loved listening to radio.
• 5:30
  I love listening to podcasts.
• 5:32
  I like to, um, have regular podcasts.
• 5:36
  I listen to, I get to know the people who.
• 5:39
  Uh, present the podcast kind of a little bit about their life and what
• 5:42
  they're up to, and I think that that's a really fun thing about podcasts.
• 5:47
  So, um, thank you all for being here as I have made this introduction and talked
• 5:51
  to you about the concept of a value bank.
• 5:54
  Um, thank you.
• 5:55
  One of my past business coaches for teaching me that and giving me the
• 6:00
  continual inspiration to continue to keep going, keep making deposits
• 6:04
  in the bank, and it's, uh, wonderful to see how it comes back to me.
• 6:10
  Okay, so, um, I wanna talk today about cookbook writers, aspiring
• 6:15
  cookbook authors, and the path to get your cookbook published.
• 6:22
  There are, uh, three main paths, uh, traditional publishing.
• 6:26
  Self-publishing and then hybrid or custom publishing.
• 6:29
  And this, uh, podcast today is specifically about traditional publishing.
• 6:34
  And when we set out to write our first book or we think, gee, maybe we
• 6:38
  wanna write a cookbook, um, a lot of times what we think is that we need
• 6:42
  to write the book and then find an agent and then try to get a book deal.
• 6:46
  And that all sounds really logical, but it's also the reason
• 6:49
  that so many talented aspiring.
• 6:51
  Cooks and bakers and dieticians and chefs and passionate home cooks stay
• 6:56
  stuck for years because they're spending all their time really, quite frankly,
• 7:01
  guessing, uh, about writing the book and then trying to find an agent,
• 7:05
  and then trying to get a book deal.
• 7:07
  And in traditional publishing, I just want you to know you don't get
• 7:10
  paid because you wrote the book.
• 7:13
  You'll get paid in advance because you sold yourself.
• 7:16
  Your concept to a publisher.
• 7:19
  So in this episode, that's exactly what I wanna talk about.
• 7:21
  I wanna show you how cookbook authors actually get paid before
• 7:25
  they write, and why the write the book First Path usually keeps us
• 7:29
  guessing, stalling, and stuck because.
• 7:33
  It just doesn't work very well if you wanna try to find a traditional publisher.
• 7:38
  So if you've ever thought, um, you just need to finish the book first,
• 7:42
  you'll worry about pitching later.
• 7:43
  Maybe I'll just put my book on Amazon.
• 7:46
  Um, this episode is gonna give you a much clearer way to think about that path.
• 7:50
  And as a quick note before we dive in, I do have a free training called Get Paid to
• 7:55
  Write A Cookbook, part one of the video.
• 7:58
  Part one of the masterclass is available and live now.
• 8:02
  This is called Stop Guessing and Get Paid to Write.
• 8:04
  So if you want to sign up for this masterclass, head on over to www cookbook
• 8:10
  writers academy.com/get paid masterclass.
• 8:14
  You can register for the class, uh, part one, again, is live and ready to go,
• 8:19
  and I would love to have you join us.
• 8:22
  Okay, so I wanna tell you about something that I see, uh, relatively frequently.
• 8:27
  And I've actually had people come into my programs and they have, um, already
• 8:31
  had a, a book or they come to me and they ask almost like word for word.
• 8:35
  I've already written my recipes or I've already self-published a book.
• 8:39
  Now I want a publisher to publish the book just as it is.
• 8:44
  Uh, they want it to be picked up by a traditional publisher, and I get it.
• 8:47
  That's what we've all been taught, right?
• 8:49
  Finish the book and then try to sell it.
• 8:51
  And this is exactly what people who write, uh, fiction novels do they.
• 8:56
  Finish the book and then they sell it.
• 8:58
  They're selling the story, and so they've gotta write the story and sell the story.
• 9:02
  But to be clear, writing a cookbook manuscript, while it is a huge
• 9:07
  accomplishment, it does take time, it takes effort, it takes testing,
• 9:10
  it takes a lot of our heart.
• 9:12
  I never wanna take that away from anybody, but here is where this
• 9:17
  writing the cookbook first gets a little bit painful when someone
• 9:21
  comes to me with a full manuscript.
• 9:24
  And as is product, and we open it up and we look at it and it's
• 9:29
  hundreds of pages of recipes outlined and all that kind of stuff.
• 9:33
  It's a beautiful manuscript.
• 9:35
  I sometimes have to ask a few basic questions that I know an agent or
• 9:39
  editor are going to want answered before they publish that book.
• 9:45
  For example, who is the book for?
• 9:48
  What is the promise or what is the position of the book?
• 9:53
  What's going to change for the reader when they use the book?
• 9:56
  Uh, what makes it different from books that are already out there?
• 10:00
  Where does it fit in the marketplace?
• 10:03
  And why does this book deserve a slot on their list right now?
• 10:09
  And why was I, or why were they the perfect person to write this book?
• 10:14
  So those are the kinds of questions I start to ask people, and
• 10:17
  that's when they start to feel very uncertain about their book.
• 10:22
  Because if those answers aren't clear, the pitch that we need to make to a
• 10:29
  publisher becomes very foggy or fuzzy.
• 10:34
  And then what happens when we feel foggy?
• 10:37
  When we feel fuzzy, when things aren't clear, we slow down.
• 10:41
  We stop, we stall.
• 10:43
  We start guessing again.
• 10:45
  They always say A confused customer never buys.
• 10:51
  Because they're confused.
• 10:52
  They don't know what the product is.
• 10:54
  So it's true for publishing too.
• 10:57
  A confused agent or publisher will never buy.
• 11:01
  So the way we know that an agent or editor might be confused about what we wanna
• 11:09
  pitch to them is if we are confused.
• 11:13
  If we don't know the answers to the questions that I just asked, if we're
• 11:18
  not crystal clear on all the things that we need to know about the book,
• 11:23
  not just about the content of the book.
• 11:28
  So what happens then is the people that I work with, they'll start
• 11:34
  guessing at the positioning.
• 11:36
  They're gonna try to back into the hook of the book.
• 11:38
  Try to back into a title, what to include in a proposal, which agents
• 11:44
  to contact, how to Sound professional, and it's almost like they're backing
• 11:49
  into that rather than doing that part first and writing the book second.
• 11:54
  And this is what I call backtracking.
• 11:56
  It's like taking something that's finished and almost trying to unwind it.
• 12:01
  It's like a. Pulling a string on a sweater or something like that, and
• 12:05
  it just like unwinds the whole thing.
• 12:07
  You end up reshaping what you wrote to match a concept you didn't
• 12:11
  define at the very beginning.
• 12:13
  And this, instead of moving forward with confidence, you're revising and reworking
• 12:19
  and second guessing and burning time.
• 12:21
  And that is why the write at first approach to getting a
• 12:27
  cookbook published is a trap.
• 12:30
  Not because writing the manuscript is bad, but because it encourages guessing about
• 12:34
  everything that actually gets the book deal, rather than planning it out very
• 12:39
  clearly, first getting the deal and then writing the book, we're going in reverse.
• 12:46
  So I think what I wanna leave you with today is that finishing
• 12:51
  the cookbook manuscript is not.
• 12:54
  Step one in traditional publishing for nonfiction books,
• 12:59
  and that includes cookbooks.
• 13:01
  You sell the book before you write the book.
• 13:03
  That's how you get paid in advance.
• 13:06
  A publisher isn't just buying a bunch of recipes.
• 13:09
  They're buying a concept, they can understand.
• 13:12
  They're buying a position that they can sell.
• 13:15
  They're buying you as the author of the book and as a person who can
• 13:19
  reach readers and create book sales.
• 13:21
  Once the book is published.
• 13:23
  And when you approach it that way, you stop guessing and you start
• 13:27
  building something that I like to call the deal ready package.
• 13:32
  Okay, so, um, I'm gonna give you.
• 13:36
  Three big things to think about.
• 13:39
  I'm not gonna go super deep in this episode because this is what
• 13:42
  I cover, um, in the free training.
• 13:45
  But I want you to see what actually matters if you want to get paid
• 13:49
  in advance to write a cookbook for a traditional publisher.
• 13:53
  Number one is clarity about your concept.
• 13:55
  This means you can say in one sentence who the book is for.
• 13:59
  What it helps them do and what makes a difference.
• 14:02
  That sentence becomes the backbone of your entire pitch to a publisher.
• 14:09
  Clarity replaces guessing.
• 14:13
  Number two, you need to have a pitch package ready.
• 14:16
  This is when you stop trying to sound like someone with a dream, and you
• 14:20
  really get serious about wanting to sound like a aspiring cookbook
• 14:25
  author who wants and has a book deal.
• 14:29
  The difference is, here's my book ID idea versus here's why.
• 14:34
  This book is a book that I think a publisher will confidently want to
• 14:40
  acquire and I can write for them.
• 14:44
  And then the third thing is you follow a path.
• 14:49
  Pitching isn't just sending emails randomly to publishers.
• 14:52
  You know who you're sending it to.
• 14:54
  You know why you're a fit.
• 14:56
  You know how to submit in a way that makes it an easy yes from the publisher and when
• 15:01
  all three of those things are in place.
• 15:03
  We're not guessing any longer, we're following a path.
• 15:08
  So that's why I created my free masterclass.
• 15:12
  Get Paid to Write a Cookbook and Why I created a video one,
• 15:17
  which is called Stop Guessing.
• 15:18
  Get Paid to Write.
• 15:20
  Like I mentioned, it is Li Live Now.
• 15:23
  I lay everything out in what I call the paid first path, a step-by-step
• 15:29
  method, so you can see exactly how traditional advances happen for cookbook
• 15:34
  writers before you write the book.
• 15:38
  And it works.
• 15:40
  I, my office is filled with cookbooks from people who have
• 15:43
  traditional publishing contracts.
• 15:46
  So if you've been stuck in this thought of, maybe someday I'll
• 15:49
  write a book or maybe I'll just finish it first and then pitch it.
• 15:52
  I really hope that you will see that there's a much clearer plan that you
• 15:57
  can follow, and if you are interested, again, you can go to get instant access
• 16:03
  to, uh, video, one of the training.
• 16:06
  www.cookbookwritersacademy.com/get paid masterclass.
• 16:12
  The link is below in the show notes, so if you've already started writing.
• 16:18
  Maybe take a pause.
• 16:19
  Uh, come join us in the masterclass and I'm gonna show you how to really stop
• 16:24
  guessing what to do and start positioning yourself and your book so that you can
• 16:29
  sell it to an agent or a publisher.
• 16:32
  So that is it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 16:37
  This is your host, Maggie Green, and until next time, have a great day.
• 16:40
  And keep loving your cookbooks.
• 16:46
  Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 16:49
  You can find out more information@www.cookbooklove.co.