3 Keys to Successful Cookbooks

You might be asking yourself why someone writing a blog focusing on custom publishing and community cookbooks would spend so much time writing about customer service. The reason is simple. In every seminar and publishing presentation we make, we emphasize that when you publish a cookbook you are setting up a business, and it must be run like a business, if you want it to be successful.

If someone tells me that they published a cookbook and it wasn’t successful, I can tell you unequivocally that the cause of the lack of success was one of three reasons. By the same token, a successful project will be successful for three reasons.

1. The one simple and obvious reason for success or failure is the quality of the product itself and its value for the money. Someone simply throwing some recipes together without regard to uniqueness, quality editorial, design or theme will probably have a tough time. However, a well crafted and themed cookbook with tested recipes written consistently and precisely coupled with interesting information about the cuisine of the area or the history of the recipe will find a niche following. So, I freely admit that the product itself can be a huge component of success or failure.

With these next two ingredients in place, a shoddy product can at least be successful from the standpoint of selling through the initial inventory. What are these two ingredients? They are great business services and customer service mixed with great marketing. A lack of either of these is a sure sign of failure.

2. In my blog of a few weeks back I illustrated a couple of “poor” customer service experiences I had encountered. This past weekend I experienced great customer service from Target. Surprisingly, a “big box” store like Target is the last place I expected to encounter great service. I have been bragging about them to everyone since then. The ladies in the CS department went out of their way and even broke a policy to do the right thing in replacing a defective product.

3. When you set up a publishing business, you must set up business rules and regulations. You establish discount policies, return policies, inventory control systems, collection policies, store or phone hour policies and many others. We preach the philosophy that something as simple as manning a phone or returning recorded messages within a 24 hour time period are critical to your success. An account carrying your title has little time to waste if they try to order only to reach a recording and not have the call returned promptly—they will simply choose to carry someone else’s book.

If you have a cookbook or are considering publishing a cookbook, please know you are setting up a business—a very fun and rewarding business, but nevertheless, it’s a business. Run it as such and you will be rewarded.