What is the Future of Regional Cookboks Part 2.

In my last post I outlined the three major challenges going on in the world of publishing. Today let's take the first issue, consolidation of the brick and mortar bookstores--only one national chain, and discuss it.

Yes it is true that there is only one national brick and mortar outlet for books. Despite this fact the only limitation to your opportunities for sales outlets is between your ears. One of the great features of publishing a "community" cookbook is involving partners within the community in a variety of ways.

Many organizations have had great success in soliciting non-bookstore businesses to stock and sell their books. From Wright's Gourmet House in Tampa to Get a Grip Tennis in Pensacola there are a ton of retail businesses willing to support your worthy cause or book if approached properly. We all know that "placement" is one of the 4 P's of a successful marketing effort so put the proper amount of time and effort into identifying these key retailers that can partner with you and make it easy for your customers to buy your book.

In addition to local retailers it is also imperative today to have your book available online. Do you have a dedicated web site for your book? Can your customer's order the book from your site or at least be directed to Amazon.com or CookbookMarketplace.com? Is there an e-pub version available through Amazon, B & ;N, Kobo or Apple?

Each opportunity for maximum placement must be worked and kept up with from an initial sales call to regular customer service. How much attention have you given to the subject of placement for your book?

What is the Future of Regional Cookbooks? Part 1.

Everyone in the book publishing world is trying to understand where the market is going. Never in my thirty-two years of experience have I seen things so muddled. Of course, selfishly I am focusing on the publishing of regional cookbooks but all genres seem to be dealing with the same issues.

What are the issues? In my world the 3 major issues are:

• Consolidation of the brick and mortar bookstores--only one national chain
• The advent of electronic publishing and e-readers
• Free content

The first is problematic because in times past an author or organization had many "community" outlet options for distributing a cookbook. In addition, the chain stores were at least pretending to be "community-friendly" by stocking and promoting regional titles. With only one national chain store in business there isn't much competition. It has become "do it our way or you are left out in the cold".

The electronic issue is a challenge because no one has a clue how the purchase of electronic versions of a title will affect the inventory needs for printed books. Of course, the number of printed copies affects the cost per book as the more books printed the cheaper the price per book.

The free content is especially daunting if one falls into the trap of believing that consumers only buy your book for the recipes. It is absolutely true that you can log onto a bevy of websites and find multiple versions of any particular recipe that you want.

Do the challenges stated above signal an end to the "regional cookbook" genre? I do not think so and many experts agree with me.

These challenges simply mean that an author or organization must be better organized, plan their content more carefully and implement a marketing effort before the books even hit the stores. In the next several posts I'll discuss these issues one at a time plus discuss the fallacy that is being sold as "Print on Demand".