It is happening everywhere: NICHING.

Like TV niches: if you are on the right, you go to FOX. On the left, MSNBC. CBS, NBC and ABC Networks are fading. They are generalists. TV channels are increasingly specialized: Food, fishing, fashion, biggest losers, biggest winners…hardly anything in the middle. Same with specialty stores, specialty doctors, specialty religious institutions, political parties etc. Same with magazines that were once read by “general” readers. Only specialized readers thrive.

It’s becoming the same things with cookbooks: What sells are famous chef books, (I see Paula Deen’s estimated net worth is $24 to $28 million.) Famous country (Tuscany) books are still selling as are diets of the day (gluten free) or Minimalist, books for those who can’t or don’t want to cook. So what options are available to an author who is exploring a different topic entirely: Season to Taste for example…

This is one of those astonishingly unexpected treasures that we may be fortunate to stumble across by chance or word of recommendation. It’s food memories remain in the palette of the mind while interspersed in a tale of loss (of the sense of taste after a devastating car accident) and the joy of gradual recovery.  Skillfully woven between meals is a love story. You won’t find a more lucid explanation of the physiology of smell than these words written by its author, Molly Birnbaum.

How can this author reach those who are reading Grant Achatz’ Life on the Line, a widely recognized narrative also about the loss of taste? How can she bask in his reflected glory?

Many of us lose our sense of taste as a side effect of chemotherapy or traumatic head injury or other medical catastrophy. So Molly Birnbaum and Grant Achatz publishers could/should/would do good things to make doctors aware of these books and recommend them to all the many patients yearning for reassurance that their own sense of taste will return, even an astonishing, fleeting one whiff at a time.

Many despairing authors could reach a wider readership by exploring unconventional paths.

The Cookbook Conference is completely sold out, and there is a long waiting list. Everyone will be attending: writers, literary agents, publishers and all the big nobs in the writing/blogging universe. I will be speaking on Lisa Ekus’ panel. Our topic is THE FUTURE I love this subject….

To make the content available to those unable to attend, ten panels on Friday and Saturday, February 10-11, 9 am-6 pm, will be webcast. Anyone can tune in, watch the panels, and tweet questions.  In addition, all 28 panels will be filmed and will be up on the same website a week or two after the conference. The broadcast schedule  is available on the conference website:
www.cookbookconf.com <http://www.cookbookconf.com>

The url for it is:

http://cookbookconf.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/FINALFINALSCHEDULE.pdf

The meeting is taking place at the Roger Smith Hotel in NYC is the site. This is a small hotel near Grand Central Station. It is a  welcoming and quite inexpensive place to stay. I like it a lot.

How To Be Your Own Best Friend

Several years ago there was a book written by psychologist Mildred Newman with the title, How To Be Your Own Best Friend.  If I were your best friend, I would advise you not to write a cookbook.

I don’t want to be entirely negative about it, but I cannot, in all candor, think of any other way to be these days.  Unfortunately, for many authors, the best news they receive is that they are going to get a contract.  After that, it is all downhill.

The sad truth is that very few cookbooks earn back their advance, and even fewer go on to achieve anything approaching lasting success.

Most cookbooks have a shelf life somewhere between milk and yogurt. The two biggest sellers are desserts (dessert books best sellers 2011) and diet books (163 on Amazon in 2011).  One tells you how to cook the food and the other offers advice on how to avoid eating it.

And, The Winner Is…

If we made a list of the books that have survived for more than a year, let alone five or 10 years, there would be only a handful; heading the list are: Mastering The Art of French Cooking by Julia Child and The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins.  Both have had multi-million copy sales but they had forces other than good recipes and good writing that made them into successes.

Let’s take a look at Mastering The Art of French Cooking as a case study because there is a lot to be learned from this book. First, you should know that it was rejected by 11 publishers before being accepted by Judith Jones at Alfred A. Knopf publishers (now Knopf), who offered an advance of only $250 for three people!

The authors not only accepted this paltry sum with gratitude, they went out and celebrated.

Despite all the rejections, Julia and her collaborators, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholie kept on trying because they believed in their work. It was passion that drove them on — not the money.

Incidentally, did you know that Mastering the Art of French Cooking has not been translated into French or Japanese. Maybe this is something you could do?

Among my very favorite books spanning many lands and cultures are:

• French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David
• Simple French Food by Richard Olney
• The Essentials of Classic Italian Cookery by Marcella Hazan
• The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy
• Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey
• The Georgian Feast by Darra Goldstein
• The Splendid Table by Lynne Rosseto Kasper
• Jewish Cooking in America by Joan Nathan and her many books on Jewish food

There are the science-based, know how it works inspired cook books of which the perpetually curious Harold McGee and incomparable Shirley Corriher must definitely be included.

Among the best of the restaurant books are The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers and The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen.

And, writings about food into which category I’d place at the top, Epitaph for a Peach by David Maas Masimoto and Good Things by Jane Grigson.

I’d also include the literary and gustatory cookbooks:

• The Cook and the Gardener by Amanda Hesser
• Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson
• Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables & The Essential Reference: Vegetables From A – Z by Elizabeth Schneider
• How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

This brings me to writing about food and in this category I’d include:

• Cod: A Biography and indeed, all Mark Kurlansky’s books
• The Story of Corn by Betty Fussell
• History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage
• Honey from a Weed by Patience Grey

Fortunately there is always room for more, many more, great books. What is your favorite?