5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Writing a Cookbook
When I set out to find a way to write A16 Food + Wine all those years ago, I could envision how the recipes, wine descriptions, and restaurant stories would be layered into an actual, physical book. While I didn’t know exactly how the finished book would look, I knew a book was the right vehicle for sharing the restaurant’s inner world with the outside world.
Since then, I’ve grown to understand that not all ideas about food, restaurants, or home cooking make sense to share within the structures of a cookbook. There are so many ways ways to tell a story, and today’s technology has made it easier to explore other forms of media, from videos to podcasts and e-newsletters and many things in between.
But if cookbooks are only one way to approach food storytelling and recipe sharing, how do you know if pursuing a book is right for you? (Here I’m talking about people interested in taking a traditional publishing route with a publisher. For self-publishing a book, it’s somewhat different, though much of what I say below will still apply.)
(And if you haven’t read my post about how to write a cookbook proposal or cookbook proposal FAQs, check ‘em out.)
In this post, I lay out 5 questions to ask before taking the plunge into writing a cookbook.
1. Are your recipes part of a fast-moving + potentially short-lived trend?
When thinking of all the amazing recipes you want to include in a book, ask yourself whether these are recipes you want to be talking about in two, three, four years down the road. If you get a book deal, it will likely be another 1.5-2 years before the book is out in the world. That’s fine if these recipes define who you are as a cook and writer and you want to talk and promote the content for years to come. Or the trend you want to focus on has a long tail (hello, Instant Pot!).
But if you’re writing a series of recipes to capture momentum from a very specific moment (like in 2020 when everyone was trying to use up sourdough discard), releasing recipes on a website, in an article, in a series of videos or online classes, or in a newsletter might be a more effective way to share recipes. It will get you away from playing the waiting game with traditional publishing. You can use these kinds of events to build up a loyal audience of readers/viewers so that you may be able to get a cookbook deal down the road with a broader, more evergreen idea.
2. How do your recipes translate to the page?
Are your recipes easy to digest when written down? Or do they demand a lot of visual cues to get readers moving in the right direction? Some recipes that can feel simple when you show them in a video or live demonstration can take a while to write down in cookbook-speak (you know, “in a bowl with a whisk, beat the eggs until frothy….”). You don’t need to forego a cookbook idea if you have complicated recipes, but you may want to think through adjustments to make to convert the recipes into something that works on a page.
For example, a restaurant recipe may require a cook to make three smaller recipes (subrecipes) to complete it. Maybe one of those subrecipes takes 5 days to make. Think about how to get reader buy-in. Can each subrecipe live as a separate recipe in the book? Consider the book’s balance. Can you limit the book to ten complicated recipes? Then you can really go to town celebrating the heck out of those recipes with stories and explanations and a day-by-day guide to completing the dish. For the remainder of the book, can you throw home cooks a bone and challenge yourself to make innovative recipes that can fit on one page? That way you can gain trust for cookbook readers that you understand the confines of a home kitchen, but you also can push them a bit into becoming better cooks (and understanding your point of view as a chef).
If the recipes are all focused on one very professional kind of equipment that few home cooks have, explore whether you can make the same recipes with home equipment. It’s OK if there is no substitution for the pizza oven or wok station, but it also means that a cookbook filled with recipes that require professional-grade equipment will not be easy to sell to traditional cookbook publishers.
If all of this sounds awful/tedious/disingenuous, ask whether a cookbook is the right medium for your story. A video series might be more of what you want to create. Maybe you set up a Patreon site catering to professional cook/chef types. You give them exclusive access to your innovative recipes via video and step-by step instruction, and by doing so you break the mold set out by traditionally published cookbooks. You may make more money this way in the long run. You may even decide to do a cookbook, but you will have honed your idea through all your beta recipe testers who have become your fanbase.
Also, consider the next question if recipes aren’t what you want to focus on in your food writing.
3. Do you want to tell alllllllll your amazing life stories?
Maybe what you really want to write is a memoir with a few recipes. Cookbooks are built around their recipes—and recipes demand a lot of book real estate. If it’s narrative nonfiction that fires you up, dip your toes into the world of memoir, read widely in that field, and see if that’s a better format for the stories you’d like to share with the universe.
4. Do you want to get a cookbook deal to help you pay for travel?
It will be far cheaper to travel for fun or for research for future freelance articles then it will be to take the time and energy to get a book deal so that you can use part of the advance on travel. If you use the advance (the money a publisher gives an author upfront to work on a book) for travel, you may have few resources left over to cover the time you need to pay for ingredients for all the recipe testing you’ll need and to ensure you have enough time to write the book. Considering that a book can take more than a year or two to write, especially if there is a lot of research involved, a vacation to Italy (or wherever) that you pay for out of pocket has a much lower opportunity cost. I’ll talk more about book finances in the future, but for now I’ll say this: cookbook advances are not typically on the grand side, and they are paid out in numerous installments (often as many as 4 over the course of 2 years!). Writing a book that doesn’t require travel may save you huge amounts of time and energy, and you may make more money from the book in the long run.
5. Does the end result of having a cookbook fit your professional goals?
Think about a cookbook as part of your overall professional platform. If you are a food influencer and want to keep building your brand, a food or wine writer who wants to be known as an expert in a particular field, a restaurant owner that wants to share your story, an entrepreneur with a line of spices or vegan cheese (or anything else), or the founder of a non-profit organization that works in the world of food, having a cookbook as part of your marketing initiatives could pay off in dividends —not necessarily through book sales but through name recognition. It’s also great to have a beautiful product that can be used in gift bags for fundraising events or giveaways that can keep a company or organization or food personality top of mind any time someone pulls the book out to cook from it. Often, a cookbook project can be considered part of a marketing strategy, and companies can budget for the book production as marketing expenses. If your professional goal is to make a lot of money by writing a book, you may want to press pause and reconsider. For most published cookbook authors, the books themselves have never been sure-fire ways to pad bank accounts. But having a published book on the shelf can open doors and serve as an ultimate portfolio builder.
The Bottom Line
These questions are not to discourage anyone from starting to write a book but rather to encourage critical thought about end goals. Think of how a cookbook fits the story you want to tell and contributes to your professional and creative ambitions. And ensure you have a stable way to pay the bills while you go along the journey, since large advances for cookbook projects are few and far between.
In the next post, I’ll share some cookbook publishing resources that will help you think like an insider.