[Sca-cooks] Single Subject Cookbooks

[Johnna Holloway]

An interesting article in the Wall street Journal over the weekend revealed these facts about
the modern cookbook market.

Single-subject cookbooks have soared in popularity as publishers grapple 

with a fast-changing retail scene. With 26% of all cookbooks now sold through 

Amazon.com, up from 14% in 2009, according to Nielsen Books & Consumer Market Research, 

familiar search terms, such as the names of TV chefs or classic dishes, are crucial.

The deluge of single-subject cookbooks is also a result of the growing importance to 

publishers of cookware shops. Alternative retailers are important to publishers amid a 

shrinking number of traditional bookstores, which contracted to 8,407 in 2011 from 11,559 in 2001, 

according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Current displays on the floor of Sur La Table, 

a cookware chain with 117 stores, demonstrate how publishers and nontraditional 

booksellers are collaborating: Copies of "The Mac + Cheese Cookbook" are propped up 

against a display of ceramic baking dishes, for instance.

….The importance of online sales is prodding editors to attempt to predict what 

subjects cookbook shoppers might search for a year or two from now, based on trends 

capturing the interest of the foodie vanguard online.

Keith Riegert, acquisitions editor at Ulysses Press, based in Berkeley, Calif., 

said he and his colleagues monitor Pinterest, Serious Eats, and Foodgawker, and 

use Google Analytics to see what food issues are bubbling up.

However, no matter how good Mr. Riegert and his team are at forecasting 

the pulse of the food scene, "the problem we face in publishing" is the nine-month to two-year 

lag before the book comes out and when competition inevitably slips in, Mr. Riegert said.

The downside of the prediction strategy is "there are a lot of smart people all chasing the 

same idea. It's what makes it such a maddening business," said Ted Hill, a New York consultant to the publishing industry.

The article is titled "Recipe: Put Feather in Cap, Call It Macaroni, Add Cheese Cookbooks on the 

American Favorite Sell Big; Authors Use Noodles, Write More of Them" by by KATY MCLAUGHLIN. Dec. 27, 2013 WSJ.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303345104579284283130907604

Johnnae