February 2009

Welcome to Truth 6 of my 8-part mini-series, 8 Truths Rachel Ray Hopes You Never Find Out About Writing a Cookbook. This Truth probably keeps more would-be cookbook authors from writing their cookbook than all the others combined. Want to know what it is? Read on …

Truth 6: All of the good cookbook ideas have been used. While it is true, there’s “nothing new under the sun.” You are the ingredient that makes your cookbook unique, not the idea for your cookbook. And, there’s no one like you in the world. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that your idea may not have any competition. You see competition is a good thing. Let me illustrate with an example.

Pop on over to Amazon.com and do a search for breakfast cookbooks - that’s what my upcoming cookbook is about. You’ll see that Amazon lists around 50 cookbook titles dealing with breakfast. I’ve got lots of competition and, I’m loving it! I explain why in a minute.

Now, type your cookbook idea in the Amazon search box. How many different titles show up? Lots I hope.

Let’s go back to Amazon’s main book page. Over on the left you’ll see a category for Cooking, Food, and Wine. Click it. Next you’ll see Cooking, Food, and Wine broken down into even more targeted categories. Pick the one that you think your cookbook idea fits into. How many titles are you going to be competing against? I hope a lot!

You see, you need to be concerned only if Amazon lists a few or, worse yet, no cookbooks published about your cookbook’s idea. Why? Amazon only carries cookbooks that people are buying. So, searching their list of cookbooks for sale is a good indicator of the popularity (and the profitability) for your cookbook.

If there’s little or no competition that may indicate that either people aren’t interested in buying a cookbook about your idea or (and I hope this is the case) your idea is so fresh and unique that people just aren’t aware of it yet. I’ll deal with these two issues in a later post.

I’ll see you back here tomorrow for Truth 7. Until then, happy cooking!

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