Episode 716: How to Write a Winning Cookbook Proposal With Dianne Jacob

EBT716 – Dianne Jacob

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

Food Bloggers hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom, whether that’s financial, personal or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported.

[00:00:27]   Megan Porta

Have you ever considered writing a cookbook? If so, you need to write a book proposal if you want to explore getting accepted by a publisher. So when you write a cookbook proposal, you need to have some things in mind before you do this.

[00:00:56]   

Dianne Jacob joins me. She is from diannej.com she’s also the author of the Will Write for Food, which I know is very popular for food bloggers. You may have read it. She talks us through everything we need to know about writing a cookbook proposal inside of this amazing episode. When the right time is what the right topic is, how to decide what the right topic is for you and your niche.

[00:01:23]   

How to structure your proposal so that it is read and accepted. Hopefully how many recipes to include in the proposal and which kinds of recipes to include and the question that you’re probably wondering how big of a social media presence do you need in order to catch the attention of publishers? It really is an all encompassing episode and full of great value.Dianne shares everything she knows and she’s such a wealth of knowledge on this topic. I really hope you love it. It is episode number 716. Enjoy.

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[00:03:23]  

Dianne Jacob coaches food writers on how to get a cookbook published, pitch freelance stories, start newsletters, and improve the quality and effectiveness of their writing. She specializes in book proposals. Diane is the author of a multiple award winning book on food writing called Will Write for Food, Pursue your Passion and Bring Home the Dough.

[00:03:46]   

Writing recipes, cookbooks, blogs, and more. She also co authored two pizza cookbooks with chef Craig Priebe and has won awards for her food writing in such publications as the Washington Post, Food and Wine, and Lucky Peach. Diane has judged cookbooks for the James Beard foundation and the International association of Culinary Professionals. She has also judged for National Magazine Awards. Previously a journalist and newspaper magazine and publishing company editor in chief, she writes a monthly free newsletter aimed at food writers. You can see more at diannej.com. Hello Diane, it’s so lovely to meet you. How are you doing today?

[00:04:30]  Dianne Jacob 

Hey, Megan. I’m good. It’s a beautiful day here.

[00:04:33]  Megan Porta 

Where are you located again?

[00:04:35]  Dianne Jacob 

I’m in Northern California.

[00:04:37]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Yes. Beautiful area. I don’t go there enough. It’s such a. I feel like everyone goes to the south in California and the north gets excluded a lot of the time.

[00:04:47]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, it’s too bad the farmer’s markets are going crazy right now. It’s wonderful.

[00:04:52]  Megan Porta 

Oh, I bet, I bet they’re amazing. Well, thanks for joining me. I’m so excited to talk about writing a cookbook proposal. I know a lot of people are getting into this this year as they diversify their businesses and expand into new projects. So this is going to be a very relevant and valuable topic.But before we get into that, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:05:15]  Dianne Jacob 

I do. It’s a little crazy. My parents were Iraqi Jews from China.

[00:05:21]  Megan Porta 

Oh, gosh. Wow. Yeah, that’s. That’s a little crazy. So, I mean, takes a while to process that. Yeah, exactly. I am still processing. Right. Okay. Yeah. Not, not a fun fact that I’ve heard even in the remotest before. So that’s so great. Well, why don’t you start by talking to us about your business a little bit? What do you do? Who are you? Give us the background.

[00:05:51]  Dianne Jacob 

Sure. I’d love to. Well, I started my career as a journalist and editor and I became self employed in the 90s. And ever since then I’ve been working with writers, which became a lot of food bloggers also, and people who want to be published. So I’ve had a long career of working with writers and I love it.

[00:06:17]   

And food bloggers are great because they’ve, you know, when it comes to working on a book because they’ve already been putting in the work and they understand how to write a recipe and how to find their voice and all that sort of thing. So I probably worked with about. I’ve had about 75 books published from people that I’ve worked with.

[00:06:40]   

They’re behind me on the shelf over there and it’s very satisfying to hold them in my hands when one comes out. And I work with people who mostly I work with people who want to write a cookbook proposal because that’s what you need to get published. And I also work with people who want to, you know, write freelance articles, start a newsletter.

[00:07:02]   

I wrote this book, Will Write for Food, which has had four editions and won a lot of awards. And it tells you everything you need to know about how the publishing industry works, how to get published, how to write a recipe, how to find your voice, whether you have a business about your brand, all kinds of things.

[00:07:22]   

And I’ve also written a couple of cookbooks with a chef. And I have a newsletter about food writing that has a free version once a month and I’d love if people could subscribe.

[00:07:35]  Megan Porta 

Nice. Yeah. And did they just find that through your website, I assume.

[00:07:39]  Dianne Jacob 

Yes. You can sign up on through D I A N-N-E-J.com or they can go to diannejacob.substack.com and it’s there.

[00:07:49]  Megan Porta 

Awesome. You must have a background in food if you wrote an entire book about it. Are you a foodie?

[00:07:55]  Dianne Jacob 

I am a foodie. Actually, the food that my book is about writing. But of course there’s a lot of food in there because I’m a food writer. One of my first jobs was as the editor of a city restaurant magazine and I used to do a lot of restaurant reviews and I’ve written a lot of articles and I’ve written those two cookbooks with a chef.

[00:08:20]   

And so yes, I am a total foodie. I’m totally obsessed with food. And the cruel thing that I wrote about recently in my newsletter is that I recently found out that I’m allergic to onions and garlic, which are in everything.

[00:08:33]  Megan Porta 

No.

[00:08:34]  Dianne Jacob 

Yeah.

[00:08:35]  Megan Porta 

Gosh, How Are you navigating that? Is that going okay?

[00:08:39]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, it’s fun when I’m cooking at home, but going to a restaurant?

[00:08:42]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:08:42]  Dianne Jacob 

Going to a potluck. I could eat the pretzels. The last potluck I went to. Oh, no.

[00:08:49]  Megan Porta 

Oh, I’m so sorry. And garlic and onions just make everything better, too, so.

[00:08:55]  Dianne Jacob 

Oh, yes, they do.

[00:08:57]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Well, I can relate to that. I’ve recently found that I’m allergic to certain oils which popped up overnight, like soybean oil. I can’t have anymore. I can’t have coconut oil all of a sudden, and then sunflower oil. So I like. You go to potlucks and I’m like, what exactly can I eat?

[00:09:18]   

And it’s usually pretty limited because it’s in every. Those things are in everything. So.

[00:09:23]  Dianne Jacob 

Yes.

[00:09:24]  Megan Porta 

I feel your pain. I feel your pain.

[00:09:26]  Dianne Jacob 

Oh, good. Well, there’s at least two of us and probably there are.

[00:09:30]  Megan Porta 

I know, Many more. Right, right. Thank you for sharing all of that about yourself and your book. And I’ve heard so many people over the years recommend your book and say how much they loved it and how valuable it was, so.

[00:09:42]  Dianne Jacob 

Oh, thank you.

[00:09:43]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Sounds like a good resource for us bloggers. So let’s dig into the cookbook proposal process. When do you think is the right time to go about writing a cookbook proposal?

[00:09:59]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, it’s not when a lot of people think. It’s when you have become an expert on your topic and that you can show that there’s an audience waiting for your book. Those are the two most important things.

[00:10:16]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And when do people usually think about the proposal? Or when is the wrong time?

[00:10:21]  Dianne Jacob 

I guess the wrong time, I think, is if you’ve just started your blog and you haven’t maybe narrowed down your area of expertise and you’re writing about all kinds of foods and all kinds of experiences, and you’re just experimenting, trying things out, seeing what you like, which is how a lot of people get started.

[00:10:44]   

But if you. If you haven’t really zeroed in on what the thing is, then it’s going to be really hard to write a cookbook because you can’t. You can’t write a cookbook that’s, you know, I love food.

[00:10:55]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, right. Do you find that most cookbooks now have to be super, super niche? Like, I don’t know, vegan cupcakes and cakes? Or. How niche do we have to get with cookbooks right now?

[00:11:10]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, you need a hook. You know, if you’re Stanley Tucci or Ina Garten, you can write what I ate in a year. I mean, that’s the actual title of Stanley Tucci’s second book. But the rest of us mere mortals cannot write that.

[00:11:27]  Megan Porta 

Right. So consider who you are and what your background is first.

[00:11:32]  Dianne Jacob 

Yes. And you have to hone in on something. I’m working with someone right now, a very successful blogger who identified the most liked posts and Instagram posts that went viral. And that’s the subject of her book. I mean, she’s very deliberate about it.

[00:11:55]  Megan Porta 

Oh yeah, right. You don’t tend to think to that category. Right. Like you think of it has to be a food category, but it could just be what has gone viral. I love that perspective.

[00:12:08]  Dianne Jacob 

Yeah. She’s going to do a whole book on what went viral because that is what people want.

[00:12:15]  Megan Porta 

Right. That’s what people like.

[00:12:17]  Dianne Jacob 

Otherwise she has a baking blog. And you know, it can’t just be I love to bake.

[00:12:23]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, right. Gone are the days of I love to bake cookbooks. So what if somebody has more of a broad niche in the food blogging space and they’re really not sure how to figure out what that right topic is?

[00:12:39]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, I’d say do some reflecting on what gives you the most joy to write about. What do your readers respond to? What does social media respond to? And that’s what you should go with. I mean, there are limits. Like David Leibovitz told me once that he could write a whole book on he chocolate and he could make every post about chocolate and people would be delighted.

[00:13:08]   

But he, he, he’s not going to. So I mean, he’s working on two books this year and I. This year, and I don’t think I know what the second one is. Maybe he’s finally done a chocolate book, but he was doing chocolate tours for a while. But you can’t. So there are limits, I mean, to how much you are willing to how far you’re willing to go with one subject. But you do need to narrow it down. People don’t like to narrow things down a lot of the time when they’re just starting out because they feel like, you know, they’re interested in everything and they want to see where things lead. But things have to lead somewhere.

[00:13:49]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, right. So it is kind of a balancing act. It sounds like it has to be specific. It can’t be too broad. It has to be something you’re passionate about and that inspires you. Right. And do you also think that people do a lot of exploratory work beforehand? Like are There already cookbooks on the market for this, that sort of thing.

[00:14:10]  Dianne Jacob 

They could. I mean, a lot of the time you find out what’s going on while you’re working on your proposal. And the competitive analysis is a really good place to figure out. Well, you know, am I writing about the same things that everybody else is writing about or do I have something new and different to say?Yeah, because that’s important too, right?

[00:14:35]  Megan Porta 

A different perspective.

[00:14:37]  Dianne Jacob 

And sometimes, if you, sometimes you find out that you’re going to have to change your book a little bit because there’s too many books that are similar. I went through that with someone who wanted to write a vegan Mexican cookbook, and believe it or not, people were saying the market was saturated because there were like two other books.

[00:14:59]  Megan Porta 

Oh, wow. So did they niche down more?

[00:15:04]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, she just. We were. We really worked on the structure and made it different from the other books and made it more clear on how her recipes were different than the other books. And she got a book deal and it’s gonna come out.

[00:15:19]  Megan Porta 

Oh, that’s great. That’s so exciting. Yay. So now getting into the details about writing a really solid proposal, do you have a struct that you usually recommend people go through?

[00:15:33]  Dianne Jacob 

Oh, sure, I do. I like people to start with their bio because it’s a good way to figure out where the holes are in your. I mean, you know, there’s a very high failure rate for book proposals. It’s like, I don’t know, 98 and a half percent.

[00:15:53]  Megan Porta 

Oh, gosh.

[00:15:54]  Dianne Jacob 

And so, you know, whoever’s going to read it is predisposed to say no. And when I work with people, my job is to know what all the no’s are going to be and help you figure it out. So, you know, if your platform is lacking when you write your bio, that’s going to be an issue.

[00:16:16]   

And if you’ve never written for anyone outside of your blog, that’s going to be an issue too, because they want a book that appeals to people nationally and appeals to people outside of your blog. I mean, they want someone to go into a Walmart in Bellingham, WA and discover your book, and they’ve who’s never been to your blog and someone in Texas to discover it somewhere else.

[00:16:50]   

So a bio is a good place to see what, what are your stats? Have you been published elsewhere? To go over all that kind of stuff. And then I just work with people through each section of the proposal we work on. Who’s the target audience? What is your promotion plan? Who are your competitors?

[00:17:12]   

What kind of recipes do you have that are new and different, that are things that people can’t find for free online? And then the last section I work on with people and the table of contents, obviously like a structure that’s interesting and appealing and that lists all the recipes. And then last is the overview.

[00:17:39]   

Because by then you really understand your book. You understand, do you want to be the photographer? Can you show that you are worthy of being a photographer for your own book? If not, have you chosen a photographer? Who is that person? You know, what percentage of the recipes should come from your blog, what percentage should be new, all that kind of stuff.

[00:18:02]   

And then in the end you have something that’s like 50 or 60 pages long, double spaced, it’s a big document and it’s like a sales pitch. A sales pitch, a business plan and your vision for your book.

[00:18:18]  Megan Porta 

50 to 60 pages, that’s a significant amount of work. How long does this typically take people to move through?

[00:18:24]  Dianne Jacob 

I allow six months for people to get it together. Yeah.

[00:18:31]  Megan Porta 

Are there any parts of the proposal that you just feel like you have to nail this or do you feel that way about the entire thing?

[00:18:39]  Dianne Jacob 

I feel that way. However, the beginning, as I said, publishers, I mean editors and agents are predisposed to not like it. So you gotta, you gotta grab them right from the very first sentence and, and you have to figure out how to make it worth their while to keep going all the way through.

[00:19:02]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. That’s interesting that there’s such a fail rate with that, but it makes sense that there is. Obviously you can’t take on every single proposal. Are there any things that the people who get through the cracks do that the others don’t do? Like the hook, obviously you mentioned, like you have to pull them in. But what is that? Like, how do, how are they doing that?

[00:19:25]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, you know, they just have a really good sense of what people want, which is also what they want. I mean, it has to go together. Right? You can’t, like, like I said, if, if your readers want something chocolate every single time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to do a chocolate cookbook, but you know, these days.

[00:19:49]   

Well, the big, the big publishers want a really big platform too. I mean, they’ve been signing a lot of TikTok stars and influencers right now. And I hope they’re finding out that just because they signed them doesn’t mean that their book is going to sell. But I think, I think Dylan Hollis had the best selling, one of the best selling cookbooks last year.I mean, he’s a huge influencer. So, yeah, they’re looking at really big numbers and most of us do not have those numbers. So you got to find something else that’s going to make yourself appealing.

[00:20:27]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Stand out in some way. You’re right. Most people don’t have the massive followings and they don’t.

[00:20:34]  Dianne Jacob 

And also, your recipes cannot be, you can’t have recipes called, you know, meatloaf tuna casserole, tacos. You know, you, you have to have something that there’s, I mean, I, there’s one agent I know who just flips straight to their recipes and looks at the titles and she doesn’t even start at the beginning.And if they don’t look like something that somebody’s going to pay $30 for, she’s done.

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[00:22:50]  Dianne Jacob 

So something a little more unique than your basic recipes. Oh, yeah, basic recipes. No one’s going to pay for that. That’s all available online. I mean, look, look how much is available online. I just interviewed the head of New York Times Cooking the their app for my newsletter and she said they have 25,000 recipes online.

[00:23:09]  Megan Porta 

Wow.

[00:23:09]  Dianne Jacob 

And it’s the New York Times, they have very good recipes.

[00:23:13]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:23:13]  Dianne Jacob 

And they’ve been making big profit from the cooking section. It has millions of subscribers. People are obsessed with it. And so you’re. You’re competing with that, too.

[00:23:26]  Megan Porta 

Anything else about the proposal that you think should stand out or be different or that can set you apart from others?

[00:23:33]  Dianne Jacob 

Voice is really important. That has to come through right away from at the beginning of the proposal because, you know, there’s not that. I mean, publishers want certain kinds of books every year. They’re always going to want a bread book, a pizza book, they’re going to want baking books, they’re going to want technique books, they’re going to want vegetarian books.

[00:23:59]   

And I mean, there’s a big high protein phase now that people are going crazy for. So, you know, they. There’s not that much that’s new and different. So your voice can be really a way of differentiating yourself from the pack. I know you’ve had Sally Eckus on this show and she agented, I think his name is Justin Burke, and he just did a potluck cookbook that is all about queer potlucks and his life as coming out as a gay man and choosing his family of choice and how much he loves bringing all these different kinds of cakes and to queer potlucks.So, you know, it’s not like there hasn’t been a cake cookbook before, but that’s his take. He got a lot of rejections, but he found a publisher. They found a publisher and, you know, that’s the way that he stood out.

[00:25:11]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, definitely. And I think as bloggers, we were learning how to do that more, how to make ourselves stand out. Because there are. Not only are there a lot of cookbooks, but there are a lot of food bloggers as well. So we’re.

[00:25:25]  Dianne Jacob 

Yes, there are.

[00:25:26]  Megan Porta 

In that mindset of like, what do I do differently? What is different about my voice and other people’s voices?

[00:25:38]  Dianne Jacob 

So, yeah, those are good questions. Yeah. And the cookbook is not, you know, here’s a bunch of stuff from my blog. You know, it needs to be more focused than that. It can be that if you’re, you know, if you’re smitten kitchen. But most of us are not.

[00:25:52]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, right. Okay. So how many recipes do you recommend, including in the cookbook? Do you have recommendations on that?

[00:26:01]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, I say I like to have 10. I’ve heard recently that people have put only five. But I want. I want the readers of the proposal, which is the agent and the editor. I want them to see Your range. I want them to see long recipes, short recipes, a baking recipe, a braising recipe, a recipe with 10 ingredients, a recipe with two ingredients, different ingredients.

[00:26:28]   

You know, all the. All the very sophisticated ways that you have, because recipe writing is your jam. That’s you. Food bloggers definitely know that subject, and they just want to see. They want to see that. That you are an accomplished recipe writer and that, you know, you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve.

[00:26:49]  Megan Porta 

Okay, so, yeah, just kind of showing a spectrum of what you can do and why you’re here, why you’re writing the proposal, I suppose. Do you recommend having full those five recipes or whatever you choose for the proposal? Do you recommend having the full recipe, including the intro or a description and everything included in it?

[00:27:12]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, not the way that Google makes you write recipes, right?

[00:27:16]  Megan Porta 

Not like a blog post.

[00:27:18]  Dianne Jacob 

Not like a blog post. When you get to the section of sample recipes you want to include, maybe there’s some recipes that went viral. Maybe. Maybe you want some of those in your cookbook. So I would put those in some of your very best recipes. And plus, you want a lot of variety.

[00:27:39]   

You want a long one, a short one, one where there’s sauteing, one where there’s baking, one with different techniques. Maybe some of them have sidebars. You can include those. You’re not writing a blog post. You’re just writing a standard recipe that starts with the title and ends with the method. And so just do your best to really mix it up and put in the ones that you think are the best examples of your work, that readers, including what your readers have responded to.

[00:28:12]  Megan Porta 

That’s helpful. And then you talked a little bit about having a social media presence and how that can influence publishers. Do we need to have. Is there a minimum, you know, number that you like to go by to have? I don’t know. I have no idea if there is or not.

[00:28:31]  Dianne Jacob 

You know, I ask that question all the time when I’m interviewing agents and editors, and I never get an answer. There was, except there was one editor who said, don’t come to me if you have less than 40,000 followers. But everybody else is like, oh, no. If I’m really impressed with the proposal, then it’s okay if you don’t have a big following.So it’s really hard to say what number that should be.

[00:29:07]  Megan Porta 

I did have, but there should be a social media.

[00:29:09]  Dianne Jacob 

I did, I did send a proposal to an agent that I’d worked on with someone, and she said, oh, this person has 80,000 followers. She should come back to me when she has closer to 200,000. That was that particular agent. And that client got a book deal with someone else using a different agent.

[00:29:35]  Megan Porta 

Oh, okay.

[00:29:38]  Dianne Jacob 

So.

[00:29:39]  Megan Porta 

So it really is arbitrary. You can hear one number and it could be way off depending on who you’re talking to.

[00:29:45]  Dianne Jacob 

Yes.

[00:29:45]  Megan Porta 

Okay, so there’s no answer. No is the bottom line.

[00:29:49]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, I don’t think they want to say what the answer is. Of course they want the biggest possible following because they want to sell the biggest possible number of books. But they also know that just because somebody has, you know, 5 million followers doesn’t necessarily mean that the book cookbook is going to be a bestseller. It doesn’t always follow. So they don’t know.

[00:30:14]  Megan Porta 

Right. A lot of factors are involved, I’m sure. Yes, but they should have some social media presence, correct?

[00:30:23]  Dianne Jacob 

Yeah. There’s no way they could get a book deal if they had a very little presence, because it’s just expected these days that you are going to be selling your book to your followers and you have to have followers because only a tiny percentage of them are going to buy it.

[00:30:43]  Megan Porta 

And when you say social media, do you mean Instagram and TikTok or are there other platforms to keep in mind?

[00:30:50]  Dianne Jacob 

I think those are the main platforms that get. Get people excited. I think YouTube gets people excited too.

[00:30:58]  Megan Porta 

Okay, sure.

[00:31:00]  Dianne Jacob 

Yeah.

[00:31:00]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Great. And then is there anything else we need to know, Dianne, about writing a proposal? Things to keep in mind? Anything else?

[00:31:08]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, you have to have patience. It’s a very long process. I think where people go wrong is that they just get sick of working on it. And it’s not done by not done. I mean, there are holes in it that I mentioned before that, that people. Where people are going to reject your proposal and you just go, oh, you know, I’m kind of sick of working on this.It’s time to send it. That is not a good idea.

[00:31:33]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:31:34]  Dianne Jacob 

And I think for bloggers, the whole is either they don’t have a big enough social media presence and, you know, you could work on your social media presence for a year and it doesn’t get that much bigger. So that is a real quandary. And I think the answer for bloggers is to get published outside of your blog because, you know, if you get a recipe on simply recipes, they have hundreds of thousands of readers, and so you’ve just extended your reach by doing that.

[00:32:10]   

So if you have a very small following, you could still get a couple of recipes published elsewhere, and that would make a huge difference. That’s very time consuming, too, to find, you know, to go down that path. But you need to go down the path before you send out the proposal.

[00:32:28]  Megan Porta 

Okay, that’s great information. Kind of doing pre work, leg work, getting yourself ready for this. Don’t send in a proposal that you don’t feel is strongly put together and getting a good niche topic that you feel passionately about. And then you kind of talk through the structure. Is there anything else we should keep in mind?

[00:32:51]  Dianne Jacob 

Just, you know, be patient with yourself. It does take quite a long time to get a really solid proposal. Like I said, I usually work with people for it, with it on for six months. Sometimes people send me their proposal and I do have a service where I’ll just. I’ll read it and I’ll mark it up, I’ll send you a summary and. And then we’ll talk about it. And I think people get really frustrated because I have a lot of comments and I bet I don’t know what happens to those people. I think some of them get discouraged. But of course, I would have preferred that they work with me on it from the beginning. But not everybody does that, obviously. So just be patient with yourself and make sure that you. You have done your best on every single section.

[00:33:44]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s great advice. Thank you. Thank you for all this knowledge today and for just showing up for the cookbook authors of the world and being such a great resource. We appreciate you.

[00:33:55]  Dianne Jacob 

Thank you so much, Megan. Appreciate it.

[00:33:57]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Do you. Okay, so to end, I like to ask my guests if they have a favorite quote. Some people are quote people, some are not. And if not, I feel like you’ve already delivered words of inspiration. But do you have anything additionally to share?

[00:34:09]  Dianne Jacob 

The way I think about it sometimes is that people have to back up before going forward. And that’s the part that people don’t like, but that is the part where they’re filling in the holes that agents and editors are going to ding you for. So I think that’s. It’s hard, but I think people do get it, that they have to fill in those holes.

[00:34:33]  Megan Porta 

I think it’s good to prep people with that beforehand instead of getting into it and being disappointed. Like, I thought this was all going to go great and why isn’t this working right away? So, yeah, just being realistic about what to expect is huge, mentally.

[00:34:47]  Dianne Jacob 

Are you going to write a cookbook now? Do you feel encouraged or encouraged?

[00:34:54]  Megan Porta 

Well, I did write a cookbook a few years ago, and it was. I don’t want to dampen the mood. But it was a hard stretch for me. It was just a lot. And every time I see it, I’m so proud of it. But I, I remember the hard times that were associated with it.

[00:35:10]   

But I do want to someday refresh and do a cookbook that isn’t associated with those feelings. I just don’t know the topic yet. I know when the time is right, it’ll come to me and I’ll be re inspired, so.

[00:35:24]  Dianne Jacob 

Well, I think it’s hard for bloggers because you got to keep your blog going while you’re working on your cookbook. And then the, the people who choose to do all the photography have this whole other burden on top of that. So it’s a, it’s, it is really hard.

[00:35:38]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it’s no joke. It is a big deal. But yeah. We’ll put together a show notes page for you, Dianne, if anyone wants to go look at those. We’ll have all the notes we talked about today, plus resources. You can head to eatblogtalk.com/DianneJacob and that’s spelled D I A N N E and that’s Jacob without an S.Tell everyone where they can find you, Diane, if they want help. And also what, what services do you provide?

[00:36:06]  Dianne Jacob 

You can go to diannej.com, D-I-A-N-N-E-J.com that’s my website. And I have two services related to writing cookbooks and that is a six month plan for working together. And I’ll coach you through every single section and then we’ll put it together and read it as a whole and see how it stands up.

[00:36:28]   

You can also send me a proposal and I’ll review it. Some people really need to get published. They need to get their recipes published if they don’t have a big platform. And I do coach people through how to be published on websites and in magazines and newspapers. And I think that’s mostly it for food bloggers. Yeah, you guys are already doing a great job.

[00:36:56]  Megan Porta 

Oh, and obviously your book Will Write for Food. Check that out.

[00:37:00]  Dianne Jacob 

Obviously. Yes. Will Write for Food: Pursue your passion, bring home the dough writing recipes, cookbooks, blogs, and more.

[00:37:07]  Megan Porta 

All right, well, amazing. Thank you again, Dianne. And thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you posted it to your social media feed and stories. I will see you next time.