Episode 663: The Truth About Traditional Cookbook Publishing (Do You Really Need a Large Social Media Following?) with Jess Smith

EBT663 – Jess Smith

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. 

[00:00:37] Megan Porta  

 I absolutely love how every single person who publishes a cookbook has a unique story to share about it. Jess Smith from Inquiring Chef joins me in this interview to talk about her experience publishing a cookbook. Traditionally, she had such a great experience overall and she gives us all the details about what you need to do first, what you need to consider, how long things will approximately take.

[00:01:05]   

 She recommends writing a very thorough proposal and hiring someone to help you do that if needed, then finding an agent and from there you find a publisher that aligns with your vision. It was so fun to see her so lit up about her project from start to finish and I think this energy will rub off when you listen to the episode.

[00:01:27]   

 This is a very inspiring episode. Even if you just have an inkling of a thought that you might want to publish a cookbook, traditionally you might actually be pushed over the edge to do it. So tune in. This is episode number 663. I hope you love it.

[00:01:45] Sponsor   

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[00:02:28]   Megan

Jess is a mom to three girls based in Kansas City, Missouri. While living in Thailand and working at the U.S. embassy in 2010, she took Thai cooking classes on the weekends and shared everything she learned on her food blog inquiringchef.com in the years that followed, she pursued her dream of making a career in food and became the chief recipe Developer for the award winning meal planning app, Cook Smarts.

[00:02:51]   

Inquiring Chef has grown to over 6 million page views a year and has been featured in publications like Parade, Hallmark and HuffPost. In 2024, Jess opened a cooking school for kids in Kansas City called Inquiring Chef Academy, where she spends school breaks guiding elementary age kids through lessons on everything from baking sourdough to chopping vegetables to setting the table.

[00:03:14]   

Her first cookbook, Start with a Vegetable, was released in January of 2025. Hello, Jess. Welcome to the podcast. I’m so happy to have you here. How are you?

[00:03:25]  Jess Smith 

 Good. Hi, Megan. I’m so glad to be here.

[00:03:27]  Megan Porta 

 Yay. Your first time on Eat Blog Talk, Correct. Yeah. I cannot wait to see you in a little bit. We’re going to see each other at Flavor Media again this year and huge congrats on your new cookbook. We’ll talk about that in this episode. But yeah, just so excited about this conversation. Thank you for showing up and delivering value today.

[00:03:49]   

 Before we get into talking about publishing, traditionally, do you have a fun fact to share with us, Jessica?

[00:03:56]  Jess Smith 

 I do. So I have twin daughters and they were born on my birthday and we were living in Thailand at the time. So my 33rd birthday was spent in a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, delivering my two girls. Yeah.

[00:04:12]  Megan Porta 

 Wow, that’s so special all around. And how did, how did giving birth in Thailand go? Was that what you expected?

[00:04:18]  Jess Smith 

 It was an adventure I had. They were my first, so I had no idea what to expect, but it was, it was great. They have a really wonderful, like, private hospital there that. And we had a doctor who was a specialist in multiples, and he just made us feel very supported the whole way through.

[00:04:33]   

 And so we were, we felt ready. We were. I mean, our, both my husband and my moms were very nervous to have us be delivering their grandbabies so far away. But it was, it was a great. We felt very supported and. Yeah, and they were healthy and they did great. And yeah, here they are.

[00:04:48]   

 They’re 10. They’re 10 now.

[00:04:49]  Megan Porta 

 And now they’re 10. Oh, that’s so awesome. Well, everything worked out and that’s kind of the end goal, right? Everyone comes out healthy and happy.

[00:04:57]  Jess Smith 

 Yeah.

[00:04:58]  Megan Porta 

 I love it. Okay, well, let’s get into you. So you have this amazing website. You just published a really beautiful cookbook. I’ve looked at it myself. It is gorgeous. So to start, Jess, tell us just a little bit about your website, Inquiring Chef.

[00:05:16]  Jess Smith 

 Sure. So I actually started inquiring chef in 2010 when my husband and I were living in Thailand. We moved right after we got married. And in truth, I just was looking for a way to keep in touch with friends and family. And it started, as so many of us do, as just sort of a journal and a record of our life.

[00:05:37]   

 But I was really into cooking and so I took a ton of cooking classes in Thailand. The food there is spectacular and I learned a lot of Thai style cooking that kind of honed in on my own sort of sense of food. And I just wanted to keep pursuing it. I had been a vegetarian for a lot of my teenage years and into college, and then sort of changed gears and started opening up to different cuisines and learning more about food.

[00:06:03]   

 And when we were in Thailand, there’s a lot of dishes that use meat more as a flavoring. They cook green, delicious greens, delicious vegetables. And then you often have dishes where meat is kind of an accompaniment. There’s plenty of dishes where meat is the star too. But it just kind of opened my mind to a sort of different way of approaching food.

[00:06:19]   

 And that has taken me on this journey that led to the growth of my website, Inquiring Chef, which is is not plant based, but is really focuses on vegetables in a lot of the dishes and how to incorporate them in really easy way. And that led me to writing a cookbook that was about that, that was not a vegetarian cookbook, but just had had vegetables as sort of the star of the show.

[00:06:43]  Megan Porta 

 And it’s called Start with a Vegetable, Correct?

[00:06:46]  Jess Smith 

 It’s called Start with a Vegetable. And the idea is really that when you’re thinking about what to cook, if you start with a vegetable first, then inevitably you will make sure that the vegetables are at the heart of the dish. So the book includes meat and seafood, it’s about 30% vegetarian. And every single recipe in the book has a variation to make the recipe vegetarian using very simple swaps.

[00:07:09]   

 So I just wanted to make it sort of flexible for every type of eater. And yeah, the chapters are organized by vegetable. So it’s like if you have broccoli in your fridge, you know, here’s 10 ways to use it. If you’ve got that bag of baby spinach, here’s 10 things you can do with it.

[00:07:22]   

 So it was fun. It was a very fun exercise to create the book that way. And it really reflected sort of the way that I approached cooking in my own home.

[00:07:30]  Megan Porta 

 Has it changed the process, the way that you cook? Like after the cookbook was done, did you find that you were more able to look in your fridge and just pull out a veggie and I mean, do you know what I mean? Like, did it refine your whole cooking process?

[00:07:44]  Jess Smith 

 It totally did. It totally did. And it honestly, I think for me, having been blogging for 15 years, it was almost nice to have somewhat of a constraint on my creativity. I mean, I think it helped my creativity to have these constraints on how I looked at cooking. And so even since I, you know, the book was completed almost a year ago, or my kind of piece of writing and creativity and recipe development was complete about a year ago, and I still find myself like, looking at the carrots in my fridge and thinking, okay, what was something that I could do with these that I didn’t do in the book?

[00:08:17]   

 And yeah, that’s just been, it’s been a really fun way to kind of re approach my cooking on the blog and my cooking in my own house.

[00:08:26]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love the concept and I can’t wait to make some of the recipes. They look so delicious. So let’s talk about your experience with writing your, your cookbook. What about when you first decided, I’m gonna write a cookbook? What was kind of going through your mind? Like, is this going to be overwhelming?

[00:08:44]   

 Can I do this? Were there hang ups?

[00:08:47]  Jess Smith 

 Yes. All those things? 100.

[00:08:50]  Megan Porta 

 Yes to all?

[00:08:51]  Jess Smith 

 Yes. And of course, I have three young kids, I have my twins, and I have a daughter who’s now six. And all I think, are stretched so thin. We’re trying to juggle all the aspects of our businesses. And yeah, I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. And I honestly didn’t know if it was the right way to invest my time because it’s unclear.

[00:09:12]   

 You know, writing a cookbook, I think my, in my experience is something that can help the brand but not necessarily become a source of revenue for most of us. Now some, some cookbooks just take off and people end up making royalties down the road for years and years and years. But I didn’t into it expecting that.

[00:09:30]   

 So there was this balance of, is this something that I want to do and devote all of this time to knowing that it may not ultimately be a direct revenue stream for the business. And that was a hard decision to make. But ultimately, I think I wanted the challenge. I wanted to sort of define my brand around this book and use it going forward to give me more opportunities to talk about these things that I value in cooking.

[00:09:57]   

 And so far, I’m really thrilled with the way that, that that turned out.

[00:10:03]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, it is a massive undertaking. And I think a lot of people don’t know that before they start. But you kind of, you kind of have an inkling like, this is going to be a big deal. It’s going to take up a lot of my time and energy and it’s going to take away time from blogging.

[00:10:21]   

 Right. Did you consider that as well?

[00:10:23]  Jess Smith 

 Absolutely. And it did. I mean, I, I really. There were times during this process when I just had to. I mean, I could not create new blog content. I just now, with the book having been released a couple of weeks ago, feel like I’m finally in a headspace where I can sit down and start thinking about what content I want to have in the next few months.

[00:10:40]   

 And I honestly, I was just winging it throughout, you know, for about two years. I would have an idea and I would have a little bit of time and I would create it and put it on the, on the blog or I would put it on social media. But I just, I couldn’t even keep myself to my normal pace of work because I had to deal, you know, I had to focus on the cookbook and I had to deal with anything that popped up for my publisher.

[00:11:01]   

 So, yeah, it really changed the way that my, my workflow went over that couple of years.

[00:11:06]  Megan Porta 

 Absolutely. So if you are going into it, just know that your blogging life will be disrupted big time for probably more than you think. Yes. So how did you go about, like, just making the decision, like, yes, I’m going to do it, because I know a lot of people tell you that you need this and you need that to get started.

[00:11:25]   

 You need a massive platform, need so many followers, and if you don’t have that, you’re not going to be successful. So what was the tipping point for you when you just made the decision to go for it?

[00:11:39]  Jess Smith 

 Yeah, so I, I had been thinking about it for a while. I think those of us that have this, the expertise that it takes to run a food blog, surely most of us, it’s crossed our minds at some point because we have the skill set to take the photographs, we have the skill set, you know, to write the recipes.

[00:11:53]   

 We have an understanding of our audience, which is really appealing to publishers. But ultimately it was, I mean, really, the reason that I did it was because New Year’s three years ago, my husband said, you should write a cookbook, and I will support you and we will figure it out. And I said, okay.

[00:12:10]   

 I think this is going to take our whole family being on board with this plan. And, and they were. And my kids have been great and my husband has just been so supportive and never question it. I mean, I worked weekends, I worked nights. There were, you know, times when I was really tired.

[00:12:23]   

 So that was, I mean, it was having a supportive partner who was on board with the idea, I think really tipped the scales. And I did look a lot into doing self publishing, but I knew that for me, design is not my strong suit. And I was very concerned about being responsible for the overall design and visual aspects of the book.

[00:12:42]   

 The photography I felt comfortable with, but then how the layout of the book actually went, that just didn’t feel like something that I wanted to do. And I loved the idea of having a traditional publisher and a variety of different proofreaders in that process. So when I started, I kind of said, I’m going to explore this, but if I.

[00:12:58]   

 I can’t get a deal with a traditional publisher, this, this isn’t the path for me at this, at this moment. So that was good too, because I think, like, if I had been open to self publishing, then I think deciding I want to try to cookbook, it would have happened no matter what.

[00:13:12]   

 But I was very certain that that just wasn’t. Self publishing was not in the cards for me. So I figured I would try and see what happened and then if it didn’t work out, I just would pivot.

[00:13:20]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, right. And it fell into your lap. I mean, it actually worked out for you. So that was kind of a sign. I love when people just make the decision like, I am doing this and if, if this is meant to line up, it is going to line up. And it sounds like it did.

[00:13:33]   

 So that’s perfect. And how did you go about finding that route? Like, how did you find the publisher? How did that all go?

[00:13:40]  Jess Smith 

 Yeah, so I had, over the years, I had written down some resources that came from peers of ours, like, you know, other people in the food space. I had any time I picked up a cookbook that I liked, I would sometimes make a note of. You know, almost every cookbook has at the back an acknowledgments page.

[00:13:55]   

 And almost every cookbook writer who has an agent has thanked their agent in the back and mentioned you can always find out what publisher they used. So I had kind of been keeping an eye out for that information. I also went into it really wanting to use the resources I could access to make sure that the book was the best I could possibly make it.

[00:14:15]   

 And I didn’t want to do that on my own. So I first reached out to Diane Jacob. She is really well known in our space. She wrote the book Will Write for Food, which I think has been for a lot of us, starting around the time that I did and that, you know, you did that.

[00:14:28]   

 She was kind of a big name, and she still is, and she understands the industry so well, and she now consults on cookbook writing. So Diane and I worked together really, really closely to create the proposal for the book, and that took about eight months. So she obviously, she. She kind of said to me going forward that she estimates about six months to write the cookbook proposal.

[00:14:50]   

 I didn’t even know what one looked like. So that was so important to me in the process. And she walked me through every step, and we had frequent calls, and she proofread my work. So at the end, and we really went back and forth on potential titles, potential concept, how we present it.

[00:15:06]   

 She helps you walk through a competitive analysis, which is so important, because you need to know, you need to prove to a publisher that there are books out there like this one that have sold, but that yours is different enough to make it appealing to an audience when they can buy other books in a similar genre.

[00:15:24]   

 So Diane was. I mean, she was fantastic to work with. She was tough in the way that she really needed to be. I always joked that, you know, I wanted her to tell me like it. Tell me like it is. Yeah, yeah. She helped me refine that proposal. And then once I had the proposal, then I sent it around to agents because I also knew I wanted to work with an agent and have them advocate on my behalf, and that has been absolutely worthwhile in the process.

[00:15:49]   

 So Marilyn Allen is my agent, and she is fantastic. She advocated for me, and she was responsible for, you know, trying to find a publisher and a home for this proposal. And she did it. She ended up finding two publishers that were interested, and she was able to negotiate the deal. And she actually got my advance to be double what the first offer was.

[00:16:12]  Megan Porta 

 Amazing.

[00:16:12]  Jess Smith 

 Yes.

[00:16:14]  Jess Smith 

 So she’s just been completely. From the very beginning, she definitely made, you know, she. Most agents work on. They get 15% of all revenue from the book. And she. I mean, she completely made it worth that in the very. Exactly, exactly. And she’s advocated me for me all throughout the process. And it’s just been so nice to have someone in your corner like that.

[00:16:34]  Megan Porta 

 You want someone who’s truly going to stand up and advocate for you and believe in you and what your project is. Yes. That’s amazing. So it kind of goes, you need to write a solid proposal, and that takes six to eight months. I had no idea it took that long. I mean, I’ve heard they’re pretty extensive, but.

[00:16:51]   

 Wow. And then from there, you find an agent to support your proposal and find a publisher.

[00:17:00]  Jess Smith 

 Yes, exactly. And she took. And of course, like, you hear stories about people who have condensed to that timeline and they, you know, if I were to do it again, maybe I would know the process, then I could write my proposal really fast. But it really is. That’s the point at which you. I mean, your proposal even includes a list of all of the recipes that will be included in the book. You typically have five to 10 sample recipes that you’ve written out in the style that you want them to. To be in the book. And so it was like a mini exercise in writing the book, which was very good to prepare me for the whole.

[00:17:32]   

 For the rest of the process. But, yes, for me doing it the first time it took. It took about. It took six to eight months, and then it took about three to four months to find a publisher and get that deal signed after I started working with an agent.

[00:17:44]  Megan Porta 

 Okay. And then once you’re at the point of writing the book, I feel like the proposal has given you a good jump on the book. Right. I mean, you’ve got some of it written. You have the recipes laid out, you have some of the recipes done. Yeah. So it’s like you’re not just starting from square one again.

[00:18:02]  Jess Smith 

 No. And it’s great with working with my editor. You know, we both just were working off this document, and so there were a few places. The publisher that I ended up going with is an imprint of Norton called Countryman Press. It’s a smaller imprint under Norton, and they were just really supportive of the vision that was laid out in the proposal.

[00:18:23]   

 And so they didn’t want a ton of changes. But of course, our initial conversations were about clarifying things, honing in on how the titles would look for those recipes that changed dramatically because how we presented them changed over time. And so it was really valuable to have that for all of us to look at and work off of as we were going through the process.

[00:18:42]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. So to kind of go back to getting started with this, did you feel like you had a massive social following to start? Because I know a lot of people do. And. Yeah. I’ll just ask you that first. Did you have a massive social following to start? No. Okay. No.

[00:18:59]  Jess Smith 

 No. So far from it. And that was the other thing, Megan, like, going into it, I had heard that I had people throwing out possible numbers of how many Instagram followers you needed or TikTok followers to get a book deal. So again, I was like, this may not even be in the cards.

[00:19:15]   

 Just for that reason. I had under 10,000 Instagram followers, or around 10,000 at that point, which I felt like was pretty good. I mean, of course, as we all know, it took a long time to even get there. I had a really tiny email list. I had not spent any time on email.

[00:19:29]   

 So I had under 5,000 email subscribers. And, you know, I don’t even think I had a TikTok account at that point. And my Facebook following was small. I did. My blog traffic was pretty high, so I’ve. I’ve had pretty good blog traffic. So I had between 500 and 600,000 page views a month around that time.

[00:19:47]   

 So I did have that to present to the, you know, to present in my proposal as a way to promote the book. The thing is, from what I’ve seen, even going through this experience, I used Bitly Links to track anywhere that I promoted the book. So I could see where I was driving, you know, how, where people were clicking over to see the book.

[00:20:06]   

 And it hasn’t been the website. I mean, it’s. I’ve been, I’ve been getting. Yeah, I mean, I think there is this idea that you need to have a social following and maybe there’s some truth to that. But also, I got the book deal without having huge numbers anywhere except on my website.

[00:20:24]  Sponsor 

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[00:20:43]  Megan Porta

And after your book has, you know, been published and it’s. You’ve kind of gone through the process, have you found that your social following has increased and numbers have gone up all around?

[00:20:56]  Jess Smith 

 Yes.

[00:20:57]  Megan Porta 

 Okay, good. I kind of assumed.

[00:20:59]  Jess Smith 

 Yeah. And part of it, I think, is just that I, in the, in the process of writing the book, I knew that I wanted to work on growing my social following in tandem with that. And so I definitely was successful at doing that. I mean, I really did focus on posting on Instagram throughout the process.

[00:21:15]   

 So I’m now at about 65,000 followers on Instagram. Yeah, that’s been great. And that has just, I think, happened. And some of it might be just kind of clarifying my focus on Instagram to align with the book. And some of it, I think, is just spending more time on that. So I really did focus on that.

[00:21:29]   

 But yeah, it turned out that they. Those numbers were enough for the publisher to believe in the idea. I had heard from other people that you either need a big social following or a great idea and that one of those can be the way to get a cookbook deal. So.

[00:21:45]  Megan Porta 

 And yours was a great idea.

[00:21:46]  Jess Smith 

 I hope so. Yeah.

[00:21:50]  Megan Porta 

 That’s so great. I am so happy for you because that can be such a huge hang up for so many. Just like I don’t have a hundred thousand followers, so I’m not going to even start this great idea that I have, which is sad. If you have a great idea and you believe in it, you should pursue it.

[00:22:06]  Jess Smith 

 Yes, yes. And the world needs, I mean, we need those great ideas and they become, they need to become cookbooks. So definitely, I think if you have a great idea, it’s worth. Worth pursuing it even. Well, I think I am a lesson in like, no matter what your social following numbers are, if you have a great idea, get it out there.

[00:22:22]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Some of those great ideas need, they’re in your head for a reason and they need to be born. And if they’re not born, someone else is going to take that and run with it. So just, I think it’s so important to just, yeah, say this. Like, you need to put your great ideas out into the world and Jess is here to tell you.

[00:22:41]   

 Yes, yes, do it.

[00:22:42]  Jess Smith 

 Yes, do it, please. We want to see those. We want to see.

[00:22:45]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Okay. So once you had your agent and then you got a publisher and things started rolling, tell us how that process went.

[00:22:55]  Jess Smith 

 So then it was about a year. The full process to write the book, you know, take the photos for me was a year. And again, that, that definitely varies. I’ve talked to other cookbook authors who have had very different time frames, especially if there’s something that you’re wanting your release to align with or a season.

[00:23:12]   

 So, but for me, it was a year. And for me that felt like the right. Especially because my book is about vegetables. I needed to make sure that I could get the vegetables that came, you know, so the tomato chapter had to be shot at the end of summer, when tomatoes were beautiful.

[00:23:26]   

 So I knew I couldn’t condense the time frame. I needed to have access to the produce that was in season then. So it worked out really well. It was such an exercise in time management over a long period of time. For most cookbook deals, the your advance covers, all of the expenses that might come along with the photos, food, you know, food styling and so, and mine did so anything that I wanted to.

[00:23:54]   

 Any resources that I wanted to hire to come in to help me, that came out of my advance. And I did end up needing. I hired someone to help me with a little bit of styling on some of the harder shots, and I hired some help to come in and do dishes and help me prep food.

[00:24:10]   

 All of that was I paid for, and it was worth every penny to make sure that I could get this done, especially at the end of the year when I was kind of in a crunch and I had a few photos left that I had to take. So I really needed the help.

[00:24:22]   

 But then all the photographs are my own.

[00:24:23]  Megan Porta 

 Oh, that’s great, too. It’s always interesting to see, like, some people go that route, and some people are like. Like from the start. Absolutely not. I don’t want to take photos, but I always love it when bloggers take their photos because we just have that innate creativity with photography. Most of us do.

[00:24:43]   

 So I love that your photos are also in your book. They’re so beautiful.

[00:24:48]  Jess Smith 

 It was hard, but it was, like, really. It was me. And now holding just feels like me throughout. You know, I definitely can see why, if you had the budget to do it, you would hire it out, because it is so much work. But, yeah. Yeah, I’m glad. I’m glad it worked out this way.

[00:25:02]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. And then once you finished officially writing, how was the editing process?

[00:25:09]  Jess Smith 

 So great. I mean, you know, we. I have never had. I’ve had proofreaders that I’ve hired, but I’ve never had someone at this level of detail come in and proofread my work and then also, like, sort of recommend improvements in the way that I write. And it has changed the way that I write all of my recipes.

[00:25:28]   

 It’s been so valuable. And, yeah, it was fantastic. I mean, it was a lot of. It was a lot more time. That was something that I didn’t expect to take as much time as it did, but partly, maybe because my editor was very collaborative. He would send me edits, and we would go back and forth on them.

[00:25:43]   

 So there was a lot of. There was a lot of time that we needed to build in for that process. It was Great. I used 40 volunteer recipe testers who tested every single recipe in the book before it even went to my editor. So already they had caught any quirky little things that needed to be caught.

[00:26:02]   

 Yeah. So then it was really just. My editor was really just working on style and voice, and it was. That was really. It was a really neat process. It was hard, and it’s hard having getting so much feedback. You know, I would screenshot it and it would be so much red, you know, every page.

[00:26:19]   

 So I had to be sort of mentally prepared for that.

[00:26:22]  Megan Porta 

 But yeah, you can’t get overwhelmed by it. You just have to let it soak in and take the advice. Right?

[00:26:27]  Jess Smith 

 Yep, exactly.

[00:26:29]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, yeah. The editing process, it feels like a lot of people don’t anticipate the length of time that takes and also how just kind of grueling it can be. But I love that you took from it skills. Like now you feel like you’re a better writer and you can incorporate that into your blog.

[00:26:48]   

 That’s so cool. Just pulling skills out of projects like this, that’s like the best thing ever because you’re not just creating your project, you’re also embellishing you and like making you a better blogger, honestly.

[00:27:04]  Jess Smith 

 Totally. I mean, and I tried to. Of course when you’re being. When you’re getting feedback like that, it’s hard to not become defensive about your work. This is a creative work that, that I made and I stand behind it. But I tried to embrace all of it as sort of a learning experience for me and I think that did serve me really well and it made the process go really smoothly.

[00:27:27]   

 But yeah, I mean, how. When in your life do you get the advantage of having not just. Not just my editor proofread it, they had other proofreaders on the team. So there were. It went through four rounds of really high quality proofreading and gosh, that felt like such a. Such a gift to have that many people look at it and give feedback.

[00:27:46]  Megan Porta 

 It’s a collaboration. It’s not just you on this project. You have involved lots of awesome, highly skilled people.

[00:27:52]  Jess Smith 

 Totally.

[00:27:53]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. That feels so good. So it was released in January, correct?

[00:28:00]  Jess Smith 

 Yep. January 28th.

[00:28:01]  Megan Porta 

 January 28th. It’ll go down in history for you.

[00:28:04]  Jess Smith 

 Yes.

[00:28:04]  Megan Porta 

 And how has promotion been going?

[00:28:07]  Jess Smith 

 Really well. A lot of that has. As a first time cookbook author, a lot of that is on me and I knew that going into it and my agent was really good at explaining that to me that I would be expected and I should do, you know, promotions on my side. So as I said, I did do.

[00:28:23]   

 It was on my website from the pre release process started in October. And so from October it was on my website, it was in my emails, it was on social media. And so I tried to do as much of that as I could and I think that really did help. I think we did.

[00:28:40]   

 They said that their goal was usually to have about A third of the books sold in the presale period, and we did do that, which was great. But they also. My publisher has really wide distribution ability, and so they reached out to indie bookstores. They really helped promote it. So definitely having them in my corner was great, too.

[00:29:02]   

 Since the book was released, they’ve done a lot of sort of PR outreach. It’s been featured in some magazines. I’ve been doing a lot of stuff locally in Kansas City, where I live, and just was interviewed yesterday for a local publication. So that’s been really fun. Yeah, it’s been. It’s been great. They didn’t recommend that for my publisher.

[00:29:20]   

 They didn’t recommend that I do a book tour. You know, it’s. And which was fine with me. I was very nervous to show up in places where I maybe didn’t have an audience. So most of it has been done virtually and that seems to be going really well.

[00:29:33]  Megan Porta 

 That’s great. How long do you anticipate the promotional process going? I mean, I know it’s never ending. You’re always going to be promoting your awesome work of art, but, like, the really heavy duty part, how long is that going to happen?

[00:29:46]  Jess Smith 

 It felt like the first week that the book was released was just huge. Like we were really trying to get the word out as much as possible because that’s just a big week for getting the book, getting eyes on the book and getting it featured. So the first week really felt like just such a push.

[00:29:58]   

 Just there were so many things happening at once. And then now it even just now, two weeks post release, it’s really calmed down and it’s more like a trickle. The PR office at my publisher does keep saying, as you pointed out, this is an ongoing process. There will be things that come up for years, hopefully where I’ll have a chance to promote the book.

[00:30:18]   

 And of course, now that it’s a piece of my business, I want to give it a shout out as often as I can and make sure that that’s just a part of ongoing promotions. So it’s now, I think, a tiny. I think going forward, hopefully it’s just a small part of. Of promotions is just a small part of the overall business.

[00:30:35]  Megan Porta 

 Looking back over your journey with your cookbook, what is, I don’t know, something unexpected, an unexpected part of the process, or maybe something that took longer than you thought, or just something that you’re like. Yeah, that. That was a surprise to me.

[00:30:53]  Jess Smith 

 It’s a good question, I think. I think, because I, and most food bloggers write recipes every day test recipes, photograph recipes that I thought, oh, that’ll be so easy. But then putting them together in a collection of 100 recipes and thinking about how they would all look next to each other and how the book would cohesively, you know, roll throughout all of the chapters was really different.

[00:31:22]   

 It was a really different experience for me. And I had probably, I mean, my initial list of recipe concepts was probably more than double the hundred that I narrowed down to. Partly because I really wanted to believe in these recipes. I wanted them to live forever and me not to question why I put that one in the book.

[00:31:39]   

 And that is how I feel. I feel very, very confident in every single recipe. But that was harder than I thought it was going to be.

[00:31:45]  Megan Porta 

 That’s interesting. Yeah. I think probably every cookbook author comes away with a different answer to that. Right. Like some people say the photography was hard, the writing was hard, so it’s always interesting to hear which piece of it kind of surprised you. So, and then if you’re listening on YouTube, I would love to hear in the comments if you have a hang up, like maybe you just really want to publish a cookbook and you have one of those hang ups that we’ve kind of alluded to, tell us what it is because, you know, you can get past pretty much anything like Jess is saying and create your amazing product, put it out in the world.

[00:32:25]   

 I think it’s so important to do that. What other piece of the process do you want to talk about, Jess, and do you think is really important to share with people listening?

[00:32:35]  Jess Smith 

 I can’t emphasize enough how important I think narrowing down that proposal is. And even if you’ve, I’ve heard people say, even if you self publish, spending the time to create an outline and lay out what that, that you know, what the book will be, I think is worth all the time you invest in it because it does make the rest of the process go so smooth.

[00:32:55]   

 So, and definitely don’t be afraid to, I mean, getting, getting help and asking some experts to come in and help me refine this idea. It was worth, it was worth the money, it was worth the time, it was worth all of that.

[00:33:08]  Megan Porta 

 So worth everything. Do you feel like people could do the proposal on their own, just kind of self educate and research and get that done, or do you really feel like if you’re doing this for the first time, you need to get help and hire that out?

[00:33:22]  Jess Smith 

 I think if you wanted to do it on your own, there’s a, there are a lot of resources. I think you definitely Could, I would say, make sure that you have a trusted peer, hopefully somebody who is a great editor or really has, who will give you the truth, you know, who will, you can trust to tell you what they really think, who can edit it, and then make sure that you understand the, the objective of each part of the proposal.

[00:33:45]   

 There is sort of a standard method to writing those, and I would say it’s really important to make sure that you follow that and you understand each of the parts and you have someone to read it and review it. And my agent, when I found my agent, she did help me refine it further.

[00:33:59]   

 So there’s always a chance that again, if you have this great idea, you could write a proposal yourself and just start. You know, you’re just, you’re just kind of not cold calling cold emailing agents to find someone who’s the right fit. Yeah. And so there may be a chance that someone would be willing to kind of help you further refine it too.

[00:34:15]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. And then monetarily, I know that not every cookbook author brings in the moolah, like big time, but do you feel like monetarily it was worth the worthwhile?

[00:34:29]  Jess Smith 

 I mean, I probably, like I said, I, I to buy the food to, I mean, if you, if I try to factor my time into the equation, there’s no way on paper it would be financially. I would recommend it from a financial standpoint.

[00:34:47]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah.

[00:34:47]  Jess Smith 

 And definitely I went into it knowing that all of my advance, I was comfortable spending in the resources that I would need to make sure that this was something that I really loved. And so hiring some help, even just help washing dishes and helping prep stuff was worth the money to me. So, yeah, it’s yet to be seen.

[00:35:04]   

 And so much of it, I think, is so hard to quantify, you know, because if it helps grow the brand, if it helps give me opportunities to speak, and that, that could end up being really valuable. So it’s yet to be seen, but great answer.

[00:35:19]  Megan Porta 

 I love that, like, because so many times in our businesses the things that are on paper don’t make sense and somebody with a really analytical, strategic mind would say, nope, not going to do it. But I don’t think everything has to make sense to us. Like, we just know in our hearts if something is meant to be put out there, like we’re saying, like, if you have a great idea, you know, if it needs to be put out into the world, so the on paper doesn’t always matter.

[00:35:49]   

 You just have to go with it. Like, this is going to help you, you have probably a knowledge panel now on Google. You can use this as kind of a giant business card to speak and to give yourself credibility and all of those good things. So there’s, there’s so much that, that you can’t quantify, like you said.

[00:36:08]   

 So don’t get hung up on the on paper stats because that doesn’t always matter. And I love that you followed your gut with this.

[00:36:17]  Jess Smith 

 And I loved the process, Megan. Like, that’s. I don’t want to, you know, you’re right. You have to kind of look at some of these. So many things that we do for our businesses have to be about the bottom line and that’s what will keep our businesses thriving. And I really do. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t think it would benefit the business as a whole eventually.

[00:36:34]   

 But I love the process. I mean, I really wanted to do it and I am so glad I did. And yeah, I learned so much and it was absolutely worth the experience of seeing how it all played out.

[00:36:47]  Megan Porta 

 Well, I’m so happy for you. Thank you for sharing your story. And every story is unique. Even if it’s like if we have 10 interviews in a row about cookbook publishing, every single story is going to be unique. So this brought its special things and we’re just so grateful that you are willing to share the process with us, Jess.

[00:37:08]   

 So thank you for being here and I hope that you sell a million jillion trillion copies of your cookbook in the next months and years.

[00:37:17]  Jess Smith 

 I hope so too.

[00:37:20]  Megan Porta 

 Do you have a favorite quote or words of inspiration to share with us?

[00:37:23]  Jess Smith 

 I don’t know if it’s a quote or if it’s. But it’s something that I always keep in the back of my mind. And that is if you’re not failing, you’re not not trying. And certainly in this process, you know, there was rejection and there was getting news that I didn’t want to hear.

[00:37:36]   

 And that’s sort of part of daily life of being an entrepreneur and running your own business. And anytime that comes my way, I just think that means I’m trying. That means I’m trying something new and putting myself out there.

[00:37:47]  Megan Porta 

 Oh, I love that. What a great message to end on. We will put together a show notes page for you, Jess, with everything we’ve talked about today. If you want to go look at those, head to eatblogtalk.com/inquiringchef so tell everyone where they can find you and of course, mention your cookbook again and where people can find that.

[00:38:06]  Jess Smith 

 Yes. So I am Inquiring Chef everywhere. And my book is Start With a Vegetable and it is available pretty much everywhere too. So you can find it in local bookstores, online and at your library, hopefully.

[00:38:20]  Megan Porta 

 Awesome. Well everyone go check it out. And thanks again Jess for being here. Thank you for listening, food bloggers. I will see you next time.

[00:38:29]   

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Don’t forget to rate and review Eat Blog Talk on your favorite podcast player. Thank you. And I will see you next time.