Spicy Reading : So You Want to Write a Cookbook?

Gayle Dunn wants to write a cookbook for bachelors. Peggy Silva wants to write one for working mothers. Karitas Mitrogogos, a diplomat’s wife, wants to write an international-entertaining cookbook, and Patricia Henly, manager of the Little Pie Co., wants to write a little pie cookbook.

They were among the 30 people who recently took a day-long workshop at New York’s New School for Social Research entitled “How to Get a Cookbook Published.” Brows knitted, pens flying, they filled notebook pages with tips on how to find an agent (look at the acknowledgement section of your favorite cookbook) and how long it will take (longer than you think: Rose Beranbaum spent eight years on “The Cake Bible”). All of them--from caterers to cooking teachers to the woman who said she had 50 years of recipes in her head--were sure they had a cookbook in them and just needed help in getting it published.

About 600 cookbooks are published in this country every year, said speaker Stephen Schmidt, author of “Master Recipes.” Some are by stars such as Julia Child or Martha Stewart. Most are written by people like those who paid $14 for the New School workshop.

Why do so many people want to publish cookbooks? Because they think it is easy and that they will make a lot of money, said literary agent Judith Weber, who appeared with her client, Michele Scicolone, author of “The Antipasto Table.” “Neither is true. Writing a cookbook is a lot of work. And if the advance even covers your expenses on a first book, you are very, very lucky.”

If that does not discourage you, here is Schmidt’s step-by-step plan for getting published.

First, ask yourself why you want to write a cookbook. This will help you focus on the topic. You should be able to describe the book in 30 seconds, the amount of time a publisher’s salesman gets to sell it to a bookstore.

Next, decide who would buy it and how it should be marketed. This will tell you if it should be a hard-cover book, a trade paperback or an inexpensive paperback. (Morrow book editor Harriet Bell once got a proposal for a scuba-diver’s cookbook--”It wasn’t enough that you had to cook it, but you had to catch it first”--with plans to sell it in dive shops.)

Any lawyer can negotiate a contract, but you need an agent to be taken seriously by publishers. And you need an agent because they have lunch with book editors.

Getting an agent is as hard as getting a publisher. First go to the library and look at the agents listed in “Literary Market Place” (R. W. Bowker). To find those who specialize in cookbooks, look at Irena Chalmers’ “Food Professional’s Guide” and in the front of cookbooks, where authors thank their families, friends and agents.

Ask other writers who their agents are, and if they’re happy with them. Talk to people. Michele Scicolone met Judith Weber at a meeting of the International Assn. of Cooking Professionals.

Now you are ready to start writing, but not on the book. Pick out five agents and prepare a query letter to send them.

The query letter should be one or two pages long and say who you are and what the book will be about. Attach any printed material about yourself: a resume, reviews of your restaurant, clips of articles you have written. Write as well as you can. Think of the letter as an advertisement for you and your book.

If you are lucky, you will get an answer. If you are very lucky, you will get several. Talk to all agents who answer and pick the one you feel most comfortable with. You will be paying him or her 10% to 15% of everything you make on the book for years to come. In return, the agent guides the book through the selling process.

While you wait for the agents to answer, you should be working on a proposal. Not only is a proposal your chief selling tool, said Schmidt, but a good one can increase your advance by thousands of dollars.

The proposal should be at least 20 pages long and divided into three sections. One explains who you are, in a way that will impress a publisher that you’re saleable. The next section tells what the book is about, why it is needed and who will buy it. So far, it is the same stuff you put in your query letter. What’s new is that you also include a table of contents and a sample chapter.

Here is where you show off your writing skills and cooking ideas. Write the recipes in a way that makes readers hungry. And make them perfect, because an editor may take a page home and cook from it to see if you know what you’re doing.

If the book is sold, what can you expect?

An advance of $15,000 to $20,000 against royalties, with half paid immediately, another quarter paid when you produce half the book and the rest paid when you hand in the finished manuscript.

How long will it take? “As long as it takes,” said Schmidt, confessing that his first book took six years to produce and his second is already three months past deadline.

And then?

“And then it’s time to start working on your next book. That’s when you may see some real money, because you’ve learned so much from your first.”