So you want to write a cook book?

After much reading and research using the internet but mainly the bible for writers ‘Writers and Artists’ Yearbook, 2006’ here are the conclusions I have come to: (Writers and Artists’ Yearbook is recommended by the Writers’ Guild, and myself and can be found at any book shop for £13.99 –get it!)

• Writing a cook book is a lot of work –so don’t try unless you can allocate a lot of personal time to this project (I have found that unless the social life commitments are cut down the cook book is not going anywhere!)

• Writing a cookbook takes a lot of dedication and determination (you have to keep going and there is a lot to do – my next task is to start the creation of labels for approx 100pages of listings for publishers and agents –all names and addresses need to be manually input into Excel from the ‘bible’ (any volunteers for some inputting of data?). After that I need to write a covering letter for each, yes there will be some duplication, but will try and tailor some to specific people which takes time and research….lots of Googling publishing houses and agents.
• Your initial pitch letter and proposal are the most important –make sure they are clear in describing what you are writing (e.g. theme, style, look and feel), who you are, why you are in a good position to write it and who your cookbook will be targeted at –which audience will buy it? It is easy to write a pitch letter but how do you differentiate yours from apparently the hundreds that authors and publishers receive each day!

Any Suggestions?? They will be greatly rewarded - I will cook you a meal from the Sicilian selection.

• There will be several rejection letters from agents and publishers so keep trying
  Hmmm…accepting lots of rejection??

This will not an easy thing but as George Bernard Shaw says:

‘A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.’