As the Paris Cookbook Fair gets underway next month, cookbook publishers are getting ready to do some shopping—and not just the sort that involves stocking up on Dijon mustard and bonbons from Fauchon. "Foreign rights have always been a major activity for big fiction books," says Edouard Cointreau, president of the fair. "Now they are becoming a key to the business of smaller publishers and authors.... [They may] be small deals, but you cannot ignore the total income they generate. Small streams make big rivers."
Yet even if an American cookbook features international recipes—which many of this spring's titles do, from Marja Vongerichten's The Kimchi Chronicles to The Sweets of Araby by Leila Salloum Elias and Muna Salloum—"American" can be a tough sell in foreign markets, agents and publishers agree. "Publishers tend to be more interested in authors who have a local platform," explains Nicole Bond, associate director, foreign rights at Grand Central Publishing. Still, Cointreau notes, U.S. publishers have successfully brought cookbooks by unknown authors into international markets, and vice versa—you just have to follow the recipe for success.
An American Cookbook Author Abroad
First, cookbooks covering international cuisines obviously have a greater potential for foreign sales. Despite their popularity in the U.S., American classics like pot roast and mac-and-cheese don't have much crossover appeal.
"Many of our U.S.-based authors are developing amazing recipes with an international flair—which we know increases their sales potential overseas, regardless of whether we sell rights to a foreign publisher or distribute the book internationally ourselves," says Lissa Warren, v-p, senior director of publicity at Da Capo Press and Da Capo Lifelong Books.
Warren points to Viva Vegan!: 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers by Venezuelan-American cookbook author Terry Hope Romero, which Da Capo published last year. It sold well in the U.S., says Warren, but also in the U.K., where Da Capo's British arm, Perseus UK, distributed it. Da Capo is starting to see similar success overseas with another newly published vegan cookbook, Appetite for Reduction: 125 Fast & Filling Low-Fat Vegan Recipes by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, VegNews magazine's 2010 "favorite cookbook author," as well as with the popular backlist title Veganomicon, coauthored by Romero and Moskowitz.
Packing up and moving abroad can also give American cookbook authors the street cred that can translate into big international sales. One of Morrow's bestselling cookbook authors, Patricia Wells, divides her time between Paris and Provence. Her book Patricia Wells at Home in Provence (1996) won the James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook. In April, Morrow will publish Salad as a Meal, and in November, Simply Truffles. Wells's books have been translated into Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, and Swedish. (See Wells's "Why I Write.")
Expat status has also been a boon to Pamela Sheldon Johns, a Californian who has lived full- or part-time in Italy for 19 years. She has published cookbooks with Andrews McMeel, teaches cooking classes, has a B&B in Tuscany, and even her own line of olive oil. In August, Andrews McMeel will publish Johns's Cucina Povera. Along the same lines, in March, the Little Bookroom will release Italy Dish by Dish by Monica Sartoni Cesare, which was translated by Susan Simon, another American cookbook author who has lived in Italy.
| How It Happens: Agate's Gamble on 'Plancha' Aside from strolling the aisles of the Paris Cookbook Fair, how does a small publisher outside of New York, where most international cookbook deals happen, find possible titles to import? For Doug Seibold, president of Chicago's Agate Publishing, a book actually found him. Now, five years later, it will attempt to find U.S. readers. In 2006, Sophie Picon, who'd moved to Chicago from France, contacted Seibold because she was pursuing rights opportunities for a Bordeaux press, Editions Sud Ouest. Seibold was new to food publishing and liked Sud Ouest's books—he calls them "colorful and practical guides to different cuisines"—though he didn't have any idea how to publish them in the U.S. But early last year, an Agate intern, Danielle McCumber, who is half-French and a native bilingual French/English speaker, saw some of Picon's Sud Ouest books, which Seibold had kept in his office. One of them, Plancha, about a Spanish grilling technique that uses a special metal plate to cook the food, seemed viable in the U.S., especially once Agate's head of sales, Eileen Johnson, started investigating the availability of plancha grills in the U.S. and found that a couple of retailers—including Williams-Sonoma—were starting to carry them. Seibold and Picon made a foreign rights deal, and McCumber translated the book. In June, Agate's Surrey Books imprint will release Plancha: 150 Great Recipes for Spanish-Style Grilling by Liliane Otal. "We thought that the time might be right to take a flyer on something like this book," says Seibold. "There's nothing else like it in U.S. bookstores." |
Special diet cookbooks are another topic that can spark interest in foreign territories. In many places outside the U.S., there's a lack of information concerning special diet needs, so some American publishers have done well publishing or selling the foreign rights to books focusing on gluten-free, diabetic, and vegan diets. Andrews McMeel is optimistic that Quick-Fix Gluten Free by Robert Landolphi, which comes out in August, will find a market abroad. And Chicago-based Agate has done very well with three gluten-free books written or co-written by Annalise G. Roberts, most notably Gluten-Free Baking Classics, which Agate's Surrey Books imprint first published in 2006 (an expanded second edition pubbed in 2008). That book has found an international audience online, helped in part by nearly 200 reader reviews on Amazon. "For a book like this—one that is actively sought out by a very interested customer base, eager if not desperate for guidance about how to bake gluten-free—digital word of mouth is of inestimable value," says Agate president Doug Seibold.
Another book that has used word-of-mouth to snag a foreign rights deal is the U.S. bestseller Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, which Thomas Dunne published in the States in 2007. Literary agent Laura Abramo of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management has sold the book to a few foreign territories so far, including the U.K., China, and Taiwan, and although it has only just come out in those markets, Abramo says it's already garnering attention in the U.K. "It's really hard to place cookbooks internationally because cookbook publishing in the U.S. is so platform-driven," Abramo says. "Most of our biggest celebrity chefs don't have the same celebrity abroad." Artisan Bread is largely a word-of-mouth phenomenon; however, the practically fail-proof method for baking bread has been talked about by so many people, especially online, that foreign publishers have begun to show real interest. "Unlike books that are driven by a celebrity platform," Abramo says, "this is driven by people believing [the method] works."
The British Are Here
On the flip side, the crowded U.S. cookbook market can be tough for any author to crack—but it isn't impossible.
Brits are the obvious imports; Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver, both published by Hyperion in the U.S., are solid sellers here (as well as in many international markets). Hyperion has two new books from Oliver coming this year: in April, a trade paperback edition of Jamie's Food Revolution, and in October, Jamie Oliver's Meals in Minutes, a $35 hardcover. Both have 150,000 announced first printings.
Annabel Karmel is a British cookbook author who has written more than 15 books on food for children, of which she has sold just shy of five million copies worldwide. Her books have been translated into 19 languages and are available in Belgium, Brazil, Iceland, Indonesia, and many other countries. Karmel does well in the U.S., where she's published by DK; her recipes have been featured in Scholastic Parent & Child and on The Today Show, BabyCenter.com, and SesameStreet.com.
Indeed, appearing on American TV is key for non-U.S. authors. Anjum Anand (Anjum's Eat Right for Your Body Type: The Super-Healthy Detox Diet Inspired by Ayurveda, Da Capo), who lives in London, and Ching-He Huang, author of three cookbooks published in the U.K. only, where they have been bestsellers (her Chinese Food Made Easy was the U.K.'s fifth bestselling cookbook of 2008) are two Cooking Channel stars trying to break in to the American cookbook market this year. Huang's as-yet-untitled American debut is due out in the fall from Morrow. Also this fall, Ballantine will publish Lorena Garcia's New Latin Classics: Fresh Ideas for Favorite Dishes. Garcia was born and raised in Venezuela, studied culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University, and has two restaurants in Miami. This spring she'll be on NBC's new series America's Next Great Restaurant and is known to Spanish speakers in the U.S. through her regular appearances on Telemundo and Univision.
A popular blog, meanwhile, may be the next best thing to a TV show. Although it isn't coming out until October 2012, Aran Goyoaga's Cannelle et Vanille: Everyday Small Plates from a Basque Kitchen (That Just Happen to Be Naturally Gluten-Free), from Little, Brown, has strong foreign rights potential. Goyoaga grew up in Spain's Basque country, lives in Florida, and maintains a blog, "Cannelle et Vanille," which gets more than 3.8 million visitors a year. Cult followings help, too. The buzz around Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi (Chronicle, Mar.) and Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater (Ten Speed, Apr.) is running high. Ottolenghi, who writes a column for the Guardian, has a restaurant and four prepared-food shops in London; Slater, a columnist for the Observer Magazine, has a sort of underground appeal with in-the-know American foodies, who buy the imported editions of his books.
This spring, some lesser-known British authors will arrive on U.S. shores as well. In March, Firefly Books will publish Jekka's Herb Cookbook by Jekka McVicar, who is known in the U.K. as the author of several books on herbs and whose farm sells herbs all over the world. She's known here, too—albeit to a niche audience. She'll be the keynote speaker at the National Conference of the Herb Society of America in Pittsburgh this June. Firefly has published two of McVicar's books in the U.S., and one of them, Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruit, has "gone through many printings and sold very well," says publicity director Valerie Hatton. Herb Cookbook carries a blurb by Jamie Oliver.
Barron's is also banking on a British author who has made a name for himself in the U.S.: Mark W. Allison, dean of culinary education at the College of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University. Allison's 150 Projects to Get You into the Culinary Arts will pub in March. The book isn't a cookbook per se, but draws on Allison's teaching expertise to cover the basics of food and food preparation, standard kitchen procedures in restaurants and hotels, and advice on applying to and entering culinary schools.
Other English Speakers May Apply
Even if you aren't English, if you speak the language, you definitely have a leg up on getting published in the U.S. market. On March 29, Atria Books is bringing an Australian franchise, when it publishes 4 Ingredients: More Than 400 Quick, Easy, and Delicious Recipes Using 4 or Fewer Ingredients by Australians Kim McCosker and Rachael Bermingham. Initially snubbed by publishers because they weren't well-known professional chefs, the authors self-published—McCosker took out a homeowner's loan to finance the printing of 2,000 copies of 4 Ingredients. It took off in Australia and the U.K., selling more than two million copies and spawning an app. The authors wrote three more books, have two TV programs that air in 16 countries, and have a 4 Ingredients cookware line.
Irish authors are also starting to make inroads into the U.S. market. In April, Dufour Editions will release An Irish Butcher Shop by Pat Whelan, a pre-eminent Irish butcher; he and his shop have been featured on the BBC show Rick Stein's Food Heroes (the book was originally published in Ireland by Collins Press). Another Irish author, Rachel Allen, who is a bestseller in the U.K. and Ireland, is published in the U.S. by Morrow and is on the Cooking Channel.
Although Canada is so close, "Vancouver might as well be on another planet for many people in the U.S.," says Claire McKinney, who runs her own PR firm and is working on Vij's at Home: Relax, Honey by Meera Dhalwala and Vikram Vij (Douglas & McIntyre, Apr.). The authors are co-owners of Vij's, a five-star Indian restaurant in Vancouver. Their first cookbook, Vij's Inspired and Elegant Indian Cuisine, had what McKinney calls "very minimal publicity," but still sold a respectable 6,000 copies in the States—an impressive number for any distributed title in the U.S., but even more for relatively unknown restaurateurs from a Canadian city. The book sold 50,000 copies. Vij's at Home came out in Canada last fall and has already shipped about 30,000 copies. A rep for the publisher said the house expects the new book to "easily exceed" sales of the first. Dhalwala will do cooking demos at Whole Foods and Williams-Sonoma in New York to promote it.
Farther Afield
Phaidon is one U.S. house that has had success publishing cookbooks by international authors from far-flung locales. Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine by Danish chef René Redzepi, which came out last October, was at the top of numerous best cookbook of the year lists and Amazon has been sold out for two months; Phaidon is currently reprinting the book and says it will be available again in March. Noma was covered in Vogue, GQ, and the front page of the New York Times Dining section, and Redzepi appeared on Charlie Rose, Nightline, NPR's All Things Considered, and other media. Phaidon's publicity and marketing director for North America, Liz Thompson, said Noma's success "[set] a new standard for chef cookbooks with a chef outside of the U.S." Phaidon also plans a revised and updated edition of The Silver Spoon cookbook for this year, an Italian home cooking cookbook that does not have an American author yet has sold "extremely well" since 2005. Also on Phaidon's docket for fall is The Family Meal: Home Cooking at el Bulli by Ferran Adrià, priced surprisingly low ($29.95).
| Recipe for Success What helps make a cookbook more attractive to foreign publishers? Anja Schmidt, publisher of Kyle Books, says, "We stay away from food memoir and food narratives. In our experience, they do not cross over either way. We always stick with recipe collections. They need to be illustrated; foreign publishers don't want books that don't have a lot of pretty pictures. And they like shorter recipes; they're easier to translate." Doug Seibold, president of Agate Publishing, says, "One thing we've been doing at Agate to give our books more export appeal: beginning with our 2010 releases, we're now including metric, in addition to traditional, measures in the recipe decks for each of our new cookbooks." |
While Redzepi and Adrià are internationally acclaimed, other publishers prefer not to play it so safe. Interlink, for example, publishes almost exclusively cookbooks with an international perspective, and its backlist has only three cookbooks by authors even living in the U.S. (though those three books are on "foreign" cuisine). All of Interlink's other cookbook authors live outside the U.S. and usually write about their native cuisine, including the Middle East, Portugal, Africa, the Caribbean, India, Japan, Greece, Europe, Indonesia, and the U.K. The house produces its own original cookbooks, copublishes with and distributes for foreign publishers, and occasionally buys North American rights to foreign cookbooks. Recent hits have included The Turkish Cookbook by Nur Ilkin and Sheilah Kaufman, which the publisher has been unable to keep in stock. The spring season brings paperback editions of The Iraqi Cookbook by Lamees Ibrahim, Cardamom and Lime: Recipes from the Arabian Gulf by Sarah al-Hamad, and a new edition of Portuguese Homestyle Cooking by Ana Ortins.
In 2008, Schocken published The Book of New Israeli Food by Janna Gur, founder and chief editor of Israel's leading food and wine magazine. Though Gur lives in Tel Aviv, she came to New York and did events at the 92nd Street Y and other venues. Schocken sold 16,000 copies of the book.
Quirk Books in Philadelphia has done well with The Geometry of Pasta, which it bought from Macmillan in spring 2010 and published in the states in October 2010. A starred PW review along with a slew of other media resulted in strong sales. Sales director Jessica Schmidt said Geometry is showing "promising signs" of being a perennial backlist bestseller for Quirk: "The real strength of this title has been adoption and promotions by independent specialty shops across the nation, as well as with Amazon."
The Paris Cookbook Fair is already sold out of exhibit space, and twice the number of rights center tables as last year have booked. It's clear that the global cookbook market is growing. What used to be a buffet of small side dishes is actually starting to amount to a real meal.
