Breathing new life into a 1,040-page, six-pound book isn't easy, but the double-strength marketing minds at Gourmet magazine and Houghton Mifflin have come up with a scheme for reinvigorating The Gourmet Cookbook, which was first published late in 2004. Starting this September, new editions of the book will include a 45-minute DVD with demonstrations of how to make some of Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl's favorite dishes. It's an expensive endeavor, but Houghton is confident it will spur even more sales for the book, which already has 500,000 copies in print.
The house has hired two former Food Network producers to create the DVD and filmed the four demos (performed by some of the book's editors), plus Reichl's introduction, recently in Manhattan. The recipes—for risotto, duck breast, gougères and devil's food cake—were selected not just because they're some of Reichl's favorites but because they also illustrate techniques that can be applied to many dishes.
Houghton executive editor Rux Martin explained the philosophy behind the DVD: "The Gourmet Cookbook is something we want people to buy in droves for their friends season after season, year after year. We wanted to give bookstores a reason to order in as many copies as they could, not just in ones and twos, but in stacks." The book's jacket will feature a sticker promoting the "value-added" DVD, and the price will remain at $40.
The Gourmet Cookbook's life in the market has been somewhat tumultuous: Houghton paid a reported $1-million advance, with a promise of another million in publicity. A splashy party at Gourmet's test kitchens in the Condé Nast building was followed by a 250,000-copy first printing, in time for the Christmas 2004 shopping season. However, publication was initially overshadowed by the infamous yellow font issue: the recipe names were printed in a barely legible pale yellow, which Reichl called "a horrible surprise" and blamed on a printing mistake. Houghton changed the color to orange for the second printing and allowed readers to trade in old editions for new ones.
According to Nancy Grant, Houghton's v-p of marketing for reference, guides and cookbooks, the house plans "a substantial printing in the low six figures" for the book/DVD combo.
