3 Things to Know About Writing a Cookbook from James Beard Award-Winner Ann Taylor Pittman
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Before I worked at Cooking Light, I didn’t realize how involved writing a cookbook was. You see books with pretty pictures, laid out recipes and some essays or blurbs — easy, right? What you don’t see are the nuts and bolts of what it takes to actually write the book.
Even if you’ve developed, tested and published recipes before, creating an entire cookbook or memoir with recipes isn’t the same thing. No one teaches you how to write a cookbook, and it’s different from any other type of writing.
That’s why I wanted my former colleague and two-time James Beard Award winner Ann Taylor Pittman to share her insights on the process. With two titles to her name, Everyday Whole Grains and the award-winning The New Way to Cook Light, you’re getting a mini-masterclass on what it takes to craft the right idea. Here are the 3 things to know about writing a cookbook.
1. How do you know your cookbook idea is worth pursuing?
It’s incredibly important to do some research—look deeply into the competitive set of cookbooks to see if your idea has already been well covered. If it has, perhaps there’s a way to put your own unique spin on it to make it feel fresh. If you can’t offer something new, you need to rethink and regroup.
2. What’s a mistake most authors make during the writing process?
They don’t self-edit. When you’re given the freedom to express your thoughts and passions, it’s tempting to pursue every topic and subtopic and half-related thought that you find interesting. But if it doesn’t advance your central idea (or thesis … I used to teach English composition), you have to have the discipline to strip it out. Remove all the superfluous stuff so that what matters can get the emphasis it deserves.
3. What’s your biggest piece of advice for recipe development?
Well, sorry, but I have two pieces of advice. First, become an excellent and timely note-taker. Jot down any important information—cook times, yields, visual cues for doneness, etc.—in the moment. If you try to remember that info later, it’s likely that you won’t. Second, remove all distractions; get in a concentration zone. For me, that means putting on classical music as I work; podcasts or songs with lyrics distract me. Recipe development is extremely detail-oriented, and you simply have to be able to record all of those details that unfold as the recipe comes into being.
Ann Taylor Pittman is the recipient of two James Beard Foundation Awards: a feature writing award for “Mississippi Chinese Lady Goes Home to Korea” and a cookbook award for The New Way to Cook Light. For 20 years, she built a career of creating healthy recipes at Cooking Light magazine, where served as Executive Editor when the magazine closed in December 2018. She is now a freelancer specializing in recipe development and writing. Ann lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, their teenage twin boys, one big dog, and one little dog.
