How to Market Your Cookbook and Make Money Like a Celebrity

Photo by Elevae Visuals

“How does she have a cookbook? She can’t even boil water.”

“Most of those recipes are stolen from Pinterest.”

“I know one of the test kitchen developers, and they said all the original recipes were absolute garbage.”

Sound familiar? Well, if you’ve been in food media for a while, you know this conversation all too well. A celebrity or influencer snags a SWEET cookbook deal they may or not have “deserved”. It shoots straight to the New York Times bestseller list. They’re on every national morning and afternoon show talking about their book and demoing some of the recipes. People gush about how great the dishes are (or not), and you’re left sitting there thinking: How am I ever going to make my book a success when people like this crap?

The first step is to stop hating on the popular kids. You’re not in competition with them. Their book successes make it easier for publishing houses to take a chance on authors with smaller followings. Because as much as publishers love books, they also love making money. It’s how they stay in business.

So, instead of writing furiously in your journal about how unfair it is that celebrities and huge influencers get these massive book deals, look at what you can learn from them. Yes, they have entire teams that help them, but there’s always something you can use for yourself. 

And most of it has to do with marketing. Because folks with huge followings have to constantly promote themselves, and they do it without shame. That doesn’t mean you need to fill your feed with #ad and constantly be shilling stuff. But it does mean you need to get more comfortable with putting yourself out there in a way that converts to dollars. So, let's look at how you can market your cookbook and make money like an A-list celebrity.

Show up like you want people to find you

The amount of aspiring (or existing) cookbook authors who have dormant websites, email lists they’ve forgotten about, or social media accounts they use haphazardly is baffling. It feels like they started one thing to only be pulled to another thing and then they move on to the next. But if people are looking for you (agents, publishers, magazine editors, morning show segment producers, brands…), and they find a trail of half-done things, what do you think that tells them? Nothing good, for sure.

If you’re going to do this whole cookbook author thing, cover your bases. Have a completed website with an About page, maybe some FAQs, and how to contact you. Throw in a nice photo of yourself and move on. You don’t need to hire someone to create it for you. There are plenty of website providers who have drag-and-drop templates you can use. And if you don’t know how to do something, reach out to the company. Look up tutorials online. No one knows what they’re doing in the beginning, but they figure it out.

This applies to email and social media too. You can only say you don’t know where to start for so long. Most people hide behind this idea of being a “perfectionist”, and that’s their excuse for not starting. But they’re just scared. That’s okay, but at some point, you have to get over it and take yourself and your marketing seriously.

Be a good host and have party favors ready

You may not be in a spot to have a bunch of giveaways, but you can be generous to your audience in other ways. The first being, your email opt-in. This is a freebie you create and promote, so people will give you their email address. From there, they’ll be added to your email list, where you’ll nurture a deeper relationship with them. And because email has an ROI of $36 per dollar spent, it’s worth it to create a cool offer people will happily through down their email address for. This will be especially helpful when you launch pre-orders for your book.

Beyond email, dream up things your audience would just love. Collaborations with other food creators and influencers? Ask me anything sessions? Behind the scenes content they’ve been asking for? You probably have ideas about how you’d like to promote your book once it’s out. So, why not use some of those things now? It’ll give you practice, so you can figure out what works and what doesn’t. That way, when you’re ready to promote your book, you’ll have already worked out the kinks.

Send out the invitations

You wouldn’t throw a party and forget the guest list, right? So, why are you not inviting people to join your email list, buy a ticket for your pop-up dinner or to go to your website to learn more? These invitations are calls to action, and your audience needs them. 

Sure, you can assume people will “just know” they should sign up for a something because you post in on social media. But chances are, you’re probably posting things without any context or urgency. You’re thinking if you post it, they will come. Nope. Or that if you post too much, they’ll unsubscribe or unfollow. Maybe. But there’s more people where they came from.

Celebrities and influencers are constantly sending out invitations for people to participate, to buy, to do something that’ll move them along. And you won’t magically become an expert at this once your book comes. You’ll probably become super annoying because you’ve never done any of this before, and it’ll read as desperate. But if you invite people to your party now, even if it’s an intimate cocktail moment, you’ll be ready for the bigger bashes up ahead. 

One simple way to do this is to launch something. Pick an action you want your audience to take—sign up for your newsletter, buy tickets to your pop-up event, or grab a seat in your class next month. Create an announcement date, a week’s+ of content around your offer, and then (if applicable) close the doors with a sweet something they get for signing up during your “launch”. It could be a price discount or special bonus. 

(Want some help with the planning? I’m mildly obsessed with this Launch Template from Coming Up Roses.)

But the more you practice these mini-launches, the easier it will be to launch your actual book. And people will get familiar with you selling and pushing them towards a purchase or sign up. You’ll also find your own rhythm for talking about your work because it takes time. 

The more open you are about what you’re working and how you want people to participate, the more doors will be opened for collaborations and brand deals. Plus, agents and publishers love seeing aspiring cookbook authors selling their work and services. It shows them you can motivate people to take action with their time and wallets, which is a sign of an engaged audience. And it can lead to a bigger advance or more lucrative partnerships in the future.

How to start the party now

Most food creators and influencers start making content without a clear way to connect the dots. But now that you know you have want people to find you, have party favors for your people and invite them to your party, it’s time to throw your own party. How? 

Well, your first step would be to sign up for my free video course, Writing Gold: 5 Days to Kickstart Your Cookbook Writing and Grow Your Audience of Raving Fans, here. It’ll give you a road map to email marketing through the lens of writing your cookbook. Most of this stuff goes hand in hand, and I wanted to make marketing FUN for you. Inside, you’ll also find an onboarding template for new email subscribers that’ll make you want to send out party invitations immediately. Grab your spot in Writing Gold now.