ANYWHO. On to the nitty gritty!

People ask me this a lot: how do you write recipes for a world that doesn’t have any food in it?

The answer is that it has more food than you think — you just have to listen for it.

Step one: I listen to the whole series.

I’m an audiobook girlie, which works out perfectly for this kind of project. I listen through the entire series and make a note every single time food is mentioned. Not all of those mentions make it into the book, but most do. These are my low-hanging fruit (pun absolutely intended).

For A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant: The Unofficial Fourth Wing Cookbook (Amazon, Bookshop), this step was humbling. There really is almost no food in the Empyrean books. Xaden’s chocolate cake is basically it. For A Feast of Thorns and Roses: The Unofficial ACOTAR Cookbook (Amazon, Bookshop), I had pages of notes — Prythian is a world that feasts constantly and Sarah J. Maas writes food with real specificity. It was definitely an easier task to write that cookbook.

Step two: Every prominent character, place, and scene gets a recipe.

This is where it gets fun. Once I’ve exhausted the explicit food mentions, I start thinking about who and what NEEDS to be in the cookbook. We aren’t leaving out any essential characters, here.

For characters, I dig into the descriptors. Mor smells like “citrus and cinnamon” according to Feyre’s first impression — so that’s her cocktail, “Morrigan’s Sparkle and Spice Punch.” The recipes are often right there, if you’re paying attention. For characters who don’t have that kind of sensory detail, I think about their personalities, what they’d cook, what they’d eat. Ridoc got nachos. Obviously. Imogen got a pre-run granola with dehydrated raspberries — a nod to her pink hair. Sgaeyl got a chardonnay spritzer because she just seems like a chardonnay gal who’s talking shit in the corner.

For A Feast of Thorns and Roses, I organized some of this by section — the Inner Circle members all got cocktails, each Court got a dessert — and also scattered characters throughout. For A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant (Amazon, Bookshop), I wove characters in throughout rather than grouping them. Different books, different instincts.

Step three: The party menus.

Both books include party menus in the back — for book clubs, themed dinners, festive gatherings. I build out the concept for each menu first, then look at what existing recipes work for the menu, and then develop new recipes to fill the holes. Some of my favorite recipes in both books exist simply because a party menu needed a side dish or an app and I had to come up with something on-theme to complete the spread.

Step four: The step back.

Once I think I have everything, I look at the collection as a whole. Do I have enough cocktails? Too many desserts? Does it feel complete, or are there obvious gaps? Then I dive back into the world one more time and see what I can come up with — a scene I missed, a character who deserves something, a place that should be represented — and fill it in.

By the end of this process, every recipe in the book is anchored to something real in the series. I feel an immense responsibility when I write these books. The fandoms are serious, and they have high expectations that I want to meet, dammit. I want them to be stoked they spent $30 on this piece of merch, MY piece of merch. I want fans to pick up the book, flip to Imogen’s granola, and think: of course that’s what she eats. I want it to feel like it was always there.

A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant: The Unofficial Fourth Wing Cookbook (Amazon, Bookshop) comes out September 8th. (ALSO WHAT THAT’S IN LIKE TWO WEEKS!) If you’ve been meaning to pre-order, now is the time — pre-order numbers mean a lot. Thank you 🖤

P.S. I’ve had a lot of people asking when we’ll be re-opening The Cookbook Lab (self-guided) again. Mark your calendars for the week of 9/22!

I’m a cookbook author (and a thousand other job titles) whose latest book comes out in just three short weeks and has just 11 hours of guaranteed childcare each week.

Spend 3 of those hours with me!

9:20am: The babysitter got here 20 minutes ago but I’m just sitting down at my desk. Things I know I need to accomplish today before I even dive in:

• For the love of god, email the Fantasy Fangirls podcasts host to confirm our live cooking class in September (I keep thinking about this and forgetting)

• Draft Substacks through the end of September (likely too ambitious)

• Finish editing video inspired by new ACOTAR books and post

• Review posts drafted by Stephie in Metricool

• Finalize plans for cooking class I’m teaching at a book retreat NEXT WEEKEND WHAT IS TIME

• Login to Thrivecart and check on Commissary students

• Inbox zero

• Make sure no contractors are waiting on anything from me. Right now, I have 4 contractors. More than I’ve ever had, but I need all the help I can get.

  • Mara: Mara’s been working with me for EIGHT YEARS. What. She knows my business inside and out. Right now she’s primarily working on The Cookbook Lab and all the products inside it, but she touches everything.

  • Stephie: Stephie mostly helps with my social media for The Cookbook Lab and some for my feed (esp. promo posts), as well as copywriting and other random projects.

  • Amy: Amy is currently my Blog Manager, but has helped with lots of other projects in the past and occasionally hops around to other things.

  • Margo: Margo edits videos for me. A couple months ago, I realized how big of a bottleneck this was for me and finally decided to hire it out. I can’t believe it took me so long.

9:30am: Quick break to switch over the laundry. I just got very fancy new percale sheets and I am VERY excited to try them. We are not top sheet people (I wash our duvet cover every time I wash the sheets) and I was thrilled Quince has an option with just fitted sheet + pillowcases.

10:07am: Just Googled “what’s it called when music doesn’t have lyrics?” Instrumental. Oi.

10:13am: Fantasy Fangirl hosts have been emailed, video is edited and posted (with instrumental music).

10:23am: Another switch the laundry break.

10:31am: All pending posts in Metricool have been approved and scheduled. They’re perfect and beautiful as usual, Stephie.

10:38am: Catching up in Slack and got an email that my 11:30am meeting with my publisher’s marketing team is getting pushed. A little annoyed because I had childcare arranged, but I can still make the most of the time. Starting about 3 months before a book’s release, we start meeting as a group every other week. PR boxes and PR generally are going to be the big topics this week.

10:40am: Back to Slack. Chatting with Stephie about book tour and the Portland launch party (she’s designing cupcake toppers for me).

10:48am: Texted the owner of a new local book-themed bar about doing a trivia night as part of the Portland Literary Arts Festival “Cover to Cover” events. Fingers crossed.

10:53am: Logged into The Commissary to look for student questions that need answered.

Side quest: We’re starting the recipe testing section in a few days, and I got inspired to drop something about how useful developing your table of contents can be for bringing clarity to your book and recipe collection.

11:01am: Time to clear my inbox — my least favorite thing. The highlights:

• Responded to an inquiry for a podcast interview and booked the interview for next week

• Confirmed shipping for PR box inclusions

• Added RSVPs for VIPs to my Airtable base where I’m tracking all things launch party. So far, 19/30 VIP slots are taken. VIPs are book or lifestyle influencers and media. They get a comped ticket and swag bag with a copy of the cookbook.

• I’m doing a live TV appearance the morning of my book’s release. Got an email from the producer that they need to switch to a taped episode that morning. Do I want to switch days, or come in the week before to tape? Let’s tape!

• Next weekend, I’ll be serving dinner with recipes from “A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant” at a book retreat on the Oregon Coast by Triple Charm Events. Responded to the hosts about grocery cost and final menu.

• Read an email about a flash tattoo artist for the launch party… I’d have to pay quite a bit out of pocket to have them there, and I’m not sure this is something I want to do. Thinking on it.

• Responded to an email from Verse and Vine confirming details for their release night party for Threshing Day. I’ll be at the party serving Popcorn Conduits and Xaden’s Chocolate Cupcakes.

• Responded to someone who’s looking for help re-publishing a self-published cookbook.

• Emailed the wonderful Diane Morgan about the recipe style guide worksheet we’re prepping for her 9/1 class for The Commissary about recipe writing.

• Added influencers to the PR box mailing list.

It’s 11:55am and my brain is hitting a wall. One… benefit? … to being forced to working in such small bands of time when I can find them is that I go all in when I do, and just a few hours leaves me fried. I keep thinking back to my 8-5 office days and how silly that schedule is. There is so much time waste in those hours. No one is realistically giving it their all from 8-5 in an office.

My restaurant days… those are another story.

The only thing I haven’t done from my OG list was the Substacks for the next 6 weeks, which tracks. I’m going to go reschedule my son’s dentist appointment, format THIS Substack, then at least outline those before my babysitter leaves in 30 minutes.

Thanks for hanging with me through the chaos as we inch closer to book release day! Now back to it. The Substacks aren't going to write themselves.

To say I’m jazzed about their books is the biggest understatement ever.

I’ve been wanting to write this post for weeks. I love reading behind the scenes from other people, and so much work went into building this program and launching it. So, I’m telling you everything: how many people applied, how many said yes and then didn’t, how much I’m making and how much I’m spending, the person who asked for a discount I hadn’t offered and what I did about it, and the emails from people who wanted to join but couldn’t make it work yet.

If you’re nosy (like me!), this one’s for you.

Read more

There’s only 2 spots left, and we’re starting August 12th whether or not they’re filled.

I want to tell you what cohort members are about to experience. Because I’m so excited I can’t stand it.

Here’s what I’m dreaming about: It’s finally Wednesday, August 12th. We all get to meet!!! You get to see all your fellow authors, learn their names, follow them on Instagram. You get to hear me blabber about what to expect over the next 9 months working together and FINALLY ask the question (or two, or three) that’s been haunting you since you signed up.

Oh, and class 2? Everyone giving a 5-minute presentation. Scary, yes, but fun. A little about you, where you’re at with your book right now, your working title, what makes your book different, who it’s for, and what you’re most nervous about in this whole process.

That last one is my favorite part, because we’re all nervous about something. Even me. And one of the best things about being in a small group is realizing really fast that you have a room full of cheerleaders. And even better, you get to be one, too.

I can’t wait to see your mood boards after talk about branding in October. I want to see you in Diane Morgan’s recipe writing workshop getting fired up about the details of your style guide. I want to watch Laura Scherb completely change how you think about food photography. I’m so excited to see Dr. Tiffany Eurich walk you through your personalized pitch calendar and see you realize you actually can email that tv producer.

I can’t wait to be there for all of it.

Here’s what the nine months look like from the inside:

You’ll start by finalizing your recipe list and building your recipe style guide. Then Diane Morgan (18x cookbook author, James Beard Award winner, and the recipe editor for two of my own books) runs a live workshop on technical recipe writing, followed by a 30-minute 1-on-1 with every student.

Then comes visual identity — Laura Scherb’s live photography and styling workshop, developing your visual brand, planning and shooting your recipe photos. Then writing and editing, design with Ashlee Wright’s live intensive, the full manuscript build, and finally: marketing and PR with Dr. Tiffany Eurich, your press kit, pitches, social strategy, launch day, and beyond.

Two classes a month. Five 1-on-1s with me. One with Ashlee, one with Diane, one with Laura. All of us in a message board together, me checking in twice daily Monday through Friday.

The program is fluid by design. Ahead of schedule? Great. Behind? We’ll figure it out. Non-traditional format? Two people in the cohort already have non-traditional formats and I’m SO excited to work through those with them. This isn’t a rigid template — it’s your book, and we’re going to make it happen.

Two spots in The Commissary left. August 11th midnight, doors close.

If you’re ready, fill out the interest form and I’ll get back to you same day.

Fill Out the Interest Form

If you’ve been thinking about it but have questions, here are the questions I’ve been answering for others over the last week and a half.

Do I really need a cookbook?

Honestly? No. If the goal is simply to get your recipes into the hands of readers, a blog or social media can easily do that. No one needs a cookbook.

But I don’t think that’s all a cookbook is for. It’s not just a recipe delivery system for your audience, but an opportunity. It’s a career builder, a credential, a business card. It gives you a reason to have a table at the farmers market, sample at your local kitchen goods store, and get on that podcast. A website alone usually can’t do this.

So the real question is: is this something you’ve been told you should do for years — people saying “you should write a book!” — without it ever being something you actually want to spend a huge part of your life working on?

(It’s okay if the answer is no! You don’t have to want any of the above.)

My cookbook is a non-traditional format. Can the program handle that?

Totally. There are two people in the program doing non-traditional cookbooks (a memoir + cookbook and a guidebook + cookbook) and I’m SO excited to work with them on these projects!

We aren’t working from a rigid template, but working to get your project, whatever that is, completed. I love the idea of blending formats. We’ll review how others have approached similar books and see what we think worked well, what didn’t, what we liked, what we didn’t like, etc. plus your own unique spin on the approach. The right copy editor will be key, here. So will page count. But we’ll work through it together.

How do I build a realistic budget for testing, photography, editing, design, and printing?

The thing I always come back to is time versus money. You can do a lot yourself — it just costs time. You can hire out a lot — it just costs money. It’s just a matter of finding the balance you can handle. I’ve experimented with outsourcing different parts of the process over the years, and I’ll walk you through every cost category and what your options are at each one.

We can even look at things like crowdfunding as a way to offset production costs before the book launches.

When should I know my title, recipe count, subtitle, etc.?

Honestly, all of these things are super fluid. I can’t think of a cookbook I worked on that didn’t have last minute additions and cuts. I have waited until my cover was already designed to nail down the title.

You’re in charge — you get to make these decisions! (But also, I mean, let’s not get crazy with kicking the can down the road, ya know?)

Should I pause my food blog while I’m working on the cookbook?

This is also completely up to you. I promise, your food blog will not die if you take a few months off to work on your book. I have always abandoned my blog at some point in the process, usually the final push, and it’s never mattered. You’re making room for something that will make your blog more successful in the long run, remember that.

How often does the group meet, and how does accountability work?

There are two live calls every month — sometimes one of those is a curriculum and accountability session, sometimes one is a guest expert workshop. Call times haven’t been set yet because I want to find what works for the people who join (you fill out an availability form after registering).

For accountability: there will be multiple times throughout the program where I ask you to share your work with the group, and there are five one-on-ones with me built in where we look at exactly where you are together. No formal homework submissions, but you will be expected to show up and have something to show.

Is there a group chat?

Yes! I’ll be in it daily, and so will your cohort members. I can’t wait to be buddies.

How will I know if the program worked?

Ideally, you’ll have a cookbook at the end of it 😉

I’d love to see you in one of the two remaining seats. You can fill out the interest form to get the ball rolling, or learn more about The Commissary here.

More Commissary info

If you’ve been thinking about joining, I’d get your interest form in now. I respond to these in the order I receive them. You’re not committing to purchasing or signing up for a sales call or anything like that — this just let’s me review your topic and where you’re at to make sure you’re a good fit for this before you invest a whole lotta time and money.

I can’t wait to hear about the cookbook you’re going to write!

Pep talks based on your astrological sign where you're actually stuck in writing your cookbook

I wish I knew enough about astrology to write that but alas, I do not. I do, however, know cookbook authors and what they say when they get stuck.

If you’re stuck in planning mode

I know you. You have your Airtable base perfectly formatted, color-coded. You have a mood board and strong opinions about your cover font.

You have not written a single recipe.

The spreadsheet is not the cookbook. I say this with so much love and zero judgment, because I too have gotten stuck here. The planning feels productive. It is not the work. At some point you just have to get in the kitchen. Said lovingly.

If you’re stuck on perfectionism

The recipe does not have to work on the first test. That’s what the other four tests are for.

The title doesn’t have to be nailed right now. It’ll come with time.

You don’t have to have the table of contents finished. You’re going to scrap recipes as you go.

You cannot edit a blank page. You can only edit a bad first draft, a recipe that didn’t work, a headnote that feels light. An imperfect Google Doc that exists is infinitely more useful than the perfect finished product living in your head. Make it now, fix it as you go.

If you’re stuck on comparison

You’re comparing your chapter one to someone else’s chapter eight, or even twenty-eight.

They also had a chapter one. It was also not exactly where they wanted to be. You just didn’t see it because by the time you found them, they were well on their way.

You’re not behind, or less talented, or less capable. You’re just at a different part of the same road. Keep going.

If you’re stuck on “who am I to write this”

You’re obsessed with something and you want to feed people.

That’s the heart of the job description.

You don’t need a culinary degree. You don’t need a publishing deal. You don’t need to have been featured somewhere impressive. You need a topic you care about deeply enough to spend a year on it, that there’s a market for, and the willingness to do the work.

If you’re stuck on pitching

A “no” costs you one email and approximately fifteen minutes of feeling bad about it before you’re distracted by your to-do list again.

The pitch you never send has a 100% rejection rate. The email sitting in your drafts folder is not protecting you from anything — it’s just guaranteeing you a no. Send the email. The worst case scenario is the empty PR calendar you already have, and likely some lessons to apply to the next round of pitches.

If you’re stuck on “I need a bigger platform first”

Despite what you’ve heard, you don’t need 100k followers. You need one good idea and the nerve to test it in public.

I would know. I don’t even have 8k followers on Instagram.

I’ve watched people with massive audiences publish books or launch products that went nowhere, and people with tiny audiences publish books that sold out at every market they tabled at.

Don’t get me wrong: platform helps. But what I’m saying is it doesn’t have to be the deciding factor. A specific topic that solves a real problem for a real reader can outperform a big following with a vague book. Start now and build the platform alongside the book. That’s actually how most of the best food blogs started, too.

If you’re stuck on “my idea is too niche”

Niche is why people buy it.

Nobody preorders a cookbook that’s for everyone. The weird, specific, hyper-focused one is the one they screenshot and send to their group chat. It’s the one that finds its people and sells out at markets because those people have been waiting for exactly this book. They don’t have this book yet and are so excited to have finally found it. The broad idea sounds safer, but sells worse.

If you’re stuck on finishing

Done with a few errors beats perfect but imaginary.

You can sell a book that exists. The book that’s almost done doesn’t have a listing on Amazon or a table at a farmers market or a reader who messages you to say it changed how they cook. Done is the thing. Stop putting it off and start prioritizing it. Don’t be the cookbook author who cried wolf.

If you read through this list and found yourself in more than one of them, I hear you. Writing a cookbook is a long project and you’ll probably experience each of these at least once.

The thing that I’ve found helps? Structure. Accountability. A deadline you’ve told someone else.

That’s what The Commissary is built around.

Enrollment opened two days ago and only 4 out of 10 seats are left. The cart closes August 11th at midnight.

If you’re ready to stop being stuck and actually finish this book, come say hi.

Check out The Commissary

The difference between those people wasn’t talent or platform size. It wasn’t even having a better topic. It was these three things.

If this resonates with you, I hope you’re on the waitlist for The Commissary. We open the doors in just a few days!

1. They’re willing to live in it.

A cookbook takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to create. Sometimes longer, especially when you factor in marketing. You’re developing recipes, testing them, having others test them, writing headnotes, reviewing photography, laying out pages, marketing before the book is even done. It is a long, sustained project that requires you to care about one thing for an extended period of time.

The people who finish are the ones who are okay with that. They pick a topic they can eat, breathe, and live for years without getting sick of it (or at least, not so sick of it they have to quit). They’re not looking for a break from it — they’re energized by the work even when it’s a slog.

I’ll be honest: this is the one I personally find most challenging. I have an entrepreneurial brain that likes to jump between things. Staying in one project for a sustained stretch is something I have to consciously commit to. But I know it’s part of the work, and the authors I’ve watched finish know it, too.

If you’re picking a topic and thinking “I could write this book,” also ask yourself “could I live inside this topic for a year, two?” Because you’re going to have to.

2. They talk about it. Constantly. Even before it’s done.

This one surprises people. There’s a very common instinct to keep the cookbook quiet until it’s ready. Protect the idea. Don’t tell anyone. Soft launch when it’s perfect.

The authors who finish do the opposite.

They tell everyone. Their followers, their friends, their family, the person they sit next to at the farmers market. It becomes part of their identity before the book exists. “I’m writing a cookbook about X” is something they say out loud, repeatedly, without waiting for someone to ask or a finished product to show them.

Two things happen when you do this. First: it creates accountability. You’ve told too many people to just quit the project. Second: it builds an audience before launch day. The people who finish their cookbooks and sell them well are almost never the ones who surprised everyone with a finished product. They’re the ones whose followers felt like they’d been along for the whole ride.

I hear a version of the same fear constantly: “What if someone steals my idea?” In seven years, I can count on one hand the times I’ve thought that fear was founded. A concept isn’t a cookbook. Your execution, your voice, your photography, your audience — those are what make the book yours, and none of that can be stolen. What actually gets stolen more often is your momentum, by keeping quiet for too long.

People love behind the scenes. Let them in early.

3. They stop planning and do.

I can already see some of you thinking, “Is this story about me?” This is the one that’s hardest to say directly to people, because it can sound dismissive of the real work of preparation. Going in strong matters. Validating your topic matters. I’m not advocating for skipping that.

But there is a version of preparation that is actually avoidance. I’ve watched students plan their cookbook for years. Two years. Three years. They have Pinterest boards and Notion databases and strong opinions about their cover. They do not have a tested recipe.

The authors who finish reach a point where they decide they know enough to start, and they start. Done is better than perfect is something they actually believe, not just something they put on a sticky note. They understand that the manuscript they finish will be better than the perfect book they never write.

I’m opening enrollment for The Commissary — my nine-month cookbook cohort — on July 22nd for waitlist members, and July 27th for the public. Ten seats. One cohort. The whole program is built around giving the right people the structure to actually self-publish a cookbook.

If you’ve been thinking about your cookbook for a while and you recognize yourself in any of the above, the waitlist is open now.

Join the Waitlist

Here’s the actual numbers breakdown.

Read more

Prepping for the webinar last week ended up sending me into a bit of a rabbit hole. I love talking about topic research. I think nailing the your cookbook topic is what allows someone with a small audience to excel with their cookbooks. I like to give solid examples, and I ended up procrastinating by looking at what’s trending, and if those topics have cookbooks. I spent real time on Amazon, checking what’s out there, and asking: where is the market thin? Where is there room for a really good book that hasn’t been written yet, or where what exists isn’t very good?

Here’s what I found. Nineteen ideas, organized by theme. Some have a handful of books in the space. A couple have almost none. One has literally zero. The goal isn’t a topic nobody has touched, but one where you have room to say something, too.

TLDR; I saved the best for last. I would scroll if I were you.

The one true gap

1. The Carbon Steel Cookbook

I’m putting this one first because it’s the only idea on this list that truly has no competition. Carbon steel pans are everywhere — every major food publication has covered them, they’re selling by the thousands — and there is not a single dedicated cookbook. Cast iron spawned dozens of great books. Carbon steel has none.

Technique & flavor

2. The Acid Cookbook

Post-Salt Fat Acid Heat, the technique-forward cookbook space has grown considerably. But acid specifically (think citrus, vinegar, tamarind, sumac, fermentation) organized by how each one works and what it does to a dish, hasn’t been given its own dedicated book.

3. The Rendered Fat Cookbook

Duck fat, lard, beef tallow, chicken schmaltz. I’m talking about a book that treats all rendered animal fats together as a cooking philosophy, not a health trend. A lard-specific series exists, but a comprehensive book covering all rendered fats as a cooking medium, with recipes that justify keeping a jar in your fridge, has room in the market.

4. The Brine Book

Brining shows up as a technique chapter in dozens of meat cookbooks and never gets its own dedicated treatment. Wet brines, dry brines, pickle brines, curing. All organized around how salt solutions actually work and what they do across meat, fish, vegetables, and cocktails.

5. The Sauce Book

This isn’t a condiment guide, but a technique book organized by sauce family: emulsifications, reductions, pan sauces, oil-based, fermented. The mother sauce framework, made more accessible for home cooks. There are a few sauce books out there, but not many.

Tools & techniques

6. The Pizza Steel Cookbook

Baking with Steel exists and is well-regarded, but it focuses primarily on pizza and bread. A book that takes the steel further has real room. Think vegetables, proteins, flatbreads, the full range of what the tool can do. The audience already owns the steel and is actively looking for more ways to put it to use.

The freezer

7. The Freezer-First Cookbook

Almost every “use what you have” cookbook is based on the pantry, and freezer cookbooks are about stocking your freezer. What about one for using frozen grocery store items, and what’s already in your freezer? Recipes designed to start with frozen protein, frozen vegetables, and frozen staples would serve an enormous audience that the cookbook market has largely ignored.

8. The Elevated Freezer Meal Cookbook

The freezer meal books that exist are almost all casseroles. What about braises, grain bowls, homemade meal kits? Frozen meals that are actually delicious, with guidance on portioning, packaging, reheating, and building a two-week stash from one cooking session. A modern, food-blog-literate version of this book has a clear and waiting audience.

Regional

9. The Pacific Northwest Forager’s Cookbook

Regional foraging cookbooks exist for other parts of the country. The PNW has foraging guides for its chanterelles, nettles, fiddleheads, Dungeness crab, razor clams, but none that are also a cookbook companion.

10. The Great Lakes Fish Cookbook

Walleye, perch, lake trout, whitefish — the freshwater fish that define cooking across the Midwest and Great Lakes are almost entirely absent from the cookbook market. A devoted regional audience that has been overlooked.

For specific readers

11. The College Kitchen, Properly

The college cookbook category is almost entirely cheap-and-fast. A real cooking education for first-apartment cooks written by someone who believes college students are capable of learning to cook well, would stand out immediately. Knife skills, pantry building, actual technique, recipes that teach something. Nobody is writing up to this audience.

12. The Night Shift Cook

Nurses, bartenders, first responders: these are the people who work nontraditional hours and need to cook at 7am before bed or 2pm before a night shift. There aren’t many cookbooks organized around this eating schedule, especially any that make it fun.

13. The Working Lunch

Not a kids’ lunchbox book. Not a sad desk salad guide. A serious cookbook for adults who bring lunch to work and want to eat well. Organize it around what travels, what reheats, and what you can prep Sunday for a week of midday meals that actually taste good.

Format

14. The Month of Dinners

A cookbook organized as sets of 31 complete dinner menus written for the person who just wants someone to tell them what to make tonight.

15. The Leftover Transformation Cookbook

Not a “use your leftovers” book, but a book specifically about transforming yesterday’s dinner into something that doesn’t taste like yesterday’s dinner. Roast chicken becomes bánh mì filling. Braised short rib becomes pasta sauce.

Single Ingredient Star

16. The Olive Oil Cookbook

Not an olive oil cake book — a fully structured cookbook with olive oil as the central ingredient across every category: breakfasts, appetizers, mains, sides, desserts, cocktails. With chapters on types of olive oil, how to choose one, how to infuse one, and why the differences matter. The ingredient deserves this treatment and nobody has given it to it yet.

17. One Chicken, One Week

Buy a whole chicken. Break it down yourself. Cook the parts across multiple meals. Render the fat. Turn the carcass into stock on day seven. There are comprehensive chicken cookbooks, like ATK’s The Chicken Bible that covers 500 recipes, but a book built around the whole-bird-as-a-week-of-meals concept, nose to tail, zero waste, still needs to be done.

Dessert

18. The Brown Butter Dessert Book

Brown butter is everywhere online and in restaurant pastry right now. A single-subject baking cookbook built entirely around it with a technique chapter on why it works, brown butter powder, compound variations, etc. hasn’t been done yet.

The Idea I’m begging someone to steal

19. The Mahjong Cookbook

Mahjong is everywhere I turn. Everywhere. It’s fun, a great way to do something with friends, and the game pieces are so pretty! There is a cocktail book coming out for it, but no full blown cookbook. It is BEGGING to have a cookbook made for it. I was pretty tempted to email my agent, , about it myself because I think it’s such a good idea, but I 1. don’t know how to play it and 2. don’t think that I should be the one to write it as a white woman. But man, I hope one of you reading this is the right person.

A note on how I put this list together: I checked every idea against an Amazon search before including it. “Room for a standout book” doesn’t mean nothing on the topic exists, it means what’s there isn’t great, isn’t aimed at the right reader, or approaches the topic from a different angle. Always do your own comp research before you commit to a topic. But these are some that definitely got my attention.

Honorable mention: When I first started drafting this, I was going to include a protein cookbook without protein powder. Then my friend Kim announced hers!!! Congrats on Protein 100, Kim! Out September 8th.

Before you go: two things

If any of this sparked something for you, I want to point you toward two things.

The webinar replay. Last week I hosted a free session called Write Your Cookbook in a Year: Where to Start Now. We covered topic validation, comp research, and what you actually need to have in place before you start writing. It’s about an hour long.

Watch the replay →

The Commissary. This fall I’m opening enrollment for a small-group cohort program. Ten students, nine months, concept to finished and launched cookbook. Live calls twice a month, guest expert workshops, regular one-on-ones with me, and real accountability built into every step. It’s the most hands-on thing I’ve ever offered.

Enrollment opens this summer. The waitlist is open now.

Join the waitlist →

A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant launch party: Brujos Brewing, Portland, Wednesday September 9th, 6–9pm. Here’s everything that went into getting to this point, what it’s costing, and how I’m planning to pay for it.

Finding the venue

Finding the right venue for a fandom cookbook launch is a specific kind of challenge. It needs to feel like it belongs in the world of the book — atmospheric, a little dramatic, not a generic event space — and it needs to work logistically for 125 people, food service, and whatever chaos I’m planning to throw at it (… like axes).

The library at The Heathman hotel was perfect for A Feast of Thorns and Roses. But that wasn’t the fit for Fourth Wing. I’d had this idea for something that felt like the dining hall at Basgiath in my head since I started thinking about the launch party.

I looked at a lot of spaces. Cafe Olli was beautiful but too small. Coopers Hall was great but felt more bridal than bookish. Raven’s Manor was on my list and could’ve been great, but was a bit more “Halloween-y” over-the-top than I had been envisioning. Evergreen was stunning but came in as a blank slate at a price that didn’t make sense once you factored in the cost of vibes.

And then I walked into Brujos Brewing on a date night with my husband, saw the gothic arches and the chandeliers, and I was like, “It has to be here.” Luckily, it came with an enthusiastic manager, a price tag I could afford, and — crucially — a kitchen willing to cook from my cookbook.

The cost breakdown

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Some of them I’ve pitched to my agent and we’ve talked ourselves out of them together. The Steak Bible: I still think it’s a good idea, but I need to know more before I can write it well. Sous vide desserts: too small an audience, even for me. Sous vide canning: too niche AND I’m not actually a subject matter expert, which is a pretty important detail. And the Taylor Swift Eras cookbook, which I think I should have done and am choosing not to dwell on.

The four ideas that did make it to actual books all had something in common: they passed a set of filters I’ve developed partly by instinct and partly by watching what happened when I or my students skipped them. I’m not precious about these filters, but they’re the questions I’ve learned to ask before I commit a year of my life to something.

Here’s what I ask, and what I’d ask you to ask yourself before you start writing.

TLDR; Register for my free webinar called “Write Your Cookbook In A Year: Where to Start Now” happening this Wednesday where I’ll blab about all of this live.

1. Can you describe your cookbook topic in one sentence, and is that sentence specific?

“A cookbook for busy moms” is not a topic. “30-minute sheet pan dinners for families with picky eaters” is a topic. The more specific your topic, the more clearly a potential reader can understand why they need your book over anyone else’s.

Here’s the counterintuitive truth I tell every student: if your topic feels too specific, it probably isn’t. The most successful modern cookbooks are extremely niche. Niche is not a limitation, it’s a selling point.

If you can’t describe your book in one sentence, you’re not ready to start writing. You’re ready to start thinking.

2. Have you actually checked the market, or are you guessing?

There’s a simple method I teach for this: go to Amazon, search your topic in Books → Cookbooks, and look at the number of results. A rough guide:

• Under 1,000 results: there may not be enough demand

• 1,000–15,000 results: often a healthy range, demand without overwhelming competition

• Over 15,000 results: the space may be crowded, but look closer before you panic

Then scroll through and ask: are these books actually about your topic, or just loosely related? You’ll often find the space is less saturated than the numbers suggest.

3. Do you know exactly who this book is for?

Not “home cooks.” Not “people who love food.” Specific. The answer to this question determines what goes in your introduction, what types of recipes you develop, how you write your headnotes, what your photography looks like, and how you market the finished book. It’s not just a branding exercise, but a structural decision that shapes every single choice downstream.

If your answer is still “everyone,” keep going. You’re not done yet.

4. Are you as excited to market this book as you are to write it?

I’ll be blunt here: marketing a cookbook is as much work as writing one, if not more. It starts months before the book comes out and it doesn’t stop at launch. Podcast pitches, events, PR boxes, social content, email campaigns — it’s a lot, and the authors who treat it as an afterthought are the ones whose books disappear.

If the marketing side makes you want to close this tab, you’ve got some thinking to do. Either the topic isn’t exciting enough to sustain you through the hard parts, or you need to build the marketing muscle before you start. Either way, now is the time to figure that out.

5. Is this a business decision or a keepsake?

Both are valid, but they’re not the same project, and they don’t deserve the same investment of time, money, and energy.

If this is a keepsake (grandma’s recipes, a family archive, something to pass down), there are faster and cheaper ways to do it than a full self-published cookbook.

If this is a business decision (building your authority, growing your audience, creating a product that opens doors), then you need to treat it like one. That means a validated topic, a real marketing plan, and a clear understanding of what success looks like beyond “it exists.”

The students who get the most out of my program come in already thinking about the business side. They’re not necessarily the ones with the biggest platforms or the most experience, but the ones who took these questions seriously before they started.

If you read through these and found yourself nodding along with clear answers to all five, you’re in a strong position.

If you found yourself stuck on one or two — also good. That’s exactly the information you need right now.

On Wednesday June 17th I’m hosting a free webinar called “Write Your Cookbook In A Year: Where to Start Now.” I’m going deep on all of this — topic validation, comp research, what you should be doing before you ever write a single recipe — and I’ll be previewing what’s coming this August for cookbook authors who want to do this with real structure and support behind them.

It’s free and it’s just an hour. If you’re sitting on a cookbook idea, prepare to get your summer homework.

Register Here

Two weeks ago, I wrote about deprioritizing my food blog after sixteen years. A couple weeks before that, I shared my latest royalty report. This is the post that puts all of it in context, and shows you exactly what the past several years of self-employment have looked like for my income.

A few things before we get into it.

This is gross revenue. Not take-home, not profit, pre-tax. I have contractors, subscriptions, software, equipment, groceries for recipe testing, and a dozen other business costs that come out of these numbers. Expenses are a whole separate conversation worth having in a future post, but for now just know that what you’re about to read is revenue, not what I’m paying myself.

I am not a big name. I’m not retiring my husband. I’m a mom with two kids at home, figuring out how to build something while also keeping them home with me. (OH MY GOD IT IS HARD.)

I’m doing pretty okay. I’m not rolling in it, but doing okay. I think there’s real value in hearing from someone in the middle, because most income reports come from either end of the spectrum. Most of us are somewhere in between and there’s not a lot of people sharing that.

With that said. Here are the numbers.

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Last week’s post:

This week I want to talk about the other side of that equation. I’m not just stepping back period - I’m rethinking everything I’ve built and pivoting elsewhere. Here’s what that looks like for me right now.

Fandom cookbooks: going bigger

A Feast of Thorns and Roses exceeded every expectation I had for it. A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant comes out September 8th. And this fall, new books drop in both the Fourth Wing and ACOTAR universes — which means both fandoms are going to be actively energized right when my books need attention.

I’ve found something that works: I’m good at making fan cookbooks, I genuinely enjoy the creative constraints of writing recipes for fictional worlds, and I have a lot of fun marketing them. The goal between now and the end of the year is to make sure every member of both fandoms knows these books exist. That’s the primary focus.

I also plan to keep writing more cookbooks like this, although I don’t know what’s next yet.

A small group cohort inside The Cookbook Lab

I’m so excited about this, and I’ve been building toward it for longer than I’ve been talking about it publicly.

I’m launching a small, hands-on cohort inside The Cookbook Lab later this year. A limited group of cookbook authors all starting at the same time, working through the same milestones together, with live calls, real accountability, and my direct involvement throughout. Six months to a manuscript-ready cookbook, nine months to get it launched.

The open enrollment version of The Cookbook Lab has helped over 150 students. But what I’ve watched work best is when people are building alongside each other, at the same stage, with structure holding them accountable. That’s what this cohort is designed to give them.

I’ll be sharing more details soon, but you can get on the waitlist here.

The Monthly Meal Plan: a new Substack and a new content model

This one is maybe the most interesting experiment I’m running, and I think it’s especially relevant if you’re a food blogger wondering what to do with your audience as search traffic gets harder.

I’ve been meal planning a full month at a time for about 6 months now and it has genuinely changed how I feed my family. I started a separate Substack publication — The Monthly Meal Plan — to share it. Each month I post the full plan, and the recipes I use go up on A Duck’s Oven.

Here’s the model I’m building toward: the meal plan lives on Substack. The individual recipes live on the blog, and I link to them from Substack, which drives traffic back to A Duck’s Oven and keeps ad revenue… alive. Eventually, I plan to put the recipes behind a Substack paywall as well, so readers can choose: go to the blog for free, or have everything in one place as a paid subscriber.

It’s a way to keep the blog alive and useful without depending on Google to send people there. I’m building the audience relationship directly, through email and Substack, and using the blog as the content home rather than the discovery engine.

This effort will ramp up significantly after the Kitchen Quadrant launch. Right now the cookbook is the priority. But the infrastructure is being built now so I’m ready to move when the time is right.

The stuff in the background

I also do freelance property management and I’m overdue for a serious overhaul of how I run it. That’s on the list for this year. Not the most exciting thing I’ve ever written in a newsletter but it’s part of the picture.

What this all adds up to

I’ve been self-employed since 2021. In that time the shape of my work has changed almost every year. It started very blog and freelance recipe-development heavy. Now I haven’t done freelance work since my son was born in mid-2023, and the blog is taking a backseat. What’s grown instead: cookbooks, a course, a publication about publishing cookbooks, and now a publication about meal planning.

None of this was in the five-year plan. It was a series of responses to what was working, what wasn’t, and what my life could actually support at a given time. The flexibility to do that — to not be locked into one revenue stream or one identity — is the thing I’m most grateful for about being self-employed, even when it’s hard.

The world is changing fast enough that I think most of us are going to have to keep iterating whether we planned to or not. So I’ll end with a question:

How are you thinking about your work right now? What’s getting more of your energy, and what’s getting less?

In this post I’m sharing the full picture of what’s happening with A Duck’s Oven’s organic search performance right now, why AI Overviews are hitting content like mine particularly hard, and how I’m restructuring my business in response. I’m also sharing the specific tools and costs in my new support stack, what I cancelled and why it took me a year to do it, and the part that’s actually hard to say out loud: the grief of deprioritizing something you built from nothing and grew for 16 years, after 7 years of feeling untouchable through every Google update that came before this one.

I’ve been food blogging for almost sixteen years. I started A Duck’s Oven in 2010 on blogspot when I was a college student trying to help other college students stop eating boxed mac and cheese for every meal. It has been, in one form or another, the foundation of everything I’ve built since: the cookbooks, The Cookbook Lab, the audience, the career.

So when I tell you I’m actively deprioritizing my blog, I want you to understand what that actually means to me. This is no casual pivot.

What the data actually says

I just completed a comprehensive baseline analysis of A Duck’s Oven’s organic search performance. The headline numbers over the last three months compared to the same three months a year ago:

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Here’s what I actually watched happen.

When students join at different times, they end up at completely different stages. Someone who joined in January is ten weeks ahead of someone who joined in March. They’re all working on cookbooks, but they’re not working on the same problems at the same time. That makes it really hard for them to actually help each other — and community is one of the most valuable things you can have when you’re in the middle of a project like this.

The community I wanted The Cookbook Lab to have couldn’t form because the structure didn’t allow it.

So I’m making a change: Enrollment for The Cookbook Lab is closing on May 22nd.

I’m not ready to share all the details of what’s coming next (I’m still building it) but I can tell you the shape: it’s going to be more hands-on, more community-driven, and built around the way I’ve actually seen cookbook authors succeed. When people are working on the same problems at the same time, something different happens. That’s what I’m building toward.

Here’s what this means if you’ve been thinking about joining: anyone who enrolls before May 22nd gets lifetime access to The Cookbook Lab course and first access to what’s coming next at a discount.

The Cookbook Lab is for food creators who are seriously planning to write a cookbook and want a roadmap for doing it well: the concept, the production, the launch, the business side of it.

Join The Cookbook Lab before May 22nd if you want access to the self-guided course and first dibs on what’s coming.

Check out The Cookbook Lab

I’ll be sharing more about what’s coming soon. If you have questions in the meantime, reply to this or drop them in the comments — I read everything.

Fair. Completely fair.

Fourth Wing is not A Court of Thorns and Roses. The ACOTAR series is loaded with food: feasts, cakes, descriptive brunch spreads I could sink my teeth into as a recipe developer when writing A Feast of Thorns and Roses. Fourth Wing has... considerably less. Which made my job both harder and more interesting.

Here’s how I made it happen.

It started with a note on my phone

I knew I wanted to write this book months before I had a deal. So I started a note on my phone that had a handful of ideas before I ever formally started working. Once the deal was real, the first thing I built was a rough table of contents. What were the sections going to look like? What were the categories? I needed that structure before I could start filling it in, because otherwise I’d end up with 12 breakfast ideas and zero side dishes. The table of contents let me see the shape of the thing and figure out where the holes were.

Then I listened to the books

Audiobooks are my preferred format generally (I know, people have opinions about this!), especially with two small kids and a manuscript deadline. I paired the audiobook with the Kindle app on my laptop so I could easily search for specific words, scenes, and moments when I needed to. We love Ctrl+F.

As I listened, I noted every single food mention. In Fourth Wing, those moments are rare, so I had to rely heavily on every character, every significant scene, every ritual, every place that felt like it deserved a recipe attached to it.

When there’s no food, you build the world

Navarre is a Spanish word, so I let southern European food (simple ingredients, hearty dishes, warm flavors) really anchor the culinary identity of the world. That gave me a foundation to work from even when the books didn’t hand me explicit direction.

From there, almost everything is character-driven. I start with the person or the scene, then work backwards to the food.

Ridoc gets nachos. Obviously. Sgaeyl’s signature cocktail is a chardonnay spritzer — elegant, a little sharp, exactly right for a blue dragon with opinions. Imogen has a pre-run granola with dehydrated raspberries, a nod to her pink hair.

There are also five recipes in Kitchen Quadrant that exist almost entirely to make the pre-Gauntlet carbo load party feel complete. I planned the party concept, figured out what the spread should look like, and then developed whatever was missing to make it work.

The hardest recipe and the easiest one

The hardest was the Rebellion Relic braided bread — a twist on chocolate babka, which is already a technically demanding bake. I landed on it because I wanted a visual payoff, something that actually looked like the relics. But getting the recipe right was a process. I tested it relentlessly, and so did two of my recipe testers. Huge shoutout to Tami, who was instrumental in finally cracking it.

The easiest was Xaden’s chocolate cake. It was a non-negotiable inclusion from day one, and I had a solid chocolate cake base I already loved. The main development work was the optional Zakia berry filling. The rest came together quickly, which felt like the book rewarding me for one of the harder ones.

What I actually want people to feel

I want someone to pick up this book, flip to Imogen’s granola, and think: of course that’s what she eats. I want the pre-Gauntlet feast to feel like exactly how you want to spend this Saturday with your book club. I want every recipe, every headnote, every small detail to feel intentional (trust me: it really, really was).

This isn’t a cookbook of dishes you read about in the books. It’s an extension of the world. A way to go a little deeper into it, to live in it for a little while through your kitchen. That’s what I was building.

What surprised me

I did not expect to love writing this book as much as I did.

Before A Feast of Thorns and Roses, my previous cookbooks were more technical and practical. Sous vide is precise. Meal prep is essential (in my world it is, anyways). This was something else entirely — all imagination and interpretation, carrying the weight of fan expectations for a community I’m genuinely a part of.

I’m not an outside observer writing a cookbook for hire. I’m a fan. And I wanted the Empyrean community to be able to feel that when they hold this book and see that every choice was made by someone who cares about this world the same way they do.

That’s super scary, but it turned out to also be one of the most creatively satisfying things I’ve done.

P.S. A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant is available for pre-order on Bookshop/Amazon now!

What a royalty reporting period actually is

Traditional publishers don’t send royalty reports monthly, or even quarterly. Most authors receive them twice a year: one report covering January through June (delivered October 1st), one covering July through December (delivered April 1st). Each report arrives several months after the period ends, which means the report I’m sharing today covers sales from July through December 2025, and I received it last week.

Why the lag? It takes time to account for returns, settle distribution channels, and calculate what’s actually owed. It is also, frankly, maddening if you’re someone who likes to know how your book is doing.

The payment schedule works similarly. My advance (the upfront money a publisher pays before the book comes out) was structured in installments: a portion at signing, a portion at manuscript delivery, a portion at publication. Before I see a single royalty dollar beyond that, I have to earn back the full advance through sales. That’s called earning out.

The first reporting period

My first royalty report covered April through June 2025 — the first three months after A Feast of Thorns and Roses came out on April 1st. I was less than $200 away from earning out my full advance in that first period alone.

I have to say, I’m really proud of that! Earning out itself is difficult, and doesn’t happen often for cookbook authors.

A breakdown of the current report: July through December 2025

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It’s going to be $5 a month. What you’ll get is the layer underneath these posts: the actual numbers, the real strategy as it’s happening, the stuff that’s a little too specific and a little too vulnerable to put in a free newsletter. Income breakdowns. Out of pocket marketing costs. What I spent, what it made, what I’d do differently.

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How I fund my cookbook launch parties and what I’m doing differently this time

I don’t believe every cookbook needs a launch party. But for a fandom cookbook with a built-in community, an experiential event isn’t just fun, it’s a real marketing strategy. I’ve written about this before.

For my last launch party (100 attendees, sold out, NPR in attendance along with 30 local influencers and media) I needed to fund it myself after my publisher said no to contributing, so I built a sponsorship menu in Canva and started pitching.

Here’s what that actually looked like.

The AFOTAR numbers

I sent roughly 15 cold pitch emails to brands I thought would be a good fit for the event. I secured two additional sponsors through friends who helped spread the word about what I was doing and connected me with the right people.

From those 15 cold pitches, I got two yeses.

Two yeses and two relationship-based sponsors raised over $3,000. Combined with ticket sales, I covered nearly the entire cost of a $5,000 event out of pocket.

I want to be honest about what “sponsorship” looked like in practice. In exchange for helping fund the event and provide product for swag bags, their logos were prominently placed, I posted about them on social, they got to distribute marketing materials, etc.

The Canva sponsorship menu

The thing that made the pitches work was having a designed sponsorship menu. I wasn’t sending vague emails without making it crystal clear what they’d be getting in return. I sent an actual designed PDF with tiered packages, clear deliverables, information about the event, and a professional look that signaled I was taking this seriously.

Each tier spelled out exactly what a sponsor would get: signage at the event, inclusion in swag bags, social media mentions, tickets for their team, whatever made sense at that level. I named the tiers in a way that was thematic and memorable. I made it easy for someone to forward to their marketing team and say “here’s what she’s offering.”

That document did a lot of the work toward making this look professional.

What I’m doing differently this time

For the Kitchen Quadrant launch, I’m pitching brands on two things at once: PR box inclusion and party sponsorship in a single conversation. Last time these were separate asks. This time, a brand can get in front of my influencer gifting list AND be in the room at the launch party through one relationship.

Here’s what the ask looks like this time:

I’m also going in with more proof. When I pitched for AFOTAR, I was asking brands to take a chance on something unproven. This time I can show them what the last event actually produced: the sold-out room, the NPR coverage, the influencer attendance, the social reach.

I’ve already started outreach to 9 different brands. I’m sure I’ll end up pitching at least 20 once all is said and done. I’ll be sharing the response rate, what’s converting, what’s not, and the full financial picture of what this round raises in the paid tier, as it happens.

As always, I’m a little nervous going into this. My expectations are reasonable, but I’m hopeful I can pull something off. August feels way too close, but I’m also really excited.

That’s the kind of thing I’ll be sharing when the paid tier opens. If that sounds useful to you, stay tuned — I’ll have the link ready shortly.

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I’m Mara, Chelsea’s virtual assistant. We’ve been working together since 2019 and in that time I’ve watched her write three cookbooks.

So when she texted me late one night that she was about to pitch a Fourth Wing cookbook, my response was just eight words long…

“I was waiting for you to say this.”

What I was not fully prepared for was being handed the keys to coordinating recipe testing for The Kitchen Quadrant. Not because it was too much to take on, but because I should be transparent with you: I’m a terrible cook. My husband is the foodie in our family and handles nearly everything that happens in our kitchen. I am coming at this entirely from a logistics and operations angle.

As it turns out, that is exactly what recipe testing needs.

Our Process

We put out an open call for recipe testers and kept the application simple. Cooking experience, familiarity with The Empyrean Series, and availability. That was enough to tell us what we needed to know.

We got more applicants than we had recipes for, which told us the excitement around this project was real. I screened the initial applications, Chelsea handpicked a few people we had worked with during A Feast of Thorns and Roses, and then we used an online randomizer to fill the remaining spots and keep things fair.

We landed on 32 testers who had a wide variety of kitchen experience from beginning to master chef, each responsible for two recipes over a two month window. Before anyone received a single recipe, every tester signed an NDA.

This was an unreleased cookbook inspired by one of the most talked about book series in the world. We were not taking any chances.

Before a single recipe went out, we built a master Airtable document. Every recipe for the new book lived there, along with detailed notes on each tester:

• Family situation and whether they had kids

• What their spouse, partner and kids liked and didn’t like

• What they personally liked or didn’t like

• What type of equipment they had in their kitchen

• Whether they drank alcohol

• Dietary restrictions and allergies

That might sound excessive, but it mattered. A rich wine reduction is a very different assignment for someone who doesn’t drink versus someone who keeps a stocked cellar. Matching the right recipe to the right person made the feedback so much more useful.

We also set up a dedicated Facebook group for all the testers. It became the central hub for updates, questions, and excitement throughout the whole process.

I matched each tester with their recipes based on everything we knew about them and sent them the links directly. From there, my job shifted to coordination: tracking who had submitted feedback, following up with anyone who hadn't, and reviewing every form that came back in so that we could follow up on anything right away (before the recipe tester forgot any details!)

Nobody Warned Me (But Now I'm Warning You)

1. People need a lot of follow-up. I started sending a reminder email every Friday to anyone with an open recipe and that one change made a noticeable difference in how consistently testers stayed engaged. Without it, things quietly fell off people’s radars. Life is busy and a gentle nudge goes a long way.

2. Give people options. People are so much more likely to say yes when they have a choice. Instead of assigning a single recipe and waiting, I’d offer a small selection and let testers choose what appealed to them. When a recipe kept getting passed over, I’d post it in the Facebook group and open it up to whoever wanted it. Someone always grabbed it.

3. The feedback will surprise you. One tester pointed out that a recipe with grill instructions had no alternative for people without a grill. The dish could absolutely be made in an oven, but that wasn’t written anywhere.

4. I was shocked by the amount of people who hate tomatoes. I used to think they were so innocent, but out of our 32 recipe testers, 7 mentioned a dislike of tomatoes.

But that is exactly why recipe testing matters. You find out things you never thought to ask about.

A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant: The Unofficial Fourth Wing Cookbook (Amazon/Bookshop) comes out August 18th and every single recipe in it has been tested by a real person in a real kitchen, who gave honest feedback, and yes, may or may not have had strong feelings about tomatoes.

-Mara

Cookbook Lab Happenings

The Cookbook Lab is my course for food creators who want to self-publish a cookbook. The below events and services are for students only.

• We just dropped a brand new resource for students: The Cookbook Brand Guide. Your cookbook’s brand is what makes it instantly recognizable. This guide walks you through every element so you can build a cohesive, intentional brand before you ever go to print.

• Our next live class is happening on 5/13: Launching a Cookbook. We’ll walk through the full arc of a cookbook launch, from building momentum in the weeks before your book goes live and what to do on launch day to maximize sales.

• The replay of our podcast pitching class with Jenn Zellers is now available inside the course. We covered how to find the right shows, write a pitch that gets a response, and use podcast guesting to grow your visibility as an author.

Today I want to pull back one more layer. None of that happened by accident, and the marketing strategy is something I think about a lot as a cookbook author trying to launch books without a massive platform.

The idea

When I was working on A Feast of Thorns and Roses, I connected with a lot of bookstagrammers and BookTokers. Some became genuine supporters of the book. All of them helped me understand who was actually out there in the fandom and what they cared about, what excited them, what they wanted from a cookbook like this.

So when A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant came along, I had an idea.

Instead of reaching back out after the book was finished and asking people to help promote something they’d had no part in, I wanted to bring them inside so they could help me make it.

The application

I opened an application for recipe testers and specifically targeted bookstagrammers, BookTokers, and fans of the Empyrean Series. Mid-level influencers mostly — accounts in the 3,000 to 20,000 follower range. Not the massive accounts that get pitched constantly and have seen everything. People who were genuinely passionate about the fandom and would actually care about this project.

I received 67 applications. I chose 30.

Why these people for my recipe testers? First: these were my target readers. If the recipes weren’t landing with them — if the content felt off or the vibe wasn’t right — I wanted to know before the book went to print, not after. Second: I wanted them to feel genuinely attached to this project so they’d be more excited to champion it.

The Kitchen Quadrant

I needed a name for the group. I called them the Kitchen Quadrant, a nod to the novel’s war college structure, where students are sorted into quadrants. It felt right. It stuck.

And then, when my publisher and I were going back and forth on the title of the book itself, that name kept coming up. It was evocative, it was fandom-coded, it made sense. A Guide to the Kitchen Quadrant became the title.

The recipe testers named my book. I love that so much.

Fun fact: My husband suggested Fourth Meal. If only Taco Bell hadn’t taken it first.

What they actually did

I asked them to do more than provide recipe feedback. My testers weighed in on cover options, interior patterns, even the title. I wanted people who were invested in the whole thing, not just a few recipes.

When the manuscript was done, I commissioned an Tylee, an amazing artist, to design a Kitchen Quadrant seal as a custom illustrated emblem for the group. I had it printed on oven mitts and sent one to each tester as a thank you.

What it produced

I have 7,800 followers on Instagram. My announcement reached 72,300 people. It was shared almost 2,000 times.

Before announcing, the book was ranked 2.1 million on Amazon. At its peak after the announcement, it reached 45,000 across all books on Amazon.

None of that happened because of my following size (obviously). It happened because 30 people who genuinely cared about this book showed up for it (and me) on the same day I did and helped me spread the word far and wide. I’m so grateful.

What I’d tell you

If you’re working on a book with a built-in community (a fandom, a niche, an audience that cares deeply about your topic), think about how to bring some of those people inside before the book is done. Not as an afterthought or a promotional tool, but as actual collaborators.

The marketing benefits are real, and the numbers above speak for themselves. But the best part was how much better the book became because of them.

Next week, my VA Mara (who managed the entire recipe tester process behind the scenes) is sharing the operational side of how all of this actually worked.

Cookbook Lab Happenings

The Cookbook Lab is my course for food creators who want to self-publish a cookbook. The below events and services are for students only.

• Our next live class is 4/15: How To Find and Pitch Podcasts with Jenn Zellers. Jenn is a podcast expert who helps authors use podcast guesting to grow their visibility and reach new readers.

• We just wrapped our live class all about pre-launch marketing and if you want a peek at what that looks like in action, here’s an example of my own pre-launch marketing.

• Our Cookbook Topic Guide is brand new and completely updated. It walks you through how to choose the right cookbook topic and make sure it’s something that will sell. This one is available to everyone, not just students. → Click here to grab it.