 Excellent and practical overview of food writing
I picked up this book, not surprisingly, because I have long been interested in both food and writing. It is an excellent introduction into the world of food writing. As someone who has never had a professional writing career, but has taken college writing courses, I found this book provides an excellent overview and practical tips.
Beyond introducing you to the variety of opportunities available she includes passages from professionals in the industry on how they got started, what their typical day is like, and what they love about the job. There are also writing exercises to help you practice your skills and become comfortable with food writing and suggestions for more great resources you can check out including books, websites, and grad programs. Because of all this, it makes a great one stop guide for those just getting started. I originally checked it out from the library but ended up buying it because I found it so helpful that I wanted to refer back to it.
What I also appreciate about this book is that it balances being encouraging with being realistic. This makes it clear that food writing jobs, especially those that are full-time, can be challenging to find, but are not entirely out of reach if you pay your dues and work hard.
The only part of this book that, in my opinion, could benefit on expansion is on food writing opportunities on the web. While the book does touch on it, it seems worthy of even more coverage given the current opportunities in web writing. The fact that blog authors like Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks and Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini were able to go from success as bloggers to success as cookbook authors says a lot about the web as a launching point. Many bloggers are also now opting to publish e-books over printed cookbooks in order to share their recipes with lower production costs. My guess is that the reason we do not see this more is the fact that blogging and other online food writing activities have been increasingly popular since this book was published. (Although, for the sake of clarity, both 101 Cookbooks and Chocolate & Zucchini were started in 2003.) If another version is released I highly recommend the author expand this area.
Overall though I found this to be a very approachable and informative read and could not recommend it more to someone interested in exploring the world of food writing.
Thoroughly enjoyable read
I picked this book up hoping to write a cookbook, and I have to say that I love it overall. Dianne's style is lyrical, and she's got the friendly tone of a beloved mentor. It's a comprehensive guide, and while it covers any topics, if you want to delve into deeper detail on any one of them, you need to do more digging for further resources. This guide, though, is a great introduction and inspiration. Highly recommended.
The Editor at Your Elbow
In a profession without a road map, this book is essential. A skilled editor, Jacob's tone is at once motivating, demanding, and kind. In her chapter on recipe testing, she brings you into famed kitchens--i.e. those of Deborah Madison, Mark Bittman, and Alice Medrich--to show that recipe developing is both hard work and loads of fun, like food writing itself.
A Must-have for Cookbook/Food-based book Writers!
I stumbled upon Dianne's website while I was researching for my book proposal. I wasn't planning to write a cookbook but since I love food and this book is so unique, I got myself a copy anyway.
I'm pleasantly surprised! I've learnt a great deal about raising one's platform/profile before publishing a book, as well as the nuts & bolts of the publishing industry. This book is a MUST-HAVE for all aspiring cookbook writers!
A Motivating and Inspiring Read
An inspiring food writing with a stack of gastronimic literature to read through over a long weekend, I had a goal of finishing at least two of three books that were sitting on my coffee table. The first one I chose was "Will Write for Food" by Dianne Jacob. A food writer who's been writing since 1978, Dianne also instructs and coaches individuals and groups on becoming successful food writers. As she mentions in her book, she used to tell students to go check out books at the library about food writing to gain perspective of the business outside of class. After students repeadedly came back to her stating there were no books out there on food writing, Dianne decided she'd be the one to write it. So I guess one could say this is the first book published on the nuts and bolts of becoming a successful, professional food writer. I found the book incredibly helpful, honest and no-nonsense. Dianne has a gift for mixing honesty (don't quite your day job right away) with pep talks (just keep writing, you'll get there). She delivers practical advice and covers topics from writing cookbooks to the art of restaurant reviewing, pitching food article ideas to magazine editors to writing memoirs, and getting ficiton and nonfiction pieces published. The book also features a number of exercises at the end of each chapter for readers to stretch their creative muscles, like brainstorming exercises that assist in developing magazine article topics, writing your own food recipe and researching food and book publishing markets. Finishing the book inspired me to march forward and capture all the ideas floating in my head onto paper to get them closer to being published pieces of work. This is a book I will refer back to regularly.
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