Talking with Cookbook Editor Sarah Billingsley of Chronicle Books
What it takes to get to "yes"
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Last summer, Sarah Billingsley (the publishing director of food & lifestyle at Chronicle Books) spoke at Cookbook Fest in Napa Valley about the realities of the cookbook publishing business. Co-host Kate Leahy was in the audience and was struck by Sarah’s comment about the overwhelming number of cookbook proposals she receives each week. The only way to manage, Sarah explained, is to find reasons to say “no” to most pitches. A harsh reality, for sure, and an incentive for us to invite Sarah onto the show to talk about what might persuade a busy editor to say “yes.”
Sarah has been at Chronicle Books for nearly 16 years, rising from assistant editor to publishing director, and she has written two cookbooks herself in that time. Before Chronicle, she worked as a cook, a restaurant critic, and in various roles in PR and marketing. As a result, our conversation covers a lot of ground and is packed with helpful insights on everything from the editing process to the state of cookbooks today. As for the attributes she’s looking for in a cookbook proposal, it boils down to these: idea, voice, marketplace, and attitude.
Idea: We all know that publishers and agents are always on the lookout for brilliant new ideas, or as Sarah says, “something that feels fresh and different, untrodden.” Equally important to the idea itself is how you present it. That’s where you demonstrate your chops as a writer and creative thinker.
“If something comes in with a great title, and you're like, wow, this person came up with an amazing title. And clearly, they have ideas, and they can write, and the recipes sound good. That definitely hooks us.”
Voice: In speaking with Sarah, “voice” comes to mean more than how you craft a sentence or tell a story. It’s a combination of expertise and outlook, maybe a unique way of looking at food, or “something that feels like it's coming from a voice that needs to be heard.” For the team at Chronicle, they often like to start small with new authors; for instance, publishing a little book of, say, 45 recipes. Then, if the book production was a good experience, “The next book might be the big book.”
Marketability: An essential element of any book proposal is whether Sarah can envision the book in the marketplace. Can she picture where it will sell and who will buy it?
“You can sort of see it in the world. You can imagine who is buying it or picking it up. You can imagine the retail environment that it lives in.”
Publishing is a business, Sarah reminds us, and if books don’t sell, no one wins. “We ultimately want our authors to love their book. That is the goal. But we also want the book to sell. That’s the larger goal.”
Attitude: Early in our conversation with Sarah, we reflect on our recent episode with Betsy Andrews, one of the team that created Coastal: 130 Recipes from a California Road Trip, asking what drew Chronicle to that project. The answer: the proposal had all the elements mentioned (idea, voice, marketability), but she was also deeply impressed by the openness of the team.
Every book project requires collaboration between the author(s) and the editorial team, and there are always moments of tension, even conflict. A healthy collaboration will result in more creative and better resolutions - and better books.
“Because the very finest books that I’ve ever produced in my life as an editor were because when the author team and I didn’t agree, and we worked to find a compromise in the spirit of ‘OK, how do we get to the most interesting place?’”
In the end, however, even proposals that hit all these marks sometimes get rejected. These are the ones that Sarah refers to as “notable passes,” books that she considered but didn’t make an offer on for one reason or another (i.e., they already had too many books on the topic, the sale price was too steep, etc.). While rejection1 often stings, a “notable pass” shouldn’t be considered a failure. As Friend-of-the-Pod Sally Ekus wrote on our Instagram page, “It means your work, even when not acquired at a certain house, is being known across the industry. It means you have impact. It means your work is being acknowledged. It also means that with every pass, there are people paying attention. So what may land as rejection to the author is still making ripples across the industry. And a pass at one house is often a yes somewhere else.” Well said, Sally.
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Links from the episode:
Whoopie Pies, by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell
Handheld Pies, by Sarah Billingsley and Rachel Wharton
Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson
Six California Kitchens, by Sally Schmitt
Coastal by Betsy Andrews
From Crook to Cook, by Snoop Dogg
Meat Cute notecards
The Mac (Napa Valley Museum of Art & Culture)
Lavash by Ara Zada, John Lee, and Kate Leahy
Baking Yesteryear by B. Dylan Hollis
Instant Ramen, by Peter Kim
Dobre Dobre, Baking from Poland and Beyond, by Laurie Kratochvila
Visit the Everything Cookbooks Bookshop to browse all books mentioned in the show (purchasing books here supports the show, independent bookstores, and authors. A win-win-win! 🏆)
Next week on EVCB:
We speak with Pooja Bavishi, the founder of Malai Ice Cream, about her debut cookbook, Frozen Desserts Inspired by South Asian Flavors. We get into her company's history from stand to scoop shop, why she wanted to revolutionize ice cream by highlighting South Asian flavors, and why now was the right time to write a book, even when many publishing professionals told her to wait a year or two.
Bye for now. We’ll be back here next week and hope you will be, too. In the meantime, keep on writing, reading, and cooking. ✍️📚🍳
Molly and the EVCB gang
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Check out our episode on Rejection & Recovery.
Sally’s comment about the episode was such a good point!
I feel like Chronicle's cookbooks are an EXPERIENCE, something I'm always craving. Thanks for this illuminating conversation!