Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Cooking the Books That Was Me 10 Years Ago
Posted by Nicki Wood on Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 9:01 AM
Out of work after the daily paper failed, with a new baby, I took a job with a local cookbook publisher, FRPBooks. It was a great job for a new mother, and they were equally happy with me because they'd won the bid on a massive job for a publisher of recipe cards.
The company, a direct mail publisher, jobbed out many simultaneous recipe card series, very tightly focused on a specific demographic and mailed by 12-pack to subscribers each month. There were thousands of them to be researched, written, edited, photographed and more. Each card had about a dozen elements such as tips, plating ideas, menus, shortcuts, storage and more.
It was a dream job: big budget, plenty of responsibility, two years of guaranteed work, great health insurance, big office with a window. Several of us shared an assistant. Awesome.
http://offers.imponline.com/gam/?utm_medium=cpm&utm_source=CVNetwork&utm_campaign=GAM
Then, as we know, the interwebz made every kind of content -- from dictionaries and encyclopedias to music and recipes -- freely available. The content jobs disappeared. I'm not complaining -- it's luck of the draw that I was in a buggy whip industry -- but damn I miss that $300/month, pays-everything insurance.
When the gig ended, I often wondered what the client, a gigantic multinational, was doing to retool. And now it's clear. So, in this day and age, would you subscribe to a series of recipe cards with a binder and a knife, ABSOLUTELY FREE with your subscription?
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I apologize for appearance, disappearance, and reappearance of this post. Our blogging software, Movable Type, is taking over, like HAL. Look at it this way: if you enjoyed it the first time, you can enjoy it aqain.
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These were the cards that brought us together, Nicki! Because...that was me 6 years ago. That's when I started proofreading all of these cards and occasionally attending photo shoots.
And, no, I would not buy them now, not even with a free knife. 'Cause that's what Recipezaar is for.
But don't underestimate the power of the uninitiated public; not everyone has high-speed and an iPhone from which to read recipes while cooking.
