How to write great cookbooks with Sarah Copeland

Eat Capture Share - a podcast for food bloggers

In today’s season 5 premier episode (52) of the EAT, CAPTURE, SHARE Podcast, I’m speaking with Sarah Copeland, an award-winning food writer, photographer and cookbook author, known on instagram as Edible Living. We chat about how to develop a career in food, what it was like working for Oprah, how to write great cookbooks and lots more. Here’s what else you can expect from today’s episode….

• Sarah introduces herself

• Sarah shares how she developed a career in food

• Sarah talks about her journey from working at Oprah magazine, to a chance encounter that led to the start of her cookbook writing career

• Sarah notes how the concept of her first cookbook was developed

• Sarah and I discuss what it’s really like writing a book

• Sarah explains how creating recipes and photography for a book is completely different than creating recipes for a blog or social media

• Sarah explains how she comes up with fresh new recipes and how she stays inspired

• Sarah shares the number one thing she avoids when she’s nurturing a new creative idea

• Sarah outlines her recipe development process

• We discuss what distinguishes excellent cookbooks from mediocre ones

• Sarah talks about how she deals with copycats

• Sarah explains how she selects recipes for her cookbooks

• Sarah’s first cookbook sold more than 200,000 copies and she shares what she learned from writing a run-away success like that

• We explore whether it’s always the best idea to photograph your own cookbook

• We chat about what role social media plays in ‘success’ within the food world

• We both open up about the pressure we feel to grow a following on social media

• Sarah outlines how she balances her ambition with the needs of her young family

• Sarah explains how she curates her instagram stories and why she enjoys it more than the instagram grid itself

• Sarah shares how she got a show on the Food Network Cooking App

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Find out more about and pre-ordering my book Creative Food Photography

• Connect with Sarah on instagram or via her website

• Find Sarah’s books here

• Saveur, Food&Wine, GLAMOUR, Oprah, Real Simple magazine

• Chronical