375: From Blogger to Cookbook Author (Part Two) – Preserving Family Recipes Through Cookbooks with Yvette Marquez-Sharpnack

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Hello.

Hello.

This is the Food Blogger Pro podcast.

And for those of you who might be tuning in for the first time, or maybe you've listened to a couple.

Episodes, or just getting familiar with who.

We are and what we're all about, we exist to help creators, people who are creating content online, do that better. And whether that be building a business or having an impact because you want to share, maybe a missional type thing that you're working on, you really believe in a certain way of eating that's helped you and you want to share other people about that, or you just want to share a story. Or in the case of today's interview, maybe you're getting started because you want to document the story of your family and your family recipes, and that leads you to build a business and to build a following online. That's the story of Yvette Marquez. And she's going to be talking about what it was like for her to get started way back in 2010 with Moy Bueno. She's going to talk about the story behind that name and how it started as a cookbook. But as she started to talk about that cookbook, realized that people were interested in purchasing it. And that kind of led her into the idea of publishing content online. And she's going to be sharing her story of starting and also the things that she learned along the way, really focusing in on the cookbook aspect, because this series, it's a little two part series that we're doing called From Blogger to Cookbook Author, is all about how people can take the momentum that they have online and fold that into a product, specifically a product that is a cookbook. And Yvette has done that three different times. Now she's in the process of working on her third cookbook and she's going to be talking about what she's learned along the way and each step, how she's kind of iterated with each cookbook and the different parts of the process, the different people that were involved, and how she's really parlayed that into not only a successful following online, but also a really successful book deal here for her third time around. So if you're interested in potentially writing a cookbook, publishing a cookbook, Yvette's story is going to have a lot of insightful information for you. So let's go ahead and jump in. Yvette, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah.

This is part two of a short.

Series we're doing all about going from being a food blogger to a cookbook author. And I know you've done the cookbook thing two times and soon to be three times, which we're going to talk about that. So how soon into your food blogging career did you do the cookbook thing? Because it seems like it was relatively early on. Or was it even before you had been publishing? Tell us a little bit about that story.

Yeah. So what's funny is I think I was completely opposite. You know, I didn't even know what a blog was at the time. I just knew that I wanted to write a cookbook. And it was my daughter, who was eight years old at the time, who, you know, my mom was visiting and making lots of food, and I was working full time as a graphic designer and in marketing, and my mom was just making all the home cooked meals that I loved growing up. And I'm originally from El Paso, Texas, so our food is very Mexican, Northern Mexico, from Chihuahua and El Paso style. So I was craving all these dishes and.

Yeah.

And my daughter was the one who's like, you should really put together a book so that when I go to college, I can have this book. And I was like, oh, that's a cute idea. And like I said, I was a graphic designer, so I was like, I'll design a cute little Shutterfly book and have it for my family. And, you know, whoever wants to, you know, wants a copy. So I just kind of thought of it in that way. And it was a friend of mine who, you know, was seeing all these photos that I was posting on Facebook and saying, oh, I'm going to write a cookbook. And she's like, you know, where do I get a copy? And I was like, you want to buy my cookbook? She's like, yeah, you should start a blog. And I was like, what is a blog? I literally had to Google what is a blog? And I was like, okay, I'm a graphic designer. I could design a cute little logo and a cute little free website, and that way I can share recipes for my family who already are asking for the recipes. And that's how it started. So I kind of had the idea of just wanting to write a cookbook. I just wanted something tangible in my hands and I didn't know how I was going to do it.

Yeah, the bot, the boss that or founder. He wasn't somebody that I worked for directly, but of the nonprofit that I used to work at. Did that with his mom, and she had all these Italian recipes that he wanted to have somewhere, like, archived, essentially, not on little scraps of paper, but to really have this kind of, like, album of recipes that then you'd be able to pass down through generations. And it sounds like it was similar for you, where the. The heart behind it was like, my mom has these incredible recipes. I want to preserve them in some way. And you having the skills to do that. Said, great, I can put this together on Shutterfly or something like that. So in that first version of it, is that really what it was? Or when you started to think about publishing recipes on a blog, did you start to think, hey, maybe I can actually publish this in a way where more than, like, family and friends are going to be purchasing it?

Yeah, definitely grew. And just like you said, your. Your friend with an Italian mom. Italian grandma. You know, a lot of the recipes that I grew up with were never written down. So I literally had to, you know, follow my mom with the measuring spoon before she threw it to make flour.

Because she's not going to be measuring it. Like, she knows what it feels like to hold it in her hand and put it in.

Yeah, exactly. It's all about feeling and touch and flavor as you go. And so, yeah, so that was the really hard part. But. So I initially was just going to do a family little cookbook. But then as I started the blog, right away, I started getting comments from people. And it's funny to look back at my blog now and to think everything that you're taught not to do is what I did. It was all about storytelling, a lot of stories. Everything is based on a memory. And when I had that dish and what makes it special for me and very personal and what my kids love, you know, so it was just very storytelling. And a lot of people actually loved that. They fell in love with, you know, those same recipes that, you know, there's so many cultural Mexican recipes that, you know, if your grandma doesn't share them with you, how to make it, you don't really know how to make it. And so, so many people were reaching out to me, saying, oh, my gosh, you know, I made your capirotada, which is a Mexican bread pudding. And, you know, it just reminded me of my grandma's home as it was baking. And, you know, you said, you're writing a book. Where can I buy this book? And I was like, you want my family cookbook? You know, that's when I just realized, wow, so many something here. Yeah, some, you know, people have these same stories and people have these same memories and these same dishes. They might be a little bit of a different type of recipe because, you know, region to region in Mexico or El Paso, every family makes it a little different. But, you know, I thought, okay, maybe I can turn this into something. And I'm so happy looking back now. Cause I was so naive thinking, like, you know, maybe I could write a real cookbook. Maybe I could really have it published. You know, initially I looked into the self publishing route and thinking, you know, that's just a big investment. I don't want, you know, a thousand books in my garage. I don't want to have to deal with shipping. And I don't really think at the time there was really a lot of on demand publishing options. Options. It was definitely more. You had to fork out the money to have it printed and ship and figure out how are you going to get it into stores. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that. So maybe I can just reach out to some publishers. And at the time, I didn't have a huge following. I mean, all I had was Facebook and my blog and. And so I started researching and learned that you have to write a proposal. So I bought this book. It was like, recipe. I don't even know if it's still published or out there anymore, but it was like, recipes. How did it go? How to write a cookbook proposal? But it was in a recipe template format. So I was like, I could literally like, this is fitting this.

It's like a recipe but a proposal for a cookbook.

Exactly. So I was like, okay, that was very specific. And I used it as a little bible. And it's like, okay, write your introduction and write your competition. And then I started looking at competition and thinking, who do I. Who's my competition? I mean, there's, you know, my. I wanted a Mexican homestyle cookbook, but there wasn't even a lot of Mexican cookbooks out there. And if they were, they were huge celebrity chefs. You know, Rick Bayless, you know, Diana Kennedy, Marcela Vallori. So like these huge, very popular Mexican chefs. And I was like, oh, gosh, I'm not a chef who's gonna really want to publish this book. But, you know, I just, I found all those books and every book that I loved, you know, I just would set them out and, you know, literally write down what I loved about it what I didn't love about it. And I think having that edge of having that graphic design skill really helped me. I'm super visual. Like, I love to know what catches my eye. And so. And so I finally finished writing my proposal. Then I started thinking, like, okay, I didn't even know at the time that I think that you have to get a literary agent. I just went straight to the publishers.

Yeah, it's one of those things where you don't know until you know. And the only way you know is by going through the process. Like, it's. The best way to learn is. Is to. There. There's the research side, but you could research forever.

Exactly.

Sometimes you're at an advantage if you don't know and you just get after it like that. For myself, I found, like, the. The quickest way to make a lot of traction in a short amount of time is just to start moving forward and seeing where you hit walls, seeing where you bounce off a little bit, refining from there. And that's. It's like the best type of education.

So you go through the process.

You're learning, you're. It sounds like the steps that you went through. It was. First step was idea phase, where, hey, we want to do this, and I want to do this to capture these recipes that are meaningful to me and my family. And then the second phase was as you started talking about that, some people started to say, hey, I'd be interested in it. How can I purchase it? And somebody was like, you should create a blog where people can learn about this cookbook and you can promote it. So then you started to learn a little bit about kind of the promotion side of it through a blog, and then learned how to do a proposal from this book and then started to shop that to publishers. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And this was 2010. So at the time, publishers wanted a printed, mailed copy of a proposal. They didn't even allow an email, which is kind of crazy to think about it, but. But I was like, well, I'll just start small. I won't go to, like, the huge publishing places. So I started looking at smaller books. And I found this one publisher that was out of New York, Hippocreney Books, and they published a cookbook by another author out of El Paso. And I was like, wow, that's great. This publishing house, it's a big place specializing in ethnic and international type of travel or cultural books. You know, maybe I can reach out to them. So I initially just did an introduction, email, and what Was crazy is they had already heard about me, they had already seen my blog and were even thinking about reaching out to me.

Oh, wow.

So. So I was like, okay, this is definitely meant to be. I was either, do I continue reaching out to other publishers or just go with them? And. And I figured, you know, I love that it was an automatic connection and. And that they were small, but they were still big. But at the time, they had only published. I mean, they published, you know, hundreds and hundreds of books, but not what I was visualizing. I wanted, like, you know, beautiful paper, you know, glossy pages. Yeah. All color, you know, hard hardcover, you.

Know, and like, stylistically, there wasn't anything that you could look at that they had done and could say, like, I want to replicate in look and feel content this thing. And that wasn't there.

Yeah. And so then. So. But they're like, you know what? If you have that vision, we want to work with you. And it was a very collaborative opportunity where it was like, I literally got to feel and, you know, paper and, you know, and as a graphic designer, I had already started designing the book because initially I was going to just do my own or just self publishing. And I was like, I already have it kind of laid out. You know, can I still do the design? And they're like, yeah, if you want. You know, so, you know, once the whole advance and all, all that was written up, you know, they had their photography budget, their graphic design budget, and, you know, it was nice to still be able to really have a hold of that because it was like my baby, you know, something, you know, literally my family recipes that I didn't. Wasn't ready to give up to somebody else to design it.

So.

So in that case, they. It sounds like within the kind of deal structure of the cookbook, they said, hey, we have this amount for graphic design. But you just didn't hire a graphic designer. You yourself went through the graphic design process, so you hear about that a lot. Most often with, like, photography where somebody would just say, hey, I'm going to do photography on my own to save the cost of hiring somebody. And if you're good at it and you like doing it makes a lot of sense to do that.

What did that.

What did you learn in the process of going through that first cookbook? And can you talk a little bit about what that was. Did it was your original vision for it, what it ended up being?

Um, yeah, I mean, I feel like, you know, initially when I first started it, it was just going to be me and Then my mom's like, I want to help. So, you know, I said, okay, let's write this together. And then my sister's like, hey, I want to be a part of this. She's always wanted to write a cookbook. I was like, okay, it'll be from the three of us. So it's three generations of Mexican recipes. So recipes from my grandma, recipes from my mom, and recipes from my sister and myself. So it was fun to just collaborate and really see the evolution of Mexican food, of the classics.

And those would be your grandma, the.

Classics, and then to the kind of everyday Mexican dishes, to more of the entertaining style, appetizers type of thing. So it was fun.

That same order would be grandma, mom, and then you and your sister.

Right, Right. Yeah. And my. My grandma had already passed away, but I mean, it was the recipes that we all know and love that my mom knew how to make sure. So thankfully, you know, she's the one who helped us develop those recipes and literally write them down.

That's really cool. And so original idea was kind of preserved in what the cookbook ended up being. What did you learn going through the process, start to finish?

I learned it's a lot of work. It's just so much work. And at the time, I wasn't experienced with writing just to even. It was therapeutic. It was definitely, you dive in. And it's more, for me, a storytelling moment. And the way we organized it is by author. And so I designed these little silhouettes of each of us so that you know who's telling the story in the cookbook. So even though maybe we. We didn't develop that recipe, it's what that recipe means to us. So it's really cute because some people have just told me that they read the book cover to cover because of the stories. And so that's what I love to hear, is that not only is it beautiful and the recipes are delicious, but it's graphically beautiful. And it's just more than just a cookbook. There's a lot of storytelling.

Yeah, that's great. We hear that a lot. It's a lot of work. And kind of as a through line with anybody that talk about who does a cookbook, and I think people who listen to this podcast know creating is a lot of work, but it almost feels like from what I can see from the outside, a cookbook is like a level above that. Like, it's a lot, a lot of work. But you ended up doing it again. So talk about what that second time. And now coming up, you'll do it a third time.

How did you do things differently the second time?

And what was your hope in. In doing the second cookbook?

Well, what's funny is I always compare it to having a baby. You know, it's so that, you know, just that whole pregnancy phase, it's tiring. It's just emotional draining. You know, it's just like you're just done. You just really want this baby out in the world. And so then with the second cookbook, I wasn't even planning on it. It wasn't something that I wanted to do or that I even thought of doing. The second book is a cocktail book, and it was a friend of mine who's also a food blogger. Her name is Vianney, and her blog is Sweet Life. And she wanted to write a book about. Or I was actually encouraging her to write a book about margaritas, because I call her the Margarita Queen. She loves making margaritas.

Good friend to have.

Yeah. And so then I was like, you really need to write a Margarita Carita cookbook. And so she's like, yeah, I've thought about it. And so then after we talked about it, I said, you know what? Why don't we co author a book together and, you know, maybe pitch it to the same proposal that I already worked with a publisher that I already worked with and see if they'd be interested in. And so that's how that one came together. It was very, you know, it was a fun book. I mean, it's cocktails. So it's all cocktails from Latin America and Spain because I didn't want to take away her Margarita future book if she ever decides to do one. So we did it by chapter of Latin America and Spain and all these just fun, exotic cocktails.

So.

So that one was a little easier just because it wasn't food. But still, it's. It's still a process and still takes a lot of time. And that one, I decided I'm not going to do the design for it because that part on my first book was just too personal. It was too hard to make a decision. And, you know, do I like this font and do I like this color and do, like, this chapter opening, or do I, you know, was just too overwhelming that I didn't want to, you know, get so involved with those little details. And so it was actually fun to have somebody else. It was Heidi with Foodie Crush who actually designed our cocktail book. And so. And so they hired her, and she did the design for our book.

Yeah, it Seems like one of those things where even if you have the skills and the ability to do it, it doesn't mean that it's not work. And I've heard that again with photographers who are really capable, skilled photographers, do a cookbook and they're like, you know what, like the decisions that I have to make around the recipes, around everything else, the deadlines like to add in another layer of consideration, in that consideration being photography, or in your case, graphic design, like, it just doesn't make sense. And I think there, there comes a time, whether within a mini project like a cookbook or the kind of the greater business, day to day business considerations, where we have to make a decision around having somebody else do the thing that we're good at. And it maybe feels weird to do that, but you can't do everything. And the best things to pass off are the things that you don't like to do or you aren't good at. But eventually it might come to a point where you have to pass off the things that you are good at and you do enjoy doing just in service of your own sanity and time and all the above. So with that second cookbook, did you work with the same publisher for that or did you go to a different publisher or self publish?

So for the second book, yes, it was still again, with Hip Craney books out of New York. And again, I loved working with that team. I was already familiar with them and we just had a great synergy, a great process of how to turn things in. And you know, it was still a lot of work. You know, we had a photographer, the same photographer for the first, first book and the second book, and everything was shot in my home. So, you know, that's a mess in itself. A lot of cooking, a lot of cleaning, a lot of styling, a lot of buying decor and props. So, so yeah, it's, it's a lot of work. But, but I love that creative side of it. Like I, that's what was natural to me is trying to learn how to make things look pretty on a plate.

And what about working with a co author? It feels like you'd have to have two very unique people in order to pull that off. And for that to work both with your first one with your family, but also the, with the second cookbook, working with a friend or an acquaintance in the, in the food publishing world, anything that you learned in that process that you would want to communicate to people who are thinking of maybe writing something together.

I think when it comes to like a niche book like that it works perfectly. You know, obviously, the first one is very family oriented and very personal. So I don't think I would just get any author to co author it with me. You know, it was special because it was my mom and my sister. The second one was because she's a cocktail expert. You know, I love, you know, making cocktails and learning about cocktails. So I think it was fun and works well for a niche type of book.

Yeah.

So. But yeah, I mean, for this new cookbook that I'm writing, it's completely solo, which in itself is a whole other level of crazy, but in a good way.

Let's. Let's talk about that. So first, the name of the first cookbook and the second cookbook. What are the names of those?

So the first cookbook is Muy Bueno, which is what my blog is. It's Muy Bueno. And then my second cookbook or the cocktail book is called Latin Twist. Because anytime we would make something, it's like, oh, and we're going to do it with a Latin twist. So it was all that just always kept coming up.

And can you talk about the meaning behind muy Bueno?

Yeah. So muy bueno, the way it started was I remember one day, my mom and I, you know, this is when we had this idea of writing this cookbook. I said, well, what are we going to call it? And. And again, this is before I even had the blog. And I said, well, think about a name and call me if you come up with an idea. So I was at work and just thinking and thinking about it, and she called me, and I was calling her at the exact same time. And so finally I was like, okay, I let her call me, and she's like, I have the name. I was like, no, I have the name. And she's like, okay. I was like, let's say it on the count of three.

That's awesome.

And so we both said, muy bueno.

Oh, that's awesome.

And so then the reason we said muy Bueno was because my grandma would always, always welcome people in her house that way. She's like, sienta te a comedy, which means sit down and eat. It's very good. So I just thought, like, that was, you know, something that was just so natural and something that reminded me of my grandma. And I definitely wanted to, you know, honor her in that way.

That's great. So this third cookbook, you've been through it twice. You have some experience. And I feel like the third time around with a Big project like this, you've really developed some opinions, you know, what the process is like. And I know it was a few years ago that you published these other cookbooks, but you're coming back around to it now. Tell us about what that was like this. This third time around. Did you work with the same publisher?

Did you use a literary agent?

What. What was your game plan for this one?

So with this one, I definitely wanted it, you know, just written by myself. And I've had this idea as soon as we wrote the first cookbook. You know, everybody's always asking, you know, what is your favorite dish? And for me, it always changed depending on the time of year, you know, and that's the way we eat. You know, it's all seasonal. It's all about the holidays. So I know that I wanted to write a cookbook surrounded by. With the holidays in mind. And I had talked to our original publisher, and, you know, they loved the idea and they were excited. They would have published it, but it just. The budget wasn't there. You know, I really wanted it big. I wanted to really have money to go all out with a great photographer. I wanted to be compensated for myself enough to, you know, really dive into it. So they just couldn't meet the advance that I was hoping for. And so then I said, well, you know what? Let's. Maybe it's time for me to really try and figure out how to find another publisher. So I started researching how to get a literary agent. And that in itself is, you know, a big thing. The proposal itself for this new cookbook took me close to a year to write. So that in itself was writing a book. You know, it was just a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of heartache, you know, thinking, like, is it worth it? Is. Is somebody going to love it as much as I. I am going to love it? And so it was just, you know, that in itself was, like, super emotional. And then that was, like, right before the pandemic. So I was like, what am I doing? You know, this is, you know, do I really want to keep doing this? And so during that time, what's great now that I think of it, like, What a blessing 2020 was, because I think it's made you step back and do completely different things that maybe I wasn't doing. And one of them was listening to podcasts.

Sure.

And so I started listening to podcasts and hearing about other people's journey, writing a cookbook and finding literary agents. And one of the agents that really kept Standing out was Sally Eckes with the Eckes Group, and had seen her name floating around. And I was like a stalker. I started stalking her. I started, like, you know, listening to every podcast that she was in. Look, Googling every interview that she was in and trying to figure out, you know, what is it that she's looking for? And, you know, you know, what. What can I do to make her notice me? And at the time, I had already gotten a couple other rejects from some other agents. You know, right away, they would say, no, your numbers aren't high enough, or, you know, your other books didn't do amazingly well. So it was very about the numbers and very discouraging. And so when I finally reached out to Sally Eckers, I had my proposal. And she said, your intro letter was the best intro letter I've ever received. It was very personal, very in sync to what she's looking for. And so she's like, I definitely want to work with you. And so that just made me.

Yeah, I was going to say, I feel like that comes from and worth pointing out. Like, you had done. You called it stalking. I would call it research. You had done a lot of work leading up to that point to get to the point where you're essentially, like, pitching her. And my guess is that you had developed some opinions based on the podcast that you heard, the interviews that you read around how to do that. And it reminds me a little bit of when I was. This is different, but the same. When I was in college, one of the things I would always do is before paper would be due, I'd try and finish it, like, a week ahead of time. And then I would email it to the professor and say, like, hey, I finished this paper. Could you take a look through and, like, let me know any changes you'd like to see with it or things that should be different. And then they'd essentially, like, grade it and then send it back to me. And then I would do it. I'd do the updates and then send it in, like, submit it. And they'd be like, oh, my gosh, this is great. You know, you get an A or whatever. It was not always, but essentially what you're doing in. In that phase, I would guess, is, like, you're listening to her say what's important to her. Say the.

You know, how to frame up a.

Story around a book. And then you encapsulate all of that in the letter, and she looks at it and she's like, oh, my gosh, this is great. But it comes from doing the work ahead of time. And I think sometimes what can happen is people can get so rushed, they can be like, I'm just gonna, like, send off this thing. It's not personal. It's not, like, aimed at somebody. And it's a. It's a weak pitch because there's no personalization to it. There's no story, and you're not aligning it to that person. So I think worth pointing out how important that research phase was for you in order to set you up to have a successful interaction with her, for sure.

And I think, you know, it's like Internet is today. You know, you have that one few moment to have make a good impression. Is it going to be a good one? Is it going to be a memorable one? Is it going to be like, who is this person, you know? Or are they going to be like, next? You know? So I just really, really knew in my heart that if I make it personal, at least she'll read it. I didn't care if she would say no. I just wanted her to know that I geared it towards her. And she saw that and she loved it, and it just worked out in my favor. And so she read the proposal. I already had it completely done. And they gave me great feedback of what ideas to change or how to frame it differently or what to include that maybe I didn't include. So we tweaked it a bit more, and then from there they pitched it to different publishers.

Yeah.

Can you talk about the role of a literary agent?

It feels like there's so many different people involved in the cookbook process. And I'd be curious to know, like, when do you involve somebody essentially, like, what would your advice be for somebody who wants to write a cookbook now that you've been through it three times, now that you've gotten to a point where, you know, you were able to get that advance that you wanted to get, what would your advice be for somebody who's like, I want to write a cookbook. What do you do and what are the first steps that you take?

I always say, you know, start writing the proposal, because so many people don't really understand the whole proposal process. You know, you have to write in the proposal, you know, your biography, your. It's your. It's your marketing plan, it's your business plan. It's, you know, how are you going to pitch this? How are you going to sell it? How are you going to promote it? How, you know, what are your numbers on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest? All your social medias, what, what awards have you won? All these things that you know how you have to write in there. Because if you're, you know, Grandma May next door, you know, yeah, your recipes might be amazing and your little community, your church community might love them. But who are you to the everyday other world and how are you going to compete in this book plan?

And are you, are you, would you write a proposal and then use that to have a conversation with a literary agent? Or it sounded like when you were working with your literary agent, she, or maybe what you're saying is like she revised the draft that you had created. Is that what it was?

Yeah, I mean, my proposal was pretty much complete. There was just other little tweaks that they recommended me add in. But for the most part, if you're going to start even looking for a literary agent, you need to have a proposal. Unless they're going to really fall in love with you because you have these amazing numbers that they could say, oh yeah, that sounds great, now work on your proposal. But for the most part, a literary agency isn't going to take you seriously until you at least have that first part that makes sense.

Yeah, so get working on the proposal right away. It sounded like for you it was a long process of making sure that you had it right. And it's almost like I can imagine working alongside your proposal kind of in the lab while you're doing the forward looking things like your blog and your social, and continuing to build that, then working on this proposal, making sure that's tweaked and adjusted to the point where you feel good about it. At what point then would you say, hey, it makes sense to reach out and where do you find information for these people? Like, you talked about podcasts, but where are the other places that you can find a literary agent or an agency or, you know, publishers? Is there like a database that exists for that? Where do you go?

Yeah, I definitely googled a lot. You know, just literary agents, cookbook literary agents. I talked to other bloggers that I knew and asked who their agents were and if they like them. And so then I reached out to a couple of those and those were the ones who were like, nope, your numbers aren't big enough. So yeah, there's definitely lots of places to look. It's just a matter of researching. And if there's what I did, it would just look at their roster of other books that they've published or that they've partnered with and to see if, you know, sometimes an agent will Be like, no, we're already working with a cookbook that's similar to yours. So no. So you never know why somebody might not want to work with you. But it's. I mean, there's so many agents out there.

Well, and the interesting thing is, you know, you talk about numbers not being good enough or whatever, but, like, you're also, you've built a business that. And I think about this a lot, like other professions, it's like the salary of a medical professional, like a doctor.

You know, it's like you have this.

Really successful business and you can, I think, number one, like, it's just important to remember that for us as creators, like, sometimes we have these markers and then you'll hear those interactions from people and be like, oh, the numbers aren't good enough. It's like, oh, actually, like, it's really impressive what, what you've built, what we've all built. I'm curious to know what it was like for you to kind of push through that. Like, when you hear somebody come back to you and be like, oh, your numbers aren't good enough. Be like, oh, shoot, that doesn't feel great. Like, did you remind yourself of the, you know, the good work that you've done? Or like, what. What did that look like for you?

I mean, it was. It's definitely discouraging and definitely, you know, makes you second guess it and, you know, do you even want to do this? Because maybe it won't be successful. And that does get into and play in your head and. But then, just like you said, you know, it's like, okay, I'm working with brands, I have a great audience, my business is growing and it's successful. I mean, just to think, you know, how much. I mean, this is a really cool thing to share that, you know, it's so funny to share it is that I won an Emmy on a video.

Yeah, I saw that.

Never would I have ever thought that, you know, in this world that I'd be producing a short format video and it win an Emmy. So I was like, okay, I might not have the millions of followers on Instagram, but, you know, there's certain things that have really been noticed in this business journey that I knew that I had something. And I love the, the feedback just from people who are following me and, you know, resonating with my story. And I know that there wasn't a lot of Latina authors who are writing books, writing about their culture, writing about their history, writing about their, their journey and their family and their recipes. So I definitely want it. I kept reminding myself of that, that those are the things that are important then, and our voices need to be heard.

Yeah, that's awesome. And a great note to wrap up on Yvette, before we go, actually, one more question. If you were to go 2010, you're just starting out, you're kind of thinking about this potential of a cookbook or, you know, the potential of a blog, what advice would you give yourself?

It's the same advice I give to other people, is just do it. Just like you were saying, don't think about it. Or, you know, even though you might be naive in the beginning, just put yourself out there and you're going to learn from your mistakes and then you're going to keep growing from them.

That's awesome. And where can people get in touch with you about, like, if they want to reach out, if they want to maybe shoot you? DM? Are your DMs open? Can people DM you? What's the best way to get in touch with you and also follow along with what you're up to?

Yeah, so my blog is muy buenocookbook.com and Instagram Muy Bueno Cooking. I totally respond to every single message on Instagram. I'm obsessed with my Instagram family. And, yeah, you can shoot me an email, send me a dm. I'm totally open for that.

Awesome. Yvette, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Hello.

Hello, Leslie here from the Food Blogger Pro team. We really hope that you enjoyed this week's episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. Before we sign off, I wanted to mention one of the most robust features of a Food Blogger Pro membership, and that's our courses. So in case you're not familiar, as soon as you sign up for a Food Blogger Pro membership, you immediately get access to all of our courses on Food Blogger Pro. And we have lots and lots hours upon hours of courses for you to check out, ranging on all different topics from SEO to photography to video to all types of social media. Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube. The list goes on and on. And all of these courses have been recorded by our Food Blogger Pro team or by our industry experts, by all of the Food Blogger Pro experts that we have on our team. And we are constantly going in and updating old courses. So you can rest assured that you're getting the best information possible as you're working to grow your blog, to grow your business, the courses are the best way to learn how to do that. So like I mentioned, you can get access to all of our courses by joining Food Blogger Pro. So if you'd like to do that, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com join to learn more about our membership and join the community. We really hope that you enjoy checking out our courses. They are one of my favorite parts of a FoodBloggerPro membership. Just because we have so much knowledge for you to check out there. I think that's everything we've got for you this week though. Thanks again for tuning in and for listening to the podcast, and until next time, we hope you have time.

Great. A a great weekend.