The Art of Cookbook Publishing with Danielle Walker

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Hey there. Thanks for tuning in to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. My name is Anne. In today's episode, we're sitting down with Danielle Walker, who just published her seventh cookbook called Make It Easy. In this episode, Danielle walks us through her unconventional cookbook journey and the valuable lessons she's learned along the way, from the necessity of advanced payments to the crucial role an agent plays in the process. She also emphasizes the importance of building a strong community, understanding your audience and prioritizing your mental health and creating a work life balance for aspiring cookbook authors and anyone looking to build a successful online community. This episode will be right up your alley. If you enjoyed the episode, we would really appreciate it if you would leave a review anywhere you listen to podcasts or share the episode with your community. And now, without further ado, I'll let Bjork take it away.

Danielle, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

We were joking. Before we press record, we talked about you being kind of in the thick of it because you are just about to launch into a book tour here. But this isn't the first time you've done it. You've done this a few different times and we're going to be talking about that today. Just what it's been like for you to write multiple cookbooks, what you've learned throughout the process. But before we do that, talk to me about the first cookbook that you published. So this is number six.

This is number. Yeah, it's my seventh book, my sixth cookbook. Yeah.

Yes. Okay, so seventh book, sixth cookbook. Take us back. What did it look like to. To write that first book, to go through that process? And then what we're going to do is we're going to kind of talk about what you've learned along the way.

Great. Yes. So my first cookbook, it was self titled Against All Grain. That was my blog back in the day. And I forget when Pinch of Yum started, but I feel like Lindsay and I kind of got started around similar time. I. Yeah, okay. So, yeah, I think I first drafted my blog in 2008 or 2009, probably 2008. I let it sit stagnant for some time. And so I would say 2010, 2011 is when I really started picking it up and doing more with it. So I think that's when Lindsey and I probably first connected. And my blog at the time was called Against All Grain. And I, you know, I got offered this publishing deal and I can give a little more details on that because that sounds so glamorous and, you know, it sounds like it's what everybody really hopes for. At the time. You know, as a new food blogger, I did not know that food bloggers could write cookbooks. I thought cookbooks. And I've said this before, you know, I thought cookbooks were reserved for the Inec Gardens, the, you know, Reed Drummond. Even though she did start as a food blogger, but had a Food network show, the Rachel Ray's, the Giada de Laurentiis. You know, I'm thinking, okay, you have to, A, go to culinary school to write a cookbook, and B, you have to be this, you know, world famous television chef to be able to write a book. And so I was blogging a lot at the time, and I think I was putting up four recipes a week. I was on Facebook. You know, Instagram wasn't quite around yet. And I was thinking to myself, I'm creating all these recipes and I can't get them published fast enough. Or I could, but I didn't want to because I thought they'd get lost in the mix. And so I started looking into self publishing, just an ebook. And so my husband Ryan and I at the time were like looking into what that would look like to put it up on Amazon. You know, I'm thinking like, oh, I'll release like 40 recipes all at once and charge like $2 for it. And as we're starting to get ready to publish that, yeah, 50. 50 cents. You know, I just was like, just something I don't really care Too much. You know, it was of like, I want to put all these recipes out there. And as bloggers, you know, we were pretty used to putting a lot of free content out for free. And so I was just about to get ready to start working on that and I got an email in my inbox from this small publisher that I'd never heard of before. Now, I probably wasn't too familiar with many publishers at the time. I never really even like flipped the spine of a book to see who published it. I think probably, you know, Penguin Random House or, you know, something like that I knew of. But this publisher reached out and her story was really compelling to me. And it was really exactly why, you know, I started my blog and why I did what I did. Which long story short was I had an autoimmune disease and created anti inflammatory recipes to kind of go along with the diet that I found helped keep my symptoms at bay. And so it was this long email, which I was pretty accustomed to getting at that point of the story, you know, of somebody that used a recipe that it really helped their health and then it helped them feel like they were more included in, you know, different environments or different traditions. And so I wasn't really expecting it to turn into an offer. It was kind of the story of high have, you know, a child that has an autoimmune disease and he can't eat grains or dairy. And at his school, I think he was 4, at his school they have cereal day every week and he feels left out because he can't have the milk and he can't have the cereal. And she went on to say, I make your granola. It's grain free. No, you know, gluten free, grain free. And we send almond milk. And now he feels like he can be part of his class, you know, and so I'm reading this thinking like, oh, you know, this is amazing. I get these types of emails and this is really why I do what I do. And then, you know, the last paragraph was, I work for a publisher and we want to offer you a cookbook deal. And so that's, that's really how it came to be. And it was a very quick process. We had no idea what we were doing. Thankfully, my husband Ryan had just graduated law school pretty like soon before that. And so he looked through the contracts and you know, he was like, I don't know what a cookbook contract should look like. I think we asked a friend to look it over for us and just look at the terms. And we signed and decided to go ahead and do it. And, you know, we can talk through now being number six and having moved on from that publisher and understanding a little more of what the traditional publishing world looks like. This was a very untraditional publishing deal.

And when you say untraditional, like for people who aren't familiar with what the publishing world look like, myself included, what was untraditional about it?

Yeah, so a few, quite a few things. Number one, I had, I think six months to write the book and short amount of time. Yep, very short amount of time. And we're talking 150 brand new recipes. And so it was going to be on shelves, I believe, within 12 months. I think of when we signed the contract, which is also about a year shorter than most publishing contracts. And it was the way that this publisher worked. He really jumped onto trends, quote, unquote, at the time. So he was the main publisher of Paleo cookbooks, then became, you know, the main publisher of Keto Cookbooks. And so that was kind of his business model of catching these bloggers or catching these, you know, waves and, and getting a book turned around before.

So there's some.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, so that was one untraditional thing. Number two, there were no advances. And so, you know, I didn't even know to ask for that at the time. But I also just felt so grateful that anybody would even offer me a contract. And so I didn't really think through, oh, you know, I've got to buy ingredients to test 150 recipes. I need to get some childcare for my 2 year old so that I can actually get this done in six months. And so there was no money up front to be able to help cover some of that stuff. And we dipped into our savings and, you know, kind of drained it honestly to be able to write it. And it was a risk that paid off ultimately, but we didn't know it at the time. And then I would say three or is that I'm like abc, no photographer. And so you were expected to, yeah, you were expected to style, photograph everything yourself and then of course write and edit yourself as well. And let's go forward. Another, you know, another one, no marketing and publicity. So very small, kind of niche publisher. Most of the work was on you. They were a great partner in terms of, you know, they had good distribution, they were very communicative, they were supportive. They kind of let you write whatever book you wanted. And I can talk through some of the pitfalls of some of that as well. That Came after.

Yeah, that would be great because it also sounds like, you know, you reference it, no advance, but you said you kind of had to dip into savings. But my guess is then obviously you had royalties on the books that you sold. It sounds like it maybe worked out in a way where it was actually ended up being okay. Was that because you had an audience you were able to sell, you were able to do the publicity, you proved yourself in the process. And so that's probably why you're on book number seven here, six book. Because you saw the potential of it, but learned a lot in the process. So what were some of the downsides that you discovered along the way?

Yes, speaking to that, it definitely paid off. We didn't know if it would, you know, I remember saying I was hoping it would sell 5,000 copies. That was kind of my main goal. And I do remember at the time I probably had somewhere around 20,000 Facebook fans, quote, unquote. And so that was just kind of what I was hoping for. And that would have helped us, I think, to kind of break even based on the royalties that you got. It went on to sell far more than that. And it landed on the New York Times bestsellers list, I think probably week two. And my audience did a Indiegogo, which I don't even know if Indiegogo is still a thing, but it's like a Kickstarter to send me on tour. They paid for it because the publisher had no. No marketing budget. I stood in the plaza at the Today show at 5am with all my own books, just my own PR representative, like, handed them out to people. And so I really had to hustle for it to sell. I, you know, I had to go. I toured 25 cities. I called every single. I actually went down the list of where Ina Garten and Reed Drummond had visited on their book tours and just cold called every manager and was like, hi, I'm a new author. I want to come to your store. I wanted to do a book selling. And most of them were like, no, thanks. And then I would tell them, I've got an audience. It's not huge, but they're very engaged. And they would kind of listen a little bit longer. And so I really had to hustle to sell it. And it did pay off some of the pitfalls. It was a small publisher. And so because of the rush of everything, there were definitely some things that kind of, I think, slipped through the cracks. I will say my very first book falls apart at the spine. And people I was just talking to.

A friend who published a book. And he was like, we got this huge shipment from China and it was a bummer because we started to ship them out and people would open them and they started to fall apart. And he said it was because they stacked them wrong when they were shipping them in the crate. And instead of going every other, like, one facing with the spine one way and the spine, then the other way, they accidentally, like, stacked them all with the spine on the same side and it resulted in them, like, falling apart. But, yeah, you don't even think about.

That anymore these days because it's been 11 years since against All Green came out. And, you know, my audience will show me their real deal chocolate chip cookie pages. Literally, just like at the seam, it's fallen out, you know, and I have original copies. They had glued some things instead of, like, actually binding them. And it was all that publisher did, all paperbacks. They did not do, you know, what we now know, like, as, like, a really nice cookbook with the hardcover spine. And it was a lot of. Because of the quick turnaround time, and it kept the price down for people, too. You know, it wasn't a $50, $40 cookbook. And so that would be, I would say, the biggest thing. And then just really. Because there wasn't a lot of support financially and. Or they didn't even have, you know, a marketing department. And so we relied on me touring, on me getting out there with people on the blogger community, which I would say was huge at the time. You know, they just had this big, long list, and that's who we sent books to. There was no press or media or anything. But, yeah, it was a very, very quick and tight turnaround. And so I did one more with them and then ultimately just couldn't justify it because it was really hard on my health, really hard as a mom, and I needed to be able to have an advance upfront. And so we took my third one to them, but they couldn't pay anything upfront. And I just said, I've got to have some sort of, you know, some sort of money up front so that I can pay for this, this, and this, you know, and I have just a little bit. You know, when you spend almost a whole year of your life working on something, obviously, like, was a great risk and it paid off at the beginning, but the longer you kind of get into your career and you're building your family and your business, you can't take those risks as often anymore.

What I love about that story is, like, you, I Think so often people wait and they say, you know what? I'm going to wait until the perfect deal comes through. I'm going to wait until I have complete understanding of how this works and I'm going to research it and make sure that every little bit. And BOP is, you know, I have complete knowledge of it. But what I found is so often it's people who, you know, instead of making, being concerned about making right decisions, it's people who make decisions. Right. And I think what you did is you knew, my guess is you knew that you wanted to be a published author. You get this opportunity and you get after it and you learn a ton in the process. But what that allows you to do is you can then iterate and you can change and you can adjust. And so often it's through those experiences that we learn and we get better, as opposed to kind of sitting back and waiting for the opportunity to happen or waiting for complete knowledge, but actually getting after it every day. And it's messy and it's inefficient and it's not optimized. But what it allows you to do is it allows you to feel it in a way that you wouldn't if you were just like reading about it or learning about it. And then next time around you're able to do it so much better. So talk about, you know, there's a lot in between the first book that you publish and now the seventh book that you've published, sixth cookbook. But what are some of the things that you folded into the process now for you that are kind of part of your framework for going through the publishing process? It sounds like one of those is to be clear about asking for an advance. What are some of the other things that are kind of non negotiables as you enter into a cookbook deal?

Yeah, gosh, it's so true. And also just to add on to that, if I wouldn't have jumped on it, I might have missed the boat. There were so many bloggers coming at the time, so many books being published. And so I really do feel like the timing was just what it needed to be for it to take off. So I met with a friend who actually writes Bible studies. I remember after my second book, and I just met her, she was an author and we just had lunch and she was like, so who's your agent? And I was like, what do you mean, who's my agent? I don't have an agent.

What's an agent? Tell me more.

What's an agent? And so that was probably the first thing that I think, hiring and finding an agent that really believed in my message, that had good relationships with publishers and editors. That was the first step that I took as I was starting to figure out how to kind of move forward and how to really kind of elevate and take it up a notch. And so I have been with her now since my third book, and so that was probably the biggest thing. And not only that, she could help guide me through the process of a more traditional publishing world about. About what it looks like to put together a proposal. I hadn't ever done a proposal before. I just got this offer for that book. And then the second book, I was like, hey, this is what I want to write, and just started writing it. So she helped guide me through that process. We flew to New York, we met with all the different publishing houses. She was my advocate, but also just kind of this sounding board of, here's all these different offers. And so she really walked me through that process. And I would say she's a great agent and that she sticks around for a lot more than just signing the deal, which I think we hear a lot from people who go on to publish books. And so she has been vital, I think, in this whole process. And then number two, you know, because I knew what it was like to rush and to write a book as quickly as I possibly could, and it took up my entire life. I started to work in those buffers, you know. So a few things. One, I asked for guest blog posts for a while, for my first couple of years, so that I didn't just let my blog go stagnant. I knew that I didn't have time to develop for this book and then also be, you know, publishing consulting consistently. And so I gave opportunities to smaller, up and coming kind of bloggers of, hey, I've got this platform, I've got this blog. Would you like to guest post on it? And so for them it was like this exposure, but for me, it was, I get a week off of, you know, having to develop a new recipe. And then going forward, I started using the book recipes as, as blog recipes, as like sneak peeks and kind of marketing fuel for the book, you know, just to start talking about it and leaking, you know, quote unquote, leaking recipes.

And then you would have a recipe that was going to be included, included in the book, but you strategically publish it to your blog on social kind of dual purpose. It's content that keeps the blog and everything online active, but also potentially kind of Like a trailer for a movie where it's content, it's promotion, it gets people excited about what's to come. So a little bit of, like, dual purpose with that content.

Yeah. And, you know, some publishers have pretty strict rules around how much you're allowed to either repurpose from your blog or to put out into the world before the book comes out. They're not.

It's.

I forget what I think. I read somewhere in one of my contracts, it could be 10% of repurposed content in a book. And so, yeah, I started just getting more strategic about that of, you know, as I'm developing these recipes, I can start putting out a few here and there and kind of talking about the book and then just giving myself time, you know, knowing that I, you know, I need to create 125 or 150 recipes in this amount of time, and then I need to type them all up and I need to edit them. And so really figuring out exactly what that looks like, like, and building kind of backwards from what the publication timeline was of how long do I need to do this? Then how long do I need for photography, how long do I need for editing and backing up so that I wasn't finding myself constantly in this cycle of, like, oh, no, you know, I just turned in the last one, and now I've got to market it, and then I got to jump into creating the next one. And so those are kind of the biggest things. And then really, just involving my audience has been essential for me in not only getting them excited about it, but having them part of the process. Because, well, I love to write books. Like, I don't write them for me, you know, I mean, I could keep all my recipes in a journal and keep it in my kitchen. And so I write them for them. And so I really like to get their input, you know, as to, hey, this book came out. You've had six months to cook from it. Now what do you want to see next? And what recipes do you miss? And what could you use more, you know, in your kitchen? What could be different? And I really listened to the feedback of, you know, books from the past and just try for everyone to kind of incorporate the things that they loved and to do more of that. And then, you know, if there were things that they just felt like could have been better, then, you know, I just always take that feedback and put it in.

That's awesome. In the. In the software world or the product world, they often talk about this idea of, you know, customer development, where you're having conversations with customers, and they help shape the product. And I think about that in. Well, and the issue oftentimes is, let's say you're building a software product, you kind of go into the lab for a year and you come back out and you launch it, and everybody's like, wait, we don't want this. And I feel like the same thing can happen in the world of book publishing or cookbooks, where you're really excited about it, you're passionate about it, you come back out into the world, you publish it, and then people are like, wait, but we wanted this thing. And it feels like what you're talking about is customer development at its best, where it's having conversations with your audience, getting an understanding of what they want, and then using that to inform decisions around what you're going to write and what you're going to talk about, what the product is actually going to be. And it sounds like in our conversations, there's two tools that you've used, Kajabi, which I'd be interested in as. As to like what that looked like. And then I know that you've also recently started a substack as a way to focus on connecting with your audience more. Can you talk about how those two different platforms or tools helped inform the process for this upcoming cookbook and then also talk about what the cookbook is like? Yeah, What. What you learned from that process?

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So as bloggers, you know, we're used to immediate kind of feedback and gratification and. Or constructive criticism, I would like to call it nicely. And you publish the recipe and you immediately get people commenting. You know, they're like, this didn't work, or you forgot to put this ingredient, and you're like, oh, let me just go edit it. But when you spend two years publishing a cookbook, that's not an option. And so I did. I really. The first step I did was actually asking for volunteers from my audience to test the recipes from the book so that I could stay intimately connected. It was a small group, 50 or 60 people. They volunteered. I would send them each a few recipes from the cookbook as I was working, and then I would incorporate their feedback before I turned in the final manuscript. And, you know, that model worked so well, but it was definitely a lot to manage. And so I started Kajabi during 2020 as a way to connect with my audience, but on a more intimate level. And also because I have been trying to do a TV show, a cooking show, for a decade plus, and finally during 2020, you know, we have a lot of time at home and Ryan and I filmed and I also brought in another team, you know, later in 2021, and we kind of created my own just tutorial kind of cooking show that we put out there. And the community was really tight knit, still are. They're absolutely incredible. And I was able to really get just feedback immediately from them, you know, watching the videos, what they really gravitated towards, what they learned from them, what they took out of it, that I just kind of babbled and just say in my normal cooking, but that they actually grasped onto and felt like it was a teaching moment. And so I kind of took that and did another kajabi. I would say it wasn't as much video focused, but it was meal plans and I hosted them there and it was kind of a subscription. We only did one year, but different quarters essentially. And because I had seen people, I had always put meal plans in my cookbooks, but they were pretty surface level. It was just kind of like a calendar. Here's four weeks. Didn't do full, extensive grocery lists, I mean kind of, but minimal. But I'd always seen people love those in the cookbooks. And so I said, well, why don't we, you know, take recipes from across all my cookbooks plus my blog and give you this meal plan kind of membership where you get, you know, the grocery list, you get, make ahead steps, you get all these tips. And so that was while I was writing make it Easy, which is the new book that comes out. And so I was able to, through this thing called Circles on Kajabi, was able to do Q&As and hear from the members, you know, on a weekly, daily basis about what they were loving, what they wanted more of. And it really did help shape this book. I originally went into this cookbook thinking it was going to be more of like a meal prep book. And it really morphed into a menu planning cookbook. And it was based on the feedback of everybody that was in this meal planning membership and how much they loved it. But the one thing I heard, and because a lot of these people were, we always call them like the ally. They were people that were like in my course during 2020, they had all my cookbooks. They've probably been following along since 29 whenever the blog started. And so they loved the meal plans that they were like, we really want new recipes. We've made all these recipes before, we love them, but we want meal plans with all brand new recipes. And I was like, well, I can't do weekly meal plans right now while writing a book and create also new recipes for this. It just wasn't feasible for me. But you know, I said, okay, well that's what this book is going to become then. And I'm going to give you 15 weeks of meal plans with all brand new recipes, Make Ahead steps, comprehensive grocery lists plus which we can talk about a way to be able to curate and create your own grocery lists and meal plans through the book and kind of a whole back section of Make Ahead things, which is what they also asked for. Make Ahead desserts. Make Head snacks. Make Ahead dessert breakfasts. Excuse me. And so those were the things we just kept getting asked for more and more in the menu or Neal Plan membership was, oh, you know, I have all these dinners, but I also don't know what to do about breakfast for the week week. I make one thing and just like eat it five days in a row. So it really was their feedback that shaped Make It Easy completely. You know, I had a lot of ideas going into it, but I just was in constant communication throughout and developed the book based on what their needs were.

Before we continue, let's take a moment to hear from our sponsors. This episode is sponsored by Raptive. You may be like the many other Food Blogger Pro members and podcast listeners who are working towards increasing their traffic to be able to apply to an ad network. Raptive, which is formally Ad Thrive, for instance, requires a minimum of 100,000 page views and brand safe content to join the community. These qualifiers attract premium advertisers and ensure creators like you benefit from Raptive's expansive solutions and services. But if you're not quite there yet and you want to be, Raptive can still help. Raptive put together a comprehensive email series. It's 11 emails in total that will help you optimize your content, understand your audience, grow your email list, and grow your traffic to help you reach your ad network goals. Pinch of Yum works with Raptive to bring in passive income each month. The ads show up on each Pinch of Yum post, and when that ad loads on someone's screen or somebody interacts with that ad, Pinch of Yum earns money. So more page views equals more money and it can really add up over time. That's why so many Food Blogger Pro Community members are interested in getting their page view numbers up so that they'll be able to apply to an ad network and make money on display ads. So if you're in the same boat and are interested in getting some traffic tips delivered to you for free, head to foodbloggerpro.com Raptive the 11 weekly emails you'll receive are designed for creators who have a working knowledge of SEO, keyword research and email list, but haven't yet been able to crack that hundred thousand page view mark. Go to foodbloggerpro.com Raptive to opt into this free newsletter series. Thanks again to Raptive for sponsoring this episode. It's interesting. I think so many of us will have an audience. We have people that we are speaking to, one to many. You know, you do an Instagram story or you do Instagram reels, you can reach a big audience. But I would say fewer publishers or creators are having those one to few conversations or even one to one conversations that allow you to really refine what it is that you're doing to allow you to really understand what the needs of your audience are. And what's interesting in your story is it sounds like that came from a community that was also paying to have access to these, the meal plans and you know, to have a closer access to you. Is that true? So these people were, it was like a course or a meal plans or like what did you call it within Kajabi? Was it, did you call it a course?

So there was a meal plan? It was a, it was a membership. The first time we launched it, it wasn't, it was just a product. It was like you sign up for.

This, buy it one off.

Yep, yep. And yeah, so they were, they were paying customers. And the benefits of that, you know, were those private chats and the private Q&As and the community that came with it too. They really ended up forming their own community, which is really what I had hoped for would, you know, that we could cultivate in there. Because while I do love to be there for everybody, it's very difficult these days. You know, social media, it's practically impossible to have actual one on one conversations or a few on one like you said. And it's really hard to also be able to answer everybody's questions. You know, if they're in the middle of a recipe and they've run out of an ingredient, I'm just not always available. And so I loved that they kind of became that for each other that they would answer questions and you know, they would help each other through things or tell each other, you know, if they substituted something, what they swapped in. And yeah, so it was, it was a really, really great opportunity just to be able to be much more intimately connected than on social media.

And part of it, too, is the value of gathering a group of people who are after a similar thing. I think, you know, in your case, with people who are trying to either understand or level up, you know, maybe have more variety in what they're eating. You know, you hear people talk about, hey, we just love new recipes as an example. Like, everybody is kind of after the same thing. And so for you, part of what you're doing is facilitating this community, and that's what is of value to people. It's not necessarily even access to you. It's just like access to a community of people who are trying to do a similar thing. And that can be a really valuable thing for people, and it doesn't have to come from you. So I think that makes a lot of sense. We've been talking a lot about this idea of membership and community, especially in a world where search algorithms are changing. You know, AI is training on creator content. People are getting their answers from different places.

Yeah.

I think there's something to be said about finding a way to create kind of a walled garden where people can come into it, but you're not necessarily going to have, you know, AI training on it, or search algorithms aren't going to change how things look. Is that something you think you'll continue to do? I know that you also are doing substack as kind of part of your strategy. So what does that look like now with the introduction of substack and looking forward with that community element?

Mm, yes. I love that analogy of a walled garden. You know, I think that's also a very important part, is that it's really difficult to get feedback from the greater audience that follows you that might not be customers, you know, so obviously, you have to cut through a lot of noise on Instagram. There's negative people and there's very positive people, and then there's people that are just there for pure entertainment. And so it's really difficult to get valuable feedback when you do want to have products, you know, when you want to have a business that's not just creator, you know, just focused and entertainment focused. And so I did. I started a substack in February, and, you know, I went through. I listened to every podcast. I listened to all the ones. I loved the one you did with David Levovitz, and I just was burnout, to be quite honest. I was so burnout on social media. I was so burnout on spending hours and hours creating recipes and creating reels to have, you know, them possibly be Shown to a few thousand or all of a sudden like 100,000 or you know, you know, and, and DMs were just getting increasingly difficult to try to keep up with stories. I would spend so much time pouring out my, who I am, my soul. I share a lot. I'm very vulnerable online. I always have been about my disease, about child loss, about just all the process, you know, motherhood, everything. And it's really draining emotionally to be able to do that. And I love to do it. But when you do it and then nobody sees it, you know, it's hard. And it's like you, you have to have that back and forth to continue.

To fill yourself up or you do it. And a lot of people see it and people are mean, like, yes, that it feels like in the best case scenario a lot of people see it. But that means that people who don't know you or unfamiliar with you have some random comment that they want to make on the piece of content. Not really thinking about you as a person, like either side of the coin, it feels like could potentially be difficult.

Totally. Yeah. And you know, I mean, I think as, as online people, we've, we've gotten slightly thickened skin, but I would say they still affect you and you know, it is part of the process and you totally understand that. But there was a place where I got to, where I just said I really want to keep developing content, especially as these meal plan members are asking for brand new recipes. And you know, I started looking into it and I just said I would love to keep putting out a new recipe, recipe a week in addition to my cookbooks. And I actually think I can do that. But I also at a point where I need to not only be compensated for it because ads on the blog don't pay what they used to, affiliate links on the blog don't pay what they used to. Even brand partnerships, you know, things are just different than they were. And I wanted to continue that aspect of an invested community. I loved what I saw from Kajabi and from those two different products and the communities that came out of it. And, and you know, I do, I have an, I have a free one. I do a free recipe a month. I do a lot of videos even for free. But I just said I kind of got to a point where I was like, okay, if you're going to comment on something, especially if I'm sharing something as vulnerable, you know, as my medication journey or my autoimmune disease or the loss of our daughter, then I'd like you to be somewhat invested in it. And I'd like there to be a community here, but, you know, people will still have negative feedback even if they're a paying customer. And I'm okay with that.

Right, right.

It's almost this. I like that. Like the walled garden in a sense, you know, where it's not just any random person who doesn't even have the time to follow you as a. As a creator. They just come on and leave a comment and then leave. And so it felt like a safer space. I also pulled my kids off of social media and it felt like a place like my kids love to do cooking videos with me. And so Substack felt like a place where I could kind of almost create this TV show that I've been wanting to do for a really long time and have them involved, but that I, you know, I own the content. It's my space. I can kind of decide how I want to do it and that it emails. When I publish something, you know, that it's not just, you know, it's still up to if people open it or not, but it's not just up to meta and to the algorithms that if I'm creating this content, I can't tell anybody about it. I love that it just like it puts it in your inbox. If you choose to be there, you will see that I've published something.

Yeah, that's great. When you take. When you say you've taken your kids off of social media, you mean, like, you're not including them if you're doing something on social media? Yeah.

Right.

And so this is similar to you.

Guys, backs of heads, you know, still stories. But my kids were part of my daily social media for a long time because My oldest, who's 14, was 2 when my first book published. So, you know, I kind of stumbled into the world and didn't really realize what it would all become, obviously.

Can you talk about that decision? What was that like?

Yeah, it was a tough decision because my audience is pretty connected to us as a family. They watched, you know, us go through loss. They watched us have two kids after. They've always been so supportive. The kids are in the cookbooks. They've watched them grow up. And there was a lot, you know, that went into the decision. I would say the biggest. The biggest reason why I did it was because I was so addicted to Instagram and I was always, while I wasn't, like, looking for an opportunity with my kids that would think, like, oh, this is going to get a lot of likes or anything like that. It was just all these day to day things that we were doing where I was like, oh, I could share this, you know, and so I'm pulling out my phone and I'm.

Everything is potentially content.

Everything is content. And I wasn't. I really wasn't thinking about that strategically. It was just more of like, oh, we're making cookies. We should film this. I should put it on my stories. Or, you know, I just got to a point where I just said, I just want to put my phone down in general because I'm on this app way too much. And one of the biggest ways to cut down on my timing on the app is to not include my family time and. And also to prerecord anything I do want to do and post it later. I took it off my personal phone and I got a work phone that I have it on. So it doesn't.

Yeah, we both have work phones.

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't even have a cell service on it. So I can't leave the house and post anything. I can take it with me and I can get content, but I have to wait till I get back to wi Fi or I have to tether. I have to jump through all these hoops.

Yeah.

And then to, you know, we don't allow our kids to have social media yet. My oldest is 14 and I just started to think, if I'm not going to allow them to get it until they're whatever, you know, 16, I think is what we're saying right now. We'll see then. I don't want them to also look back and see, well, my whole life's been kind of like cataloged on social media, so why am I not allowed to get it? You know?

Yeah.

And then just with AI and you know, all the things that we see, I mean, one of the biggest things. And I started thinking about it. Somebody stole a photo. This was a couple instances, but there was one of me holding my daughter in the hospital before she passed away. And I shared that vulnerably as a mother who lost their child. And, you know, I shared blog posts about it and the grieving process. And I shared so openly and honestly. And somebody swiped the photo and you used it. And the headline was how to be a good dad in the delivery room. Because my husband was sitting next to me and I'm like, can you not read the faces of our, like, our sorrow? And so that was one of the biggest things that just made me start thinking about what I'm putting out there and that really anybody could have have it and use it however they wanted. And you know, while I'm okay being on there, I don't want my kids exposed to that.

It's. We've both been doing this long enough and I. What I love about you sharing that is like you need, you need to evolve. And like, we change as people. We have experiences and those change us. And yet that doesn't mean that we just put everything behind us and say, I'm not going to do this anymore. It does require us to like, look strategically and say like, okay, how do we want to, how can we be in good partnership with this thing that I have, which is a business, but it's also like a creative outlet and it's a passion and it's also personal. And when you come to this inflection point of feeling like I'm not in good relationship with this, which if you do it for a decade or more, you probably will get to that point. What it requires is you to like reinvent and to re examine and to spend time not doing the work, but to spend time contemplating the work, to figure out how you can do the work from like a whole place.

Yeah.

And it sounds like this has kind of been a season of doing that for you. Does that feel accurate?

Yes. Yes. And it's a hard decision because when you've been doing it for 10 years, you know, it's hard because I started to get, I started to get really jaded about it and kind of angry and frustrated. But then I was like, but wait, I do really love the community that I have there. It's all the things that kind of come in and like suck the life out of that community that are hard for me. And so, yeah, I had to really sit and figure out where to, what do I want to do, what really brings me life and what, what do I know? I'm putting, you know, out into the world that I think is really positive and life giving for those people and what's kind of sucking the life out of me and how do I put those things off to the side?

Totally. Well. And it's interesting, I feel like more and more I'm having conversations with people who are talking about that and if nothing else, just to like normalize it for anybody who's listening and feels that and maybe the like, hope for people to hold onto is like, it is possible for you to re examine and get back to a place that feels good. Not that, you know, I feel like every day we show up there will Be little things that are hard or difficult. Yeah, as it's true with any job. But what would your advice be for somebody who maybe feels like they're in that spot or in that season and they feel that sense of burnout or kind of jaded and yet they have this pretty cool thing which is maybe an audience or skills or you know, traffic, whatever it might be. You have this kind of like asset, but yet the relationship that you have with it is, is kind of deteriorated a little bit. How do you get back in good relationship with your work?

I think the phone was huge, a huge piece for me, not not being constantly connected to it because my personal phone was also my Instagram phone, my, you know, content creation phone phone, all the things. And so I just was on my being all the time. And you know, everybody that works a job talks about trying to find the balance and shutting it off at 5, you know. But when this is your full time business and it evolves in your or it involves your home, your kitchen, it's pretty hard to disconnect from it. So that to me was probably one of the biggest pieces. And then quite honestly, starting my substack gave me a lot of freedom. I think I had become so reliant on Instagram because it did serve me and the business so well for so long that you know, when something would tank or something wouldn't reach the people or you know, something like that, it would just really deeply affect me because I'm like, this recipe's so good. I spent hours, hours on it and I just want it to get out there. And I, you know, I made a list. I just said exactly what I said before. You know, I made a list of what do I love, what do I know my community loves and, and what is really burning me out. And it was very clear for me. I love long form video, I love teaching, I love to get in the kitchen and make a 30 minute video of a recipe from start to finish. I do not like making a 30 second reel. I just is not, it's not who I am. I love to see the process. I don't like to try to cut clips where I'm like, wait, but you need to see that step too. And so I just decided I'm going to keep making them and I'm going to put them out there, but I don't really care how they perform. You know, I'm like, I had to just really detach myself from it. And that's part of it is not being able to check the stats all the time. And I can make the videos that I love and adore to do and that I know my community really enjoys and learns from, and I can put those on substack. And that to me is more meaningful. It's a smaller community. It's nowhere near my Facebook or my Instagram. But I'm so much more intimately connected to that audience, and I care more about giving them what they want than a big giant audience on Instagram. I don't know. You know, I know that that's probably not smart on the business side of things, but it's just so much more life giving for me.

Well, and I think so much of what we're doing is we are trying to figure out what can we do sustainably and what can we do in a way that there is a business component to it. Like, we need to, if that's, if that's our pursuit, doesn't have to be, but for a lot of us, it's the work that we're doing. So there's that, but then there's also this piece of like, what, what do I enjoy? What gives me life? And, and we're not singularly pursuing more traffic, more followers, more numbers.

Right?

What we're pursuing is different for each person. And I think that's such an important takeaway is everybody's playing a different game. And for any of us to like, really define what it is the game that we're playing and also to define within that game, like, how is the game played? And for some people it might be like, I want to be famous and I want as many people to know about me as possible. For other people, it might be, I want, you know, a hundred families to be impacted and to sit around the table and to enjoy a meal together. So I love that you took this time to step back and say, like, what is it that I'm after? What can I do sustainably? How can I be in good relationship with my work? And it sounds like that's been like a good reinvention. I'm curious to know, how do you view what you do? Like, when people ask what you do, do you view yourself as like a publisher, social media, do you view yourself as like somebody who does books? And I think that's part of it, is we all kind of talk as if we're doing the same thing. But so often our approach is really different. Some people are like, oh, I'm, I'm really good at like SEO and that's what I'm going to focus on. And maybe Kind of technical people. Other people are. Yeah, other people are like really great at short form video and that's what they want to do. Some people build funnels and have like classes. And other people like yourself have published like seven books. And we've never published any books. Like, what is that? How do you view what you do and what your business is?

Yeah, yeah. First of all, I'm still waiting for Lindsey to write that book. We had coffee back in like 2015 in Minneapolis and I was like, when are you writing a cookbook?

10 years ago. Still hasn't happened.

Yeah, yeah. I typically when people ask what I do, I say I'm an author. I would say the cookbook creation process is my favorite part of my quote unquote job. I love to write them. And we oftentimes will joke. You know, I've done other things. I have a seasoning. I love being on social media. I like doing all of that. I love the videos. I love teaching. But we, Ryan and I, you know, sometimes when I'm feeling those burned out days or when feeling like I need to be with my kids more, you know, we'll joke and say, well, you could just write cookbooks. Just write cookbooks, you know, and we don't mean it to, like, demeanor. It's. It's literally just more like I could pull back from all of this.

Simplify. Yeah.

Yes. And the, the books are where I feel like are. You know, not only it's my passion lie, but also the way that I am able to reach people the most, what I'm able to give them as something that they can use in their kitchens for years. And, and so if I had to strip everything away, I would say I would be an author.

That makes sense. I remember walking into Target. This was maybe like three or four years ago, and it was kind of one of those moments where like in movies sometimes, like in futuristic movies, like, you'll be walking down the street and there'll be these like, ads and they'll be like, you know, buy the. And it like feels. It's a bad description, but it feels futuristic. But it's this moment where I was in Target and it felt like that and it was like this. In the book section, they had like a really long display, so it was maybe like 2ft tall and it felt like 10ft long. But it was one of your books. And it just felt like this really cool futuristic moment where I was like, wait a minute, like, here you are. You know, it's kind of like it lights up the Whole area.

I mean, that's cool. I wish I could have seen that. They used to have this. I thought you were going to say. Yeah, they used to have the TVs in the book section. It would be like 20 TVs showing.

Simultaneously for a book.

And they had me do one. And that moment, Ryan and I were on a date. We often end our dates at Barnes and Noble or Target.

Love it.

And we were standing in the book section. We had to wait for the loop. It was like an 8 minute loop for mine to come on. And I think that moment was the moment where I was like, oh my gosh, I write books and I have a trailer for my book in Target on the wall. And they don't do them anymore.

42 TVs.

So sad. Just want to go in and see that again. But it was definitely a career highlight for me being in Target because I. We love Target.

That's so great. So one of the questions that I have when you are an author and that's what you're doing, I was talking with a friend who I just recently got to know and he has, he's a publisher, but he has kind of a unique way that he works with public or authors where, you know, he gets, he's kind of like mutually invested. Gets ongoing kind of share of the books at a higher percentage. I think, anyways, he was just talking about this idea of those kind of compounding over time in the sense that you release a book and it has. And in this case he was publishing business books. So it has kind of a big spike usually, but then it kind of plateaus. But a lot of times it plateaus for maybe like a decade. And I would imagine potentially that cookbooks could have some of that same nature. Can you talk about when you are publishing a cookbook? Like, there's the spike of the release. You're doing a book tour, which we're going to talk about. And you know, there's a lot of your, your fans. We talk about Kevin Kelly, thousand true fans. This idea of like those people who own every one of your books, like, I'm sure those people are out there. And so you have this kind of bump. Is there a little bit of like stacking that's involved where then you have these other cookbooks that you published before that continue to sell and like the more that you publish cookbooks, the more of that kind of income that you have going on in the background, or is it mostly like, hey, they have like a two to three year lifespan and then you have to get after it and do another one. Yeah. What does that look like?

Yeah. So I would say it depends on that advance in the front end of things. So those first two. No. Right. And so I had royalties from those for many, many years. The first time we saw them really take a giant dip and they're practically nothing anymore was during COVID And there was a lot of reason for that. Bookstores emptied their inventory and returned all their books to the publishers. And so authors essentially lost all their money during that time that had that set up. And then going forward in those two, you know, they're. They're a decade old, like you just said. Right. They're Meals Made simple had its 10th birthday like last week. And against all crazy. 11. 11 years old. Yeah. Thank you. And those don't sell like they used to. I mean, they all sell, you know, I would say maybe 20 copies a month. Like, I mean, we're talking hardly anything. I haven't looked at the statements in a really long time because it's not like, it's just, it's not. And that's, you know, there's been many more after that. And so, yes, I think every time you do, you know, I think it can, it can be a double edged sword almost. If one takes off and new people are finding you, you do a segment, you know, on the Today show or something like that and you've got this new book. Then people go on and look at your author profile and they're like, oh, she's got all these other ones, you know, or they find, you know, your new book and they cook from it and they learn to trust you. And then they're like, oh, I actually want to go get, you know, the other, the other one. So you can still sell in that way. But yes, I think that they do start to kind of dwindle off and then depending on your advance that you get up front, you know, so what that means, just for anybody who's not familiar with it is, I don't want to call it a loan because it's not a loan. You don't have to necessarily pay it back. But they give you this lump sum in the beginning thinking, and they do all these calculations of how many they think you're going to sell in a seven year period, I believe, is what they kind of think about in their brains. And so every copy that sells from the day it publishes on, you get, you know, somewhere between A$50 and $3, depending on, you know, what your royalty is like per book. And that Actually goes against your advance. And so you don't see any checks or any royalty money or anything like that until.

Because you've already been paid in the advance, right? Yeah, right.

Which you spend. You know, I always love to like, I think it's always really interesting for people to hear, you know, how much you're expected to pay for. So that advance not only goes towards recipe creation and development. If you need to hire an assistant, somebody to help you in the kitchen, that comes out of there. Your photography budget, which can be anywhere between 40 and $80,000, comes out of that money. Some people have to hire outside publicity if they want, you know, to be able to help get it out there more. Gosh, what else is there? I mean, yeah, the recipe development, you know, some people help or will hire an outside editor. So there's a lot that goes, you know, that's why you do get paid. Some of that up front is to be able to cover all the costs that come with publishing a cookbook. But all that to say is, you know, when the book comes out September 10th and it sells XYZ copies for the first week, I don't see anything from that. It's like basically going against what I owe the publisher, if that makes sense. And then once we net out, that's when I would start making something from it. And they look at that as like a seven year process. And I forget what the statistic is, but it's staggering. I feel like it was somewhere around like 90% of authors never earn out. So they get that money at the beginning, but then they don't ever see anything from it going forward.

Yeah, it's in. In my conversation with this friend who does the publishing, he talked about it almost like startups where you have, you know, a handful of any group of startups that like never get their wings and fly, right. You have a decent amount in the middle which are like, you know, probably that 80%. And then occasionally you'll have ones that are just like mega standout and become, you know, these huge returns both for the publisher and the author. And so it almost feels like what you're doing is you're having these little companies and they're getting funded and you have some security as an author because you get that advance. Obviously some of it goes to pay for all of the parts that go into building a cookbook, but then you also have the potential of, you know, an outsized outcome if it sells really well or gets picked up or, you know, gets featured in multiple different places. One last Thing that I'd be curious to hear you talk about a little bit is you mentioned Today Show. What is that like? What is that like to be on a TV show? How do you get those? What does it look like to line those? Is that your agent doing it or, you know, a publicist?

Yeah.

What does that look like?

Yeah. So, gosh, first of all, it's. I love doing it. It's honestly something that gives me like, it just thrills me and it energizes me and I'm an introvert, but I absolutely adore doing it. It's so fun. I didn't get my first national TV segment until my third book. And again, I was out handing out those copies, you know, just kind of grassroots, trying to get it done.

Love it.

I think the publicist from the, from the publishing house is who got me that very first segment. And so everybody has very different experiences with the publicity within the publishing houses. A lot of times I think people find that they're kind of over promise and under deliver. I had really good experience for the first couple books and then I also had to hire an outside PR agency that would kind of come in and try to pitch me for things. This book in particular, you know, it's just really interesting because when you talk about that and if we call the book a business, you know, it's a business just like anything else. Right. And so two of my books came out during 2021 and 2022 and my tours got canceled. All my segments, like all, you know, nothing on tv, none of that. We couldn't do any of that because of all of that time. And so it's that risk, you know, that, that you're taking this book. The first debate was scheduled on the release date and so all my segments got canceled and so released it, you know, without any national media and any national news. And it's tbd, you know, if that's going to make a giant impact or not. We'll see. But I'm really just kind of leaving it up to Michael Community and knowing that it's a product and, you know, I've already seen some reviews come in for it and I'm just trusting that they're going to take it and spread it and that those traditional ways of, you know, promoting it, they're not an option this time around. And it's just what happens, you know, in, especially with live TV and cooking segments are like the first to get pushed if there's anything, any big news, you know, but they really can make a Difference, you know, everybody sees different things. I grew up watching the Today show. I love being on there. It would be the one that I would choose if I had. If I had, you know, the option. We don't normally get faced with, like, here's five shows. You. But just so welcoming, and they make it so easy, and they're very in line with who my audience is from what we've seen. And so in terms of when you watch, you know, to see a book, if it spikes in rankings or, you know, things like that, that's always been the show that moves it the most. And they're just. They've had me on quite a few times, and. And I just. They're so welcoming, and so I love it.

That's awesome. We did a. This was years ago. There was, like, a really small local news morning show, and they had me on, and I was, like, a part of it, but I'm not really involved with any. So I was, like, mixing muffin batter, and they asked me about, like, blogging, and somehow I'm talking about, like, domain names, and they're like, get off of.

They're like, we just want to know about the muffins.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, Lindsay's like, that's the last time you're ever involved.

I mean, I love that, though, that you guys did it together.

That's.

I mean, you know, Ryan is on very similar side. Like, you are like, he created Shop the Book, which is the companion app that goes along with my cookbooks.

Yeah.

Tap Bio, and, you know, all the things. Like, on the technical and business side, he's always been kind of running alongside of me, and we've done a couple joint interviews, but not very often because it's the same thing. It's like, people don't really want to talk about the tech of it. The HTML coding that he had to do. For my blog, you know, we did.

An interview with Ryan years ago that people can look up, so we'll link to that in the show notes as well. So this interview is coming out kind of like halfway through your book tour.

Yeah.

If folks are in California, it looks like Colorado, Illinois, Oregon, they'll be able to.

Portland. That one comes out. Yeah, most of them are sold out.

I was just gonna say, I can see. Yeah, quite a few of them are sold out, which is awesome.

Yeah. Denver, though, you know, it still has to get. Portland is at Powell City of Books downtown. And there it's not ticketed, so anybody's welcome to come to that one. And I'm doing It with my friend Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo, who's one of our, you know, old school food bloggers. And San Diego I would say would be. Yeah, when this comes out, those would be the ones that would be left.

Cool, that's great. If people want to pick the book up, what's the best way to do that?

Yes, it would be great to go into a store. I think that's the one thing people don't talk about a lot. Amazon's obviously wonderful and we get it on our doorsteps and it's cheap, but it means a ton for authors when you go and get it actually at a store. So Target's carrying it. You can get it, you know, at your local independent bookseller, which I love to support, you know, you might spend $5 more, but it's these little brick and mortars that are barely surviving. And then Barnes and Noble and of course Amazon and online at Walmart and I think that's anywhere books are sold typically.

But what is, what's happening that's different with picking it up in a store.

Versus that's a whole other discussion that we can talk about about like New York Times. Very important for you to have diversity of sales, not just all at one big box. And then actually everyone looks at what sales look like at different retailers. And so when you go get it at Target and they sell copies, then they're more likely to a pick up your next book and actually put it on the shelves. My first three books were not at Target. I think they might have sold them on their website. And so they look at those sales and say like, oh, you know, this amount of people pre ordered it from target.com, we're going to actually carry it in the store on the shelves. And so it's really helpful for that just for other retailers because they have to buy these books up front and they have to pay, you know, they pay wholesale, but they still have to buy them. And if they don't feel like they can confidently sell them, then you know, they're not as likely to carry them. And so picking it up in the stores and is really helpful for a lot of different things, but not only for the retailers, but for all the rankings, all the lists, all things, sure.

Interesting. Yeah. And it's an entirely different world. All of these things that you learn after you've published seven different books. And then how about online? Like where can people. Where's the best place? I would say obviously all around the Internet. Yeah, Substack, maybe instagram Would those be kind of the two places where you'd point people to?

I would say I'm the most active on substack and Instagram. Definitely. I still have my blog but it's a, you know, there's thousands of recipes on there. I'm just not there as often. But yes, Instagram, I'm Danielle Walker and then substack, it's just Danielle Walker.com or DanielWalker.substack.com cool.

That's great. Danielle. Thanks so much for coming on. Congrats.

Thank you so much.

And excited to see what's next. We'll have to have you back on when you publish the next one. So.

Yeah, thank you. Two more years.

We won't think about that for a while. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you. Hello there Emily here from the Food Blogger Pro team. We hope you enjoyed listening to this week's episode of the podcast. Before we sign off today, I wanted to mention one of the most valuable parts of the Food Blogger Pro membership and that's our courses. In case you don't already know, as soon as you become a Food Blogger Pro Pro member, you immediately get access to all of our courses. Here on Food Blogger Pro, we have hours and hours of courses available, including SEO for food, blogs, food photography, Google Analytics, social media, and sponsored content. All of these courses have been recorded by the Food Blogger Pro team or some of our industry experts and they're truly a wealth of knowledge. We're always updating our courses so you can rest assured that you're getting the most up to date information as you're working to grow your blog and your business. You can get access to all of our courses by joining FoodBlogger Pro. Just head to FoodBloggerPro.com join to learn more about the membership and join our community. Thanks again for tuning in and listening to the podcast. Make it a great week.

Sam.