From Instagramer to cookbook author: how social media led three amateur cooks into publishing deals
- Getting a book deal used to be an uphill struggle for amateurs and unknowns, but the power of social media has changed all that
- With more than 1.5 million followers between them, Michael Zee, Jen Balisi and Joanne Lee Molinaro all have cookbooks out or about to appear
It used to be that the way for an amateur cook to get a cookbook deal was to reach out to publishers and pitch their idea, then wait for the reply – usually, a rejection. Now, thanks to social media, publishers are contacting popular Instagramers who are creating original content, and asking them if they are interested in writing cookbooks instead.
A physical cookbook is a longer-lasting legacy than a social media account – it’s something that can be given to friends or loved ones, or handed down to younger family members.
Michael Zee, 35, knows something about legacies – it’s one of the reasons the cook and photographer created SymmetryBreakfast: Cook-Love-Share, a 2016 book dedicated to his now-husband and based on his popular Instagram account that documented the meals the couple shared every morning.
“At the start, I wasn’t really that interested,” he says of his book, “but, after sitting on the idea for a few months, I decided ‘Why not?’”
Zee’s account, @symmetrybreakfast, has more than 715,000 followers. It features images of symmetrical breakfasts – most made by Zee, who moved recently from Shanghai to Bologna, Italy.
Zee, who is half-Chinese and professes a weakness for jianbing (Chinese crepes), grew up eating Chinese food in Britain, and loves “researching the history of food and why things evolve”.
