What to Include in the Marketing and Promotion Section of Your Cookbook Proposal
A former in-house publishing marketing manager explains the five-part framework that makes agents and editors say yes
When I was working inside publishing houses, sitting in acquisition meetings, reviewing cookbook proposals, helping decide which books made it onto our list, I saw something that most authors don't realize until it's too late.
Editors and publishing teams aren't just looking for who you know. They're looking for signs that you understand your reader, know how to reach them, and have a real plan for getting them excited enough to buy your book. The marketing and promotion section of your cookbook proposal is where you prove all of that. And most authors get it completely wrong.
The typical mistake looks like this: an author treats this section like a résumé. They list their Instagram followers, name a few media contacts, and mention some people they know in the food world. Then they wonder why their proposal didn't generate the response they expected.
Here's what's actually happening on the other side of that submission.
Why the Marketing Section of a Cookbook Proposal Matters More Than You Think
Every book a publisher acquires is a financial gamble. Publishers give authors an advance before the book exists. They are betting with real money that this book will connect with readers once it's out in the world. And one of the primary ways they evaluate that bet is by reading your marketing and promotion section.
This section is doing a specific job. It's answering four questions that every editor and agent is asking as they read:
Does this author understand their audience? Do they know where those readers spend time? Do they have concrete, creative ideas for reaching them? And most importantly are they willing to do the work to promote this book, or are they expecting the publisher to handle everything?
When I've read proposals that nail this section, something happens. I'm nodding the entire time. My brain starts firing with ideas for how to expand on what the author has laid out. I get excited. I've sent editors emails with an embarrassing number of exclamation points because a proposal's marketing section was that good.
That's what a strong marketing section does, it makes the people evaluating your proposal feel like your book is going to work. And that feeling is what gets deals done.
Before we get into the framework, it helps to understand the full picture of what publishers actually do for book marketing — and where your responsibility begins. I wrote about that in detail here: What Does a Publisher Actually Do for Book Marketing?
The 5-Part Framework for the Cookbook Proposal Marketing Section
When cookbook authors ask me how to approach this section, I suggest breaking it into five distinct parts. This structure keeps the section organized and helps you demonstrate both strategic thinking and genuine initiative, two things publishers are always looking for.
Part 1: Define Your Cookbook's Target Reader With Specificity
Start with the most important question in the entire proposal: who is this cookbook actually for?
The answer cannot be "people who like cooking." That tells an editor nothing. It needs to be specific enough that a publisher can picture a real person standing in a bookstore deciding whether to buy your book.
Think about your reader's lifestyle, their cooking habits, the content they consume, the problems they're trying to solve, and — most importantly — why your book specifically is the solution to those problems. The more specific you are, the more confident publishers feel that you actually know your audience.
Here's what that specificity looks like in practice. Busy parents looking for weeknight dinners might discover recipes through Instagram, Substack newsletters, parenting blogs, and podcast interviews. Food enthusiasts drawn to regional cuisine might follow chefs on social media, read long-form food writing, and attend culinary events. These aren't the same reader, and the marketing strategy for each is completely different.
Showing that you understand exactly who your reader is and where they live online and offline tells editors that your marketing ideas are grounded in real behavior rather than wishful thinking.
Part 2: Describe Your Current Author Platform and Audience
Next, describe the audience you already have. This is your current platform: what exists today, right now at this moment.
This can include your Instagram or TikTok following, your Substack or email newsletter, your YouTube channel, podcast appearances you've made, your website traffic, cooking classes or workshops you run, and any media features you've received. List what's real and what's working.
But here's the piece that most authors miss entirely, and it's the piece that matters most: publishers are not just interested in your raw numbers. They are interested in the relationship you have with the people in those numbers. What does your engagement actually look like? Do people comment on your posts? Reply to your newsletters? Make your recipes and send you photos? That kind of active, invested audience is what a publisher is really looking for because that's the audience that buys books.
I want to tell you a story about a client I'll call Claire — not her real name, but a completely real situation.
Shelly came to me to work on her second cookbook. Her combined platform reach across all channels was about 100,000 - not small, not massive. Modest. What made Shelly different wasn't the size of her following. It was how deeply she knew them. She had started her platform during a completely different chapter of her life: corporate work, then green energy, then food and content creation. Through all of those transitions, she had paid close attention. She knew where her followers lived, what type of food they actually cooked at home, and most importantly, what content made them stop scrolling and engage.
When her book launched, the results reflected that knowledge. She booked over 30 events. Two years later she is still actively promoting that book, with consistent community support at every event she does, because her audience shows up for her. Not because she had the biggest platform, but because she had built the deepest relationships within it.
That is what you are trying to demonstrate in this section of your proposal.
Part 3: Show Your Author Platform Growth Plan
This is one of the most important parts of the marketing section and one of the most commonly skipped.
Cookbooks typically publish 18 to 24 months after acquisition. That's a long runway. Editors want to know that you're not just describing the platform you have today but actively investing in growing it between now and publication. You don't need to promise explosive follower growth or viral content. What you need to show is that you're thinking intentionally about where your platform is going.
Maybe that looks like taking your newsletter or Substack to the next level. Maybe it's building a YouTube channel, collaborating with other food creators, or starting a series of cooking classes that builds both community and content. The specific idea matters less than what it signals: that you treat platform building as an ongoing investment, not a task you complete once and move on from.
Author platform building takes time (more time than most authors realize), and absolutely more time than can be compressed into the final months before a book comes out. The authors who walk into their launch with strong platforms are the ones who started building years before they needed it. I wrote about exactly this here: When Should You Start Marketing Your Book?
Part 4: Identify Cookbook Media and Press Opportunities
Cookbooks have an unusually rich media landscape compared to most other book categories. There are so many different ways your book can be covered:recipes can be excerpted, you can be interviewed as an expert, you can be included in roundups and gift guides, you can appear on podcasts and cooking segments and morning shows. That breadth is an advantage. Use it.
Agents and editors love seeing authors think creatively and specifically about how their book could appear in media. Mentioning journalists or outlets you already have relationships with is a good start but it's really the bare minimum. The stronger move is showing why your book is interesting to media and articulating the angles that could generate different types of coverage.
A list of journalists you've worked with is a résumé. What editors want to see is a pitch or at least the thinking that would lead to one. What are the different entry points for your book in media? Can you get beyond the recipe excerpt into a feature story? Is there a cultural angle, a personal story, a moment in the food world that your book speaks directly to? The more you can show that you've thought about this from a media perspective, the more confidence a publisher will have that you can actually land coverage.
Part 5: Map Out Partnerships, Collaborations, and Community
Finally, think about the relationships and communities that exist around your work — and be specific about how you plan to use them.
These might include other cookbook authors in your space, chefs or restaurants you have relationships with, food brands whose audiences overlap with yours, cultural organizations, cooking schools, food festivals, or industry conferences. The key distinction here — and it's one that separates a generic proposal from a strong one — is that you're not just listing these relationships. You're explaining how you're going to leverage them to reach readers.
Partnerships and collaborations are one of the most powerful tools in an author's marketing toolkit because of what they do: they borrow someone else's audience. And borrowed audiences come with a built-in trust signal. When a chef you've collaborated with tells their community about your book, that's a personal referral — and research consistently shows that roughly 50% of purchases are influenced by personal referrals. That's not a small thing.
Think concretely about what these partnerships could look like for your book specifically. A cooking class and book signing at a local cultural organization. An in-conversation series at a restaurant with other food creators. A recipe collaboration with a brand whose products you already use and whose audience would genuinely want your book. The more specific and realistic these ideas are, the more they demonstrate to a publisher that you understand how book marketing actually works.
If you want to understand more about why relationships are the engine of book marketing — not just in proposals but across your entire author platform — read this: The $40,000 Mistake: Why Relationships (Not Algorithms) Actually Move the Needle for Authors
What the Marketing Section of Your Cookbook Proposal Is Really Showing
When editors and agents read your marketing and promotion section, they're not evaluating how creative your ideas are. They're looking for three things: evidence that you understand your audience, signs that you've thought seriously about what will motivate your community to buy your book, and confidence that you're willing to do the actual work of promoting it.
The authors who sell the most books (and I've watched a lot of book launches from the inside) are almost never the ones who treat promotion as something separate from their identity as a writer. They're the ones who see talking about their work as a natural extension of the conversation they're already having with their audience. That mindset comes through in a proposal, and it matters.
You're not just writing a cookbook. You're making sure it reaches the people who will love it.
For more on how your platform connects to the full picture of what publishers are looking for, read this: How to Build an Author Platform When It Feels Like No One Is Watching
Ready to Strengthen Your Cookbook Proposal Marketing Section?
If you're actively writing a cookbook proposal and want your marketing section to be stronger, there are a few ways I can help.
Sometimes it's a focused review of the marketing section specifically: looking at what's there, what's missing, and what needs to be reframed to land with an editor.
Other times it's a broader strategy conversation where we map out how your platform, your book concept, and your audience all fit together — and what the proposal needs to show to make that connection clear.
Where are you in your cookbook proposal process? Leave a comment below — I read every one.