In this detailed and revealing case study, Jo Parfitt shares the story of her bestselling cookery book entitled, Dates…

The Idea

It was January 1995. Muscat, the Sultanate of Oman. Sue Valentine and I sat outside beneath the stars at a farewell dinner for their friend, Susie Evans.

“Look at the palm trees silhouetted against the sky,” said Susie wistfully. “I’ll miss them, but I wish I’d had a cookbook telling me how to cook with dates.”

“I’ll write one!” I said, after all I had written a cookbook before, French Tarts, a decade earlier. French Tarts had been published by Octopus. I thought I knew the ropes.

“I’ll help you!” added Sue, with enthusiasm. A fabulous cook with a PhD in food science, she was the perfect partner.

My mind raced into overdrive. Muscat was a small place, we could target our market easily. Forget finding a publisher, we’d do this one ourselves. “And I’ll publish it,” I added. I did not admit that I had no clue how to do that, but I knew I’d figure it out.

The Plan

In 9 months’ time it would be the Sultan’s Silver Jubilee. With all those opportunities for celebratory gifts and an endorsement, we had found the perfect time to launch our book. It would be out in November 1995.

Sue and I divided the work:

• I would create half the recipes, handle production, form a publishing company called Summertime Publishing, edit it and do all the desktop publishing.
• Sue would create the other half of the recipes, handle local legalities, find a sponsor and organise the food styling, photographs and cover design.

What Happened

Sue found a sponsor, Dateflake (later Tamoor Oman), a factory turning dates into syrup and fibre would underwrite our printing costs in exchange for several hundred gift copies. They would also fund a launch party. The Al Bustan Palace hotel would host a press launch. We signed contracts with local companies MCBS and Al Roya, who would make us legal and do the printing. We did it!

In November, Dates was published.

Dates is On Sale

This is the first edition of Dates…

• We sold several thousand copies in just one year.
• We had tee shirts made that said ‘Make a Date with the Middle East’ and wore them around town.
• A cookbook makes a great gift, so many people bought more than one copy.
• We packaged the book in a basket with a jar of date syrup and a pack of dates to show what a great gift it would make, just before Christmas.
• We organised to have a stall in each of the shopping malls in Muscat, gave away samples of date flapjack and date brownie and sold lots of books.
• We took a stall to the playgrounds of the local expat schools and sold books to the parents as they collected their children.
• We took a stall at Christmas bazaars. We sold hundreds of copies there.

How We Promoted Dates

• We could visit the bookshops and retailers in person.
• Every local newspaper ran our story.
• The English radio station interviewed us.
• We lived in our market. It was easy to target everyone, so we did. But . . .

Sales Dried Up

Just six weeks after Dates was published I was posted with my family to Norway. It was almost impossible to buy dried dates and I was new in town with no network (this was pre-Internet). In 18 months I sold one copy.

Books continued to sell well while Sue was in Muscat, but, a year later, she was repatriated to England. Sales dried up.

Without us there, in our market, actively promoting Dates things went downhill.

Dates is Reborn

In 2003, when I too was living in England, I had a lucky encounter with a man on a train. He spotted I was using a Macintosh laptop and asked me what I did for a living.

• “I’m a writer and author,” I said looking up from my keyboard.
• “I’m a publisher,” he said. “What do you write?”
• “Well, I used to live in Dubai and Oman and . . .”
• “I used to live there too . . .”

Well one thing led to another and it transpired that Zodiac publishing had offices in both the Middle East and England. We drew up in Peterborough just five minutes into our chat and only had time to swap cards before we separated. I held onto his card. Three years later, and after I had published many more books, I recognised that it does not make any difference how good your book is or how brilliant a writer you are. If you can’t target the market easily you’ll have an uphill struggle selling it. Zodiac could be just what Dates needed. I sent them a copy on the offchance that they might like to republish it.

Republished, Relaunched, Revived

In March 2007 Sue and I signed the contract and in May 2008, I travelled to Dubai to attend the launch of the new, updated, Dates, at the Oasis Beach Hotel. It is now on sale in bookshops throughout the Middle East, not just Muscat, as before and elsewhere in the world too, including Harrods.

What I Have Learned

• That you cannot underestimate the importance of being able to target your market yourself.
• That you can sell thousands of copies of book that has local appeal in a small market, like Muscat, if you are THERE.
• If you can find a sponsor to underwrite your printing costs – do!
• Sometimes it makes sense to publish yourself, and sometimes it doesn’t.