Q&A with Damn Good Food author, Sharon Benlolo
Here's a damn interesting Q&A with cookbook author Sharon Benlolo on her self-publishing success story, and how her cookbook was never initially meant to be for sale. She also talks about the importance of using social media, and why “word of mouth” is the best form of advertising!
“With so many people at home, friends were calling on the daily asking what was for dinner at my house and asking to share one of my go-to recipes, and I gladly did. As I spent days in the kitchen on my laptop organizing my mammoth binders, my daughter, Amanda, suggested to ‘do the pages a little cuter, add a great font, make them really look like a cookbook.’ I was game!”
RE: Your book has a very interesting “birth” story. How did it come to be?
When Covid hit in March 2020, everybody had a lot of time to spend at home. I had the intention for years to tackle my recipe binders with over 2,000 recipes I had collected, made up, printed, and tweaked. I had hundreds of pages of notes, with changes, additions, omissions that really needed to be organized and narrowed down. It was the perfect time to do so.
As the days went by, and more people were calling for a recipe, my husband Alan then suggested printing a few copies and giving them out as a COVID gift to everyone we know who’s at home cooking. The interior designer in me knew exactly what I wanted my book to look like.
After about six weeks of typing and editing at the kitchen table with my daughters, we called a friend to help with the printing. At the time, because of the aesthetics of the book and the particular size & cover I wanted, it ended up costing me quite a bit more than it retails for now — remember, I only printed 40 copies!
When the book finally arrived and was printed, I gave them out to my closest friends, and one thing led to another, and a friend of a friend was adamant that she wanted the book too.
It was never meant to be for sale. It was definitely filled with errors, had no temperatures, was missing ingredients and few pictures...but as a family, we were super excited about it. It was after those 40 were sold, in a matter of days, that we decided to print another batch, so back to the editing table for round two. The rest seems to be self-explanatory, but we just printed 5,000 more copies!
(And you can only purchase it on her website and very select boutique bookstores. If this was traditionally pressed, she would be a bestseller!)
RE: What do you attribute to its fast-growing popularity? The recipes, word of mouth — both? Anything else you think helped it become so popular so fast?
I truly believe that this is one of the most relatable cookbooks out there. It was completely unintentional, but it was a cookbook meant for anyone to be able to use. The ingredients are simple, the steps are simple, and in my opinion, the flavours are outstanding. I am a collector of cookbooks, and I can tell you, if I buy a cookbook and find two or three recipes that I use — I would deem that book a winner. I believe every recipe in Damn Good Food is so doable. My family has been eating this food for 20+ years, and of course, there are some recipes that I have been eating for much longer.
Word of mouth is 100% a huge factor in its popularity. If there is ever a product I purchase that I love, I am sure to tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on. Best form of advertising is word of mouth!
RE: How did you decide what recipes went in the book?
As mentioned, I still have a full other binder of recipes that I continue to use — that I have been using for years. For Damn Good Food, even though there are 200+ recipes, I really did try and narrow it down to the yummiest food we love to eat! There are some recipes (and it is indicated) that only I like to eat, but I figured I had a little creative control ;)
RE: Some family recipes have stories behind them. Is there one recipe in the book that has a great story behind it? What is it?
Believe it or not, it is Daddy‘s Tuna Pasta. When we had our first daughter, Lexi, Sunday night was considered our date night. My husband knew how to make one dish, and this was the one. He would prepare and cook the entire dish every Sunday while I would put Lexi to bed, and we would watch Sopranos on the sofa and eat the pasta! To this day, when we choose to have his dish on Sundays, it brings back a lot of amazing memories
RE: In our conversation, you mentioned that you love your job and wouldn’t quit to be an author full time, but would you consider writing another cookbook?
I was a York region public school teacher for seven years, and after Lexi was born moved into interior design and custom home building. I have been actively involved in that career for 20+ years, and it has been amazing. I would definitely never give that up, and have no interest in becoming a professional chef, cooking teacher, personal chef or caterer. There are so many wonderful chefs in the city that offer all of those services plus more, and are so well-versed in their field. I say it often in some of my videos that “I’m just a mom who really loves to cook and loves to share.”
Of course I considered putting out a Damn Good Part 2, and besides trying to get the edits down on the first print, the simplicity of the book contributes to its success.
RE: What have you learned in the process of writing, publishing and distributing your book?
Not so much what I have learned but what it has given me. First, this has been a family affair. All of the photos, videos, edits, social media have all been done as a family. Every book is packaged together like an assembly line. For five months we delivered books all across the GTA as a family. This has been a very special time for me, and I am so grateful that I have had a husband and three daughters who have been so all in and so supportive.
RE: Advice for self-publishers?
If anyone's thinking about self-publishing, please make sure you have a team of people to help you because this would have been an impossible task to do alone.
RE: In your experience, with the popularity of your book, how important is community support for the success of women-led products or businesses?
The support in general from the community, both men and women, has been overwhelming and outstanding! My husband pushed me to do this; he thought this was the greatest book ever, and he encouraged me to put it out there. He has been here cheering me on every single day.
The support from people I have met on deliveries, who have reached out to me on social media, or whom I have bumped into at a grocery store has been so humbling. Never in my wildest dreams would I think that I was changing the way people felt about cooking, and I am so grateful every time I get a message or speak to someone I’ve just met that has a copy of Damn Good.
Until then, flip your hair then flip the page!
xoxo,
Rebecca
P.S. Don’t forget to send me an email to enter re:book’s “Write Away Summer” contest, where the winner is guaranteed (!!) to have their book published by a prestigious publishing house. (For real!) Learn more about the contest here.