The Art of French Cooking Julia Barnes and Noble
Adapting Julia Child for Eastward-Readers
Clumsily splattering a cookbook with bacon grease is one thing. Doing information technology to an iPad is quite another.
That may explicate why cookbooks take been late bloomers in the e-book revolution, lagging behind other categories, similar fiction, that take been widely embraced in digital form.
Yet cookbooks take recently begun to evidence signs of forcefulness in the digital book market, bolstered by publishers who are releasing e-book editions of new titles simultaneously with the print versions and converting older, classic cookbooks into digital grade.
On Wednesday Alfred A. Knopf will release the due east-book edition of one of the well-nigh famous cookbooks: "Mastering the Fine art of French Cooking," by Julia Kid, immortalized in the all-time seller "Julie & Julia" and its film counterpart, starring Meryl Streep.
The introduction of "Mastering" to the e-book library is not simply a testament to the volume'southward venerable status and enduring popularity, just also to the publishing industry's willingness to embrace digital publishing with all its quirks, including, for cookbooks, shorthand measurements like "ii tbsp finely minced shallots," which appear in smaller type.
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While most novels and nonfiction books are hands converted into black-and-white east-books, which tin can be read on annihilation from an iPhone to a Nook to a Kindle, cookbooks are not and then straightforward.
"Cookbooks often have incredibly complex layouts," said Jennifer Olsen, the manager of digital production for the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. "They are very tricky to produce as east-books."
Knopf outset tried to convert "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," which Ms. Child wrote with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Brook and released in impress 50 years agone, into an eastward-book more than a year ago. At the time the engineering was not available to replicate Ms. Child'due south distinctive ii-column format, which immune the reader to see the ingredients alongside the respective instructions in the recipe, stride past step, rather than the more conventional format of listing ingredients at the beginning.
Judith Jones, the recently retired editor at Knopf who acquired "Mastering" in 1961, was one of the people who objected, arguing that the publisher should carelessness the endeavour until an e-book could faithfully reproduce the original.
When Knopf tried once more this summer, the production staff had the entire book retyped by hand, since no electronic file of the book existed. The illustrations throughout the cookbook — tiny sketches of sauté pans and freshly julienned carrots — were scanned at a loftier resolution so they could be transferred to the e-book. And the publisher managed to recreate the 2-column format, just like the original version of "Mastering."
Other features are purely digital: live links permit readers to leap to other sections in the volume, as when Ms. Kid suggests that cooks preparing Potage Velouté aux Champignons should also read the recipe for Fluted Mushroom Caps. And readers who are unsure what a roux is tin can click on the word and gain admission to a pop-upward lexicon entry. (It'southward a mixture of butter and flour.)
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When Ms. Jones saw the new e-book edition, she was persuaded that it should be released.
"I suddenly saw the difference," she said. "You really could almost improve on how you read the volume."
Some elements of the 752-page impress edition, which has sold 2.5 million copies, take been lost in the digital version. The delicate font used in the book, announcing recipes similar Fricassée de Poulet à l'Ancienne and Moules au Beurre d'Escargot, could not be reproduced in the e-book version.
And the volume is better experienced on tablets than on defended e-readers. While it is possible to read it on a blackness-and-white Kindle or Nook, many of the design elements cannot be viewed on those devices.
Notwithstanding, eager nutrient writers take hailed the release as "a milestone of sorts," equally the blogger Cookbook Human being noted this calendar week. "Since Julia was a pioneer in bringing cooking to TV, information technology's only fitting that her 1961 classic helps usher in the digital age of cookbooks," he wrote.
At $nineteen.99, the east-volume version of "Mastering" is simply a few dollars cheaper than the hardcover edition available on Amazon for $22.74. (The listing price of the hardcover is $40.)
Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Knopf, said the price was in line with some e-book editions of other Knopf cookbooks, like "Sunday Suppers at Lucques," by Suzanne Goin ($19.99), and "The Mozza Cookbook," past Nancy Silverton ($18.99). Shorter cookbooks in e-format can sell for equally petty as $12.99.
As publishers take produced more east-book editions of cookbooks and dozens of cookbook apps, the overall category has shown gains in eastward-book sales, according to industry data. Kelly Gallagher, the vice president for publishing services for Bowker, a research arrangement for the publishing industry, said that while cookbooks were still behind other categories, like romance and mystery, they had been bought in larger numbers throughout this year.
In the beginning quarter of 2011, well-nigh half-dozen percentage of full cookbook sales were in digital format, Mr. Gallagher said. By the finish of the second quarter, that number had jumped to viii.v percent.
The number of published cookbooks, both impress and electronic, take increased to 3,300 in 2010 from 2,643 in 2009, co-ordinate to data from Bowker. Fifty-fifty higher sales of e-cookbooks are expected in the coming months, thanks to the proliferation of color tablets, most recently with the introduction last week of the Kindle Fire by Amazon.
Sarah Rotman Epps, a senior analyst for Forrester Inquiry, said that Apple sold 28.7 million iPads worldwide through the quarter ending in July. She at present estimates that the company has sold at least 33 million of the devices.
Edward Ash-Milby, the cookbook buyer for Barnes & Noble, said that the cookbooks that had seen strong sales in e-book have tended to be those with a more narrative structure.
But print sales are notwithstanding potent, he added. "Cookbooks are a very potent category in our stores," Mr. Ash-Milby said. "They've got a bang-up future in print."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/books/julia-childs-mastering-the-art-of-french-cooking-joins-e-book-revolution.html
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