Winning at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards – What does it take?
Many of you have heard me speak of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. You’ve also heard me mention the Paris Cookbook Fair. The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards will now take place along with the Cookbook Fair each year in Paris. How nice!
I thought it would be a good idea to understand the qualifications of submitting a work to this prestigious event. There is still time to complete a cookbook and submit for the next fair which will take place in Paris in February 2011.
The following information is from the Gourmand website….
The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards were founded in 1995 by Edouard Cointreau. Every year, they honor the best food and wine books.
The Objectives
The objectives of the Awards are:
- To reward and honour those who “cook with words”
- To help readers find the best out of the 26000 food and wine books produced every year.
- To help publishers with international rights to translate and distribute food and wine books.
- To help book retailers find the 50 food and wine books that each year should be offered to clients.
- To create an opportunity to access the major markets in English, Chinese, German, Spanish or French for books originated in other languages.
- To increase knowledge and respect for food and wine culture, which promotes peace.
The winners in each language are announced in November, and compete for the Best in the World, announced in April of the following year at a gala dinner.
The Impact of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards
- Winners books get more visibility in the marketplace and higher sales, often with new print runs.
- Translations and international rights deals are negotiated.
- Winners use self-adhesive stickers to announce their award to the public. They issue press releases in their local markets, which helps make the Gourmand Awards known worldwide. The winners give permanent presence to the awards on their internet sites, in publishers catalogs and in the following books and authors biographies.
The Categories
The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards are the only truly international competition. There are many local or national awards for food and wine books, with many different categories.
In order to fully represent the diversity of food and drink publishing around the world, Gourmand World Cookbook Awards have 41 categories for cookbooks and 18 for drinks books.
The Process
- In 2009, over 6.000 books were received, from 136 countries.
- The books have first to qualify in a national competition, with results announced in December.
- They represent their country in the “Best in the World” competition, which are proclaimed the following year.
The Rules for the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2010
- All books published between November 15, 2009 and November 15, 2010 qualify.
- Manuscripts and publishers proofs are also accepted.
- Books compete in their original languages, in all categories, except the category “Translation” created in 2008.
- There are no entry fees. The competition is free and open to all.
- Books may be entered by anyone: authors, publishers or even readers.
- The Jury decides in which category books compete, and may change nominees from one category to another at the final jury meeting. The Jury may decide that awards for some categories remain vacant, and there may be more than one winner per category.
So now you know what you need to do….it’s just a matter of getting started on your cookbook. Contact me if you need help. Would be happy to discuss.
I will be going to next year’s Paris Cookbook Fair and plan on taking some manuscripts with me! I’ll be representing my new publishing company and as the founder and CEO of the International Association of Cookbook Writers – IACBW!
Tomorrow we will talk more about the Paris Cookbook Fair….
Category: Writing & Publishing
