Recipe For Success -- Book Sales Are Cooking On TV's Shopping Channel

WEST CHESTER, Pa. - Bob and Pat and Betty are gathered around a table crowded with food, discussing Betty's remarkable weight loss.

"And isn't today your one-year anniversary with us?" asks Pat, turning to beam at the television camera. "Betty's books, `So Fat, Low Fat, No Fat,' sold out the last time she was here in January. Only $19.48 for two books with, gosh, over 200 recipes in each book. . . ."

Betty Rohde of Gore, Okla. - grandmother of six, down from size 18 to size 8 - smiles contentedly.

In the three minutes since she and Bob and Pat started talking, 461 of her low-fat cookbook sets have been sold on QVC, the 24-hour home-shopping cable-television show based in this city 25 miles from Philadelphia.

By the time Rohde is off the air 17 minutes later, that total will have reached nearly 5,000, plus about 1,500 for her new Italian book - well over $100,000 in sales.

In between, QVC hosts Bob Bowersox and Patricia Bastia will have sampled Betty's Lemon Licious Cake, Sweet Potato Fluff and Easy Garden Quiche.

Effective selling? Absolutely. For a cookbook author these days, QVC is it.

This show, with 60 million viewers (and 9 million regular shoppers) is luring every kind of author to hawk their wares.

Stories abound of authors selling 7,000 cookbooks in less than 10 minutes; of chefs who sell more in two brief appearances on QVC than they have after months on national publicity tours; and of first-time authors who don't care if the food snobs don't know them. They're selling to middle America, and middle America is making them rich:

-- Art Ginsburg, a k a Mr. Food, appeared on QVC for the first time in 1993 and sold 8,000 cookbooks in eight minutes. Of the 2 million cookbooks Ginsburg has sold in the past seven years, he estimates that "close to 1 million came from QVC alone."

-- New York author Barbara Kafka appeared on "In the Kitchen With Bob" last year and sold 14,000 copies of her sophisticated "Roasting" cookbook. "If you have the sense you were born with, you want to sell your book on QVC," she says.

-- Low-fat baker Susan Purdy, author of "Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too," almost blew her first two tries on QVC with complicated demonstrations, but eventually sold 21,000 copies of her book last year. One trick that sent orders soaring was showing how to make a quick Valentine's Day dessert by sifting confectioners' sugar over a heart-shaped stencil on top of a chocolate cake.

"There's not an author walking who doesn't want to be on QVC," says Merrilyn Lewis, senior publicist with Lisa Ekus Public Relations.

But as recently as five years ago, selling a cookbook on QVC was probably the last thing an author wanted to do, "and a top chef wouldn't be caught dead here," says veteran QVC host Bowersox, a former singer and restaurant owner whose popular Sunday show, "In the Kitchen With Bob," has since lured star chefs and upscale cookbook authors to the shopping program.

Even QVC executives admit that the channel's image, particularly when it began 11 years ago, was tacky.

But slowly that image began to change. By 1993, sales of home products had begun to outpace jewelry, which had been the channel's biggest seller. Two years later, home products accounted for nearly 50 percent of QVC's $1.6 billion in revenue.

The change is a result of QVC's strategy to "upscale" its image, says senior vice president for programming Robert Cadigan.

Cookbook sales began to take off in 1994, led by Bowersox, who sold nearly 157,000 copies of his first book, "In the Kitchen With Bob," in 24 hours on QVC.

Smelling a good opportunity, skilled hawkmeisters like Wolfgang Puck and Paul Prudhomme began showing up to sell cookware (Puck) and spices (Prudhomme) as well as their books.

By 1996, cookbook sales were up 36 percent over 1995, says QVC cookbook buyer Paula Piercy. Although QVC won't reveal exact figures, one source places them at about $17 million for last year.

Despite the success stories, some well-known authors have failed.

Two years ago, former model Barbara Smith, owner of the B. Smith restaurants in New York and Washington, D.C., sold more of her upscale Southern cookbooks through book signings, local TV shows and newspaper articles than she did on QVC.

Viewers bought just 800 copies of Smith's glossy books, and some in the publishing business think it's because minorities such as Smith, who rarely appear on the show, have a tougher time connecting with the mostly white audience.

On the other hand, even cooking queen Julia Child, who built her reputation on television, flubbed her QVC opportunity to sell her newest book, "Baking With Julia," written by Dorie Greenspan.

Appearing on "In the Kitchen With Bob," Child said little, referring all questions to Greenspan, who also demonstrated the recipes. "It's not my book; it's Dorie's," she said.

"I'm sure she thought she was being gracious, but it killed the book," says a longtime publicist.

"If you don't have the right personality, if your book is too complicated, if you don't click with the host or you get a poor time slot, it can be extremely disappointing," says Simon and Schuster publicist Beth Wareham.

Even authors who boast about how many books they sold on the shopping channel don't reveal that if too many of those purchased books are returned (QVC has a 30-day unconditional return policy), the author may not be invited back.

The host who's paired with an author also can have a huge effect on sales, particularly if their personalities clash.

"These shows are personality-driven," says Italian-cooking author Mary Ann Esposito. "The viewers have to connect with you or with the host, and then it doesn't matter what you're doing - you could be stuffing lamb guts - and they'll want to buy your book."