We decided to interview Pamela because of her success as a food writer. She encourages individuals who dabble in food writing and those who simply show an interest in it but don’t know where to start. Pamela White has been published in Writer's Digest, ByLine Magazine, Home Cooking, Soul Matters, Spirit Communication, Back Home, Futures Mysterious Anthology, and many other online venues. Her book, Make Money as a Food Writer in Six Lessons, is available at Amazon.com.

You’ve been in this profession for a long time, what are your suggestions towards other food writers to help them get into this industry? What about cookbook authors?

I've been coaching aspiring food writers for a while now and the first thing I stress with my students is that knowing and loving the culinary arts is not enough. Editors don't have the time to take rough writing with good information and turn it into a polished article. Writers must study good writing, and particularly, good food writing if they wish to join the ranks of the professional. Writers with a passion for food can create a food-writing career, but the food lover with no writing experience has a harder time. Read great food writing, study the New York Times food section, fall in love with M.F.K. Fisher and Jeffrey Steingarten, and keep writing about the way food moves us emotionally and feeds our psyche.

Cookbook writing and publishing is an entirely different niche for writers. The biggest obstacle to having your cookbook published these days is the preponderance of celebrity cookbooks. Smaller bookstores are going to put the sure things on their shelves and that means the television food celebs that have staffs to develop, test, and write recipes. How does the average food writer compete? Unless you are in talks with Food Network executives you need to have one great idea for a cookbook. Even if you want to write a book about Grandma's Christmas treats, you can sell it if you have that amazing and unique angle. That angle might be simply that your passion for these treats and how they created the mood at Christmas will touch today's holiday crowds that mark the beginning of the season by standing outside a Wal-Mart at 3 a.m. the Friday after Thanksgiving.

How long did it take for you to break into this industry? What would you say was and is the hardest thing about breaking into the cookbook industry?

I fell into food writing when the local food critic moved away and there was a gap. I had written for a small newspaper and my published clips included interviews with local cooks, culinary contests and events and columns on cooking, but knew nothing about restaurant reviewing. I sent in my clips, promoted the idea that since I'd lived all over the United States I knew several styles of cooking and would be able to analyze and appropriately judge the meals I would be dining on, and tossed in a list of possible food articles focusing on local food people and places. It worked. So my second piece of advice to writers and aspiring food writers is to take a chance.

What does it take to have a successful cookbook? Have you been professionally trained in either food or cookbook writing or were you accomplishing a life-long dream?

I remember telling teachers and family members that I wanted to be a writer when I was four years old. This met so much laughter that I kept my writing dreams a secret for years. I wrote stories for myself, and finally started sharing them with others. My writing grew from those small beginnings to the point that volunteering to write press releases for one organization led to a newspaper editor contacting me to write for his paper. I never looked back. Today I write, teach writing workshops and publish an online e-zine and teach writing classes online at www.foodwriting101.com. The truth is that I never took an English class in college after placing out of that requirement due to my advanced placement testing. I truly believe that a passion for story telling can take you far into your writing and certainly, into your food writing.

How would you and do you market a cookbook to seem new? Is there anything in particular a cookbook author should do to market a holiday cookbook?

Try breaking into the cookbook market by choosing a topic you know intimately and will be thrilled to work on for up to three years. The book needs to have an overarching theme but that theme can be picked from an unlimited universe of ideas: one ingredient (garlic, pasta), holidays/seasons (summer, new years), one course (soups, desserts). Just choose something you are passionate about and you will be able to communicate that to agents.

The reality remains that there are less publishers and agents taking on first time cookbook authors since the money for them is in the cult of celebrity chefs. Just keep pushing through and polishing your amazing and unique idea.

Marketing your cookbook to agents is one thing. It's all about selling you as the only person who can write this amazing and unique cookbook idea. I recommend writers write down a list of reasons why they are the best writer for this idea and why this idea is unique, amazing and necessary. Then they need to pepper these statements and reasons throughout their book proposals. For a quick, inexpensive food cookbook, you might say, "As a single working mother with three young children, I lived my easy, fast, cheap, nutritious recipes," "My work as a school nurse led me to develop a fun yet serious workshop on what foods children must not eat and how to choose great substitutes for those dangerous foods (and the ingredients in them.)" Each statement you write out for yourself as you begin your cookbook proposal must show why you are the amazing, fabulous writer you are, and how your experiences, interests, backgrounds, and life have led you to be the only person who can write this book.

Part of the book proposal will include your plans for marketing your cookbook to the public and bookstores. Be creative – teach cooking classes, sign books at stores and schools, and send out press releases to local and regional newspapers. But the agents and publishers are looking for more than that. While you are just thinking about your cookbook, build a website, start a blog, write articles on food for magazines and newspapers, pitch a weekly food column (that is related to your cookbook topic). All these will prove that you understand how promotion works these days. And will show that you have a list of blog subscribers and a certain number of hits to your website, which will solidify the appearance of a ready-made audience that will absolutely buy your cookbook.

You mention your kids loving your miso soup when they were young and bringing cakes to friend’s houses—what was the first dish that you were really proud of? Do you think moving to New York was the best decision you made for your career (even though you dream of warm weather)?

I created this coconut cake that was divine and people begged for it whenever there was a party or event. I also learned to make New Mexican enchiladas from my ex-mother-in-law and have taken that dish around the country as I moved from place to place. It's so simple but packs a lot of personality into one casserole.

It's funny, I get a lot of emails from businesses asking me to do in-house food writing for catalogs and advertisements because I live in New York. I have to explain that I don't live in New York City (and those offers disappear). New York is a beautiful state and it stretches far beyond the city we watch on Law and Order. And while this area has been great for me personally and professionally (I found both my husband and my career here!), my food writing roots lie elsewhere.

I found my love of food living in Fresno. This is where I visited my first farmer's market and just fell head over heels for the amazing variety of produce the organic farmers there were growing. It shifted my cooking dynamic to a new level of fresh flavors, dense nutrition and bright colors. Again, I just keep going back to my belief that it's that stirring, that passionate awakening that creates the food writer.

What do you hope to teach your students through your classes?

In my classes, I strive to share the joy in writing about anything, but about food in particular. I put myself out there as an example that it's never too late to experience joy through writing, and that writing anything is about passion and if we feel involved with the nutrition, the colors, the flavors, the scents, the mouth feel of the food, we can take our food writing to new heights each time we sit down to write about cooking a turkey, biting into a warm, juicy peach, or baking pies.

Pamela is the owner of food-writing.com and thewritingparent.net. Each site has an e-zine for writers, as well as online classes.

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