With food magazines so popular at the moment, showing double digit growth over last year, it stands to reason that mini cookbooks are popular with publishers as a premium gift to try and drive sales of titles. Publishers need to be careful to not chase too much of a good thing.
I suspect that the frequency with which mini cookbooks are being stuck on the cover of magazines as a gift is diluting their value as a premium. I wonder, too, whether the frequency is diluting interest in mini cookbook sales.
What was once special is no longer all that special – to my mind at least.
If a premium is to be used to drive sales of a magazine, I’d like to see greater creativity from publishers, particularly between titles. I don’t mind mini books being used as a premium, I’d just like to see more creativity in subject matter. Make them truly premium again.