Simon & Schuster Relaunches Joy of Cooking

Posted on November 6, 1997

The all new, all purpose Joy of Cooking has been unveiled in bookstores nation-wide. For Simon & Schuster, Joy's 500,000 copy release represents a multi-million dollar investment. "No cookbook has ever had this degree of marketing support," said Jonathan Newcomb, President and CEO of Simon & Schuster.

The Joy of Cooking was first published in 1931 when widow Irma Rombauer, took half of her late-husband's modest estate and self-published a 395-page collection of recipes. Rombauer and daughter Marion, the book's illustrator, found a commercial publisher for the next edition in 1936, and continued revising Joy until Marion's death in 1976. Since then, Joy has sold at a rate of 100,000 copies per year, a feat that many front-list titles never achieve. To date, more than 14 million copies have been sold.

The Joy of Cooking remains a family venture, headed by grandson Ethan Becker. The contract for rights in Joy, however, became part of Simon & Schuster when it acquired Macmillan Publishing Company in 1994. While Macmillan had long sought to update JOY, it was only with the publishing team assembled by Carolyn Reidy, president and publisher of the Simon & Schuster Trade Division, that Becker agreed to negotiate a contract for a new edition. Now, under the care of Reidy's team, headed by Susan Moldow, publisher of Scribner and editor Maria Guarneschelli, the Joy of Cooking has been readied for the next millennium. A Joy of Cooking CD-ROM is planned for Fall of 1998.