Dianne Jacob dishes on everything from food blogs to making it as a writer

A: I started the blog as a marketing aid and because I couldn't write a huge chapter about blogging otherwise. It became an excellent way to build readership for the second edition. When I announced the new release on my blog, it was the first published information about the second edition of "Will Write for Food." The Amazon sales rank increased immediately, and the book became a top seller.

Since starting the blog in June 2009, I've been invited to speak at food blogging conferences, which has helped generate business. A reader of my blog convinced her publisher to have me edit her recipes in a soon-to-be published book. Other than that, the blog, Twitter, and Facebook all work together to expand my platform, as we say in the publishing business. That's the ability to attract potential purchasers.

Q: Which food books or blogs do you recommend for aspiring writers to read?

A: Ack! I'm going to get in trouble because I know so many good bloggers, and it's hard to pare down a list. Okay, here goes:

Former Chez Panisse pastry chef David Lebovitz lives in Paris and gives chocolate tours. How can you go wrong? He's also a hilarious storyteller, a gorgeous photographer, and a rabid poster.

Ree Drummond home schools her kids from an Oklahoma cattle ranch and writes cooking posts to readers as if they are her best girlfriends (including lots about her sexy husband, Marlborough Man). A dependable comfort food cook, she doles out recipes with a light touch and dozens of step-by-step photos.

Molly Wizenberg's lyrical blog, Orangette, recounts, with great honesty and thoughtfulness, a young life in Seattle with the kitchen at its center. Soon after she launched her blog, Wizenberg began an e-mail correspondence with a reader who eventually came west, where they married and opened a pizza restaurant together.

101 Cookbooks, created in 2003 by Heidi Swanson, a former internet marketing whiz, intersects her soulful healthy cooking, design sense, and vibrant photography with her life and travels.

Turkish blogger Cenk Sonmezsoy details his obsessive baking and kitchen experiments, with lavish photos, on Cafe Fernando. He also covers Istanbul's food scene.

Rebekah Denn blogs at eatallaboutit.com.

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