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Jan. 5, 2017, 11:51 a.m.
Business Models
LINK: www.bloomberg.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Laura Hazard Owen   |   January 5, 2017

Tasty: The Cookbook, from BuzzFeed’s wildly popular cooking vertical Tasty, is not only not sold in bookstores, it’s also not sold on Amazon. You can buy it in one place, this website, and people are doing that: Bloomberg reports that the customizable cookbook — you choose which categories you want in it, and it’s printed on demand — has sold more than 100,000 copies since it launched in November.

This number is enough to actually make the book one of the bestselling cookbooks of 2016, though because it is only sold through BuzzFeed’s website you won’t find it on a bestseller list. Nielsen BookScan’s list of bestselling cookbooks for 2015 (the 2016 list isn’t available yet) is here. The Tasty cookbook would be at number 9, right ahead of rancher-turned-celebrity-chef-and-Food-Network-Star The Pioneer Woman, for sales it’s achieved in just two months.

From Bloomberg:

“BuzzFeed’s cookbook ranges from $24 in paperback to $39 for a gift set that includes a hardcover cookbook and apron. BuzzFeed declined to provide revenue figures, but given those prices, sales would range between $2.4 million and $3.9 million.”

The book is promoted in the banner of the Tasty Facebook page, with a “Shop Now” link. If you go to the Tasty website right now, you won’t see it promoted anywhere.

On Christmas morning, it brought people to tears.

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