Most people wouldn’t think of The Food Network as an eBay research site, but it can be. As might be expected, when one of The Food Network’s hosts/hostesses becomes popular with watchers, any cookbooks they have published become popular also. If they have written cookbooks prior to becoming popular, it’s likely there was a small publishing run and the prices those cookbooks bring can skyrocket.

That’s the case with one of The Food Network’s hottest shows - Paula’s Home Cooking featuring Paula Deen. But, even hotter than Paula’s TV show right now, is the first cook book she published before The Food Network made her famous.

Her spiral-bound cookbook, Favorite Recipes Of The Lady And Her Friends, was published in 1997 with a print run of only 5000 copies. With a print run that small, you aren’t going to run across a copy on a regular basis, but it’s a book you should be aware of in case one ever presents itself to you.

There are currently three copies offered on Amazon for $999, $1500, and $1750. Granted, this may seem a little extreme. But, within the last couple of months copies have sold on eBay for $500 and $445. Another copy was bid up to $600 on eBay but didn’t meet the seller’s reserve.

A similar opportunity presented itself when Rachael Ray first became popular due to her show on The Food Network. She had previously published one cookbook titled Rachael Ray’s Open House Cookbook. As the popularity of her show on The Food Network grew, the prices this cookbook brought grew along with it. For quite some time copies of the Open House cookbook were bringing between $150 and $300 on both ebay and Amazon. In this case however, the book was re-printed a year or two ago and values for the original printing dropped back down to a more normal level.

You may want to add The Food Network to your list of eBay research tools. When you see a new host/hostess with a rapidly rising star it would be a good idea to do some checking to see if they have written a cookbook prior to gaining nation-wide exposure. If they have, investing a few dollars in some copies could turn out to be a very good investment.

Photo by Patricia Turo

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