BOOK REVIEW FROM DIET-BLOG.COM

How Diets Become Popular:
The Inside Story

Every year a plethora of diet and weight loss books are published. Many of these books are released in January—the "diet season"—together they represent the good, the bad, and the ugly of weight loss advice. Why do some diets become so popular—yet others barely get noticed?

Is it the quality of the book? Or the proven effectiveness of the diet? Is it to do with value for money?

Spent: $4.4 million in on-line advertising in June 2005
In my opinion these factors barely make a dent in the potential sales. The diets that become popular are those that command the mainstream media. These are the days of the media giants, and whoever can push a product across the airwaves will generally sell the most copies. Sadly, the quality of the book is irrelevant—many good books get buried or overlooked in the rush to be a part of the "next big thing."

A Tale of Two Diets
Towards the end of 2005 two diet books were published.

• They both borrow heavily from the Mediterranean food pyramid.
  
• They both adopt a celebratory approach to food.
  
• They both include recipes based around the wine-growing region of California.
  
• They both sell for $16.50

Ever heard of this?
Those books are The Sonoma Diet, by Connie Guttersen, and The California Wine Country Diet by Haven Logan. The Sonoma has instantly soared to the bestseller lists, whilst The Wine Country Diet remains relatively unknown.

Why is this? Are the buying public being led like sheep to the most slickly marketed product?

Media Monopoly
The Sonoma Diet was released on December 27, 2005. The book offers some excellent balanced dietary advice with a gourmet Mediterranean theme. There are no faddish restrictions or gimmicky ideas—it presents a usable style of eating. Within days, this book was on the bestseller lists and currently ranks at number 25 at USA Today (out of all books).

The diet has been the subject of articles written in many papers (even in the Philippines) and has featured extensively in the 10 o'clock news on TV stations such as Fox Carolina, KCTV, KVVU. It's odd that a new diet book qualifies as mainstream news. Popular magazines Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies Home Journal have both published a large "article" on the Sonoma.

How on earth did this diet get so much attention in such short a time? Here's the inside story:

One Company: Many Faces
The Sonoma Diet is published by Meredith Books—a division of media company Meredith Corporation. Meredith receives $1.32 Billion in revenue (source). Meredith owns a lot of media assets:

• 24 subscription magazines including Fitness Magazine.
• Web sites including AmericanBaby.com, Parents.com, More.com, FamilyCircle.com
• Broadcasting—Meredith owns 14 TV stations—with a nice spread of CBS, Fox, and NBC affiliations.

Of course, one of these TV stations happens to be Fox Carolina. And Meredith also owns KCTV an KVVU—oh, and one of Meredith's magazines happens to be Better Homes and Gardens.

Ladies Home Journal? Yes that's a Meredith magazine as well. So much for the independent media.

Publicity is Everything
Perhaps The California Wine Country Diet is a superior book, or perhaps not—but we'll never know, because our buying (and consuming) habits are driven by large media conglomerates.

Today at Amazon:
Sonoma Diet: Ranked #47
The California Wine Country Diet: Ranked #400,115

The book is available at Amazon.
The authors website can be found at:
CaliforniaWineCountryDiet.com