The Good Cook – America's only cookbook club – was founded in 1971, as part of then quickly expanding Book-of-the-Month conglomerate. The club has made it through several ownership changes – mergers, buyouts – and is today part of Bookspan, a parent company to over 40 of the biggest book clubs in North America.
The Good Cook relies on a common operational formula for book clubs: a seductive introductory offer is combined with a commitment to buy a certain amount of books within a certain amount of time at a discounted price, and spiced with an attractive catalog that helps the members choose among the wealth of reading choices.
Let's see how this works in more detail.
As is the case with most commitment book clubs, The Good Cook features two different selections. Initial selection is intended for prospective members: it is available for everyone to search through and browse. This is where you choose your four introductory books from. Member selection expands on this inaugural library significantly, and is accessible to active members only.
Initial Selection
To potential members, The Good Cook Book Club offers a carefully assembled assortment of books – be they brand new, hot bestsellers or timeless classics – that cover any and all aspects of the culinary craft: from quick and simple everyday meals to elaborate spreads to be served at dinner parties, holiday entertainments, barbeques... Those who feel like trying something new and unusual, a dish from another part of the country or different part of the world, perhaps, will find plenty of cookbooks with original recipes from all American regions, North-West to South-East, as well as cookbooks featuring international cuisine: French, Italian, Asian, Indian, Latin American, Mediterranean... If you're into light and healthy food, there are plenty of low fat cookbooks, diabetic cookbooks, vegetarian cookbooks to keep you busy. Of course, desserts are not neglected either; in fact, baking and pastry cookbooks are among the most popular with the club's members.
As mentioned earlier, all the titles that Good Cook Book Club offers are carefully selected by its panel of editors, and come from celebrated chefs and names such as Rachel Ray, Paula Deen, Giada De Laurentiis, Sandra Lee, James Peterson... and from established institutions, names you trust, such as Pillsbury®, Cooking Light®, Southern Living®, Reader's Digest®, Martha Stewart Living Magazine®, Betty Crocker®, Better Homes & Gardens® and more.
Member Selection
Once you become a member of The Good Cook Book Club, you will have a much wider selection of books to choose from. Members are granted access to all the books carried by other Bookspan clubs (over 70,000 titles in total), such as Doubleday Book Club, The Literary Guild, One Spirit Book Club (spiritual and inspirational books), Science Fiction Book Club, Rhapsody (romance books), Mystery Guild, Children's Book of the Month, Black Expressions (books by, for and about African-Americans), Quality Paperback Book Club, HomeStyle Books and many others. Note that all the same rules apply to these books (a purchase counts toward member's commitment obligation etc).
Joining
Joining TGC is quite easy: it takes only a few minutes and can be done on the club web site. You won't even need a credit card. To each new member The Good Cook Book Club presents a great introductory offer: 4 books of your choice for $1 each. Simply start shopping and add four books to your cart. When done, you will be taken to a page where you can review the contents of your shopping cart. At this point you can still delete an item if you change your mind and go back to select another one. You are also offered a chance to buy one more book of your choice for 50% off publisher's price (look in the upper right corner) and thus halve your commitment right away. It's a pretty nice offer, so you might want to take it.
At the next stage you will need to enter your personal information, which includes your name, shipping address and e-mail address. Phone number is optional. That done, you will be prompted to choose your billing method. You can either pay by credit card, or select the “Bill Me” option in which case you will be sent an invoice to the address you provided on the previous page.
The last step requires you to set up a password which you'll need to access the members only area. Setting up the password will also confirm your membership. And that's it. You're in.
Modus Operandi
As a member you will receive The Good Cook Catalog approximately once every 3 weeks, free of charge. Each issue of the catalog features a Main Selection, a new title chosen by TGC's editors as the hottest cookbook of the moment. In addition, the catalog lists over 100 other books for you to consider.
The catalog offers real value. There are many cookbooks being published each month, so the editors have to plough through quite a lot of titles to come up with the ones you should consider. The catalog, therefore, provides a convenient way to keep current with the happenings in the culinary world, find out about the latest releases from your favorite chefs, or discover some fresh new culinary talent. Many people actually keep memberships in different book clubs mainly for this reason: to receive guidance and recommendations on what to read.
The current Main Selection will be sent to you automatically, unless you specifically refuse it. You can do that online, via the club web site, or by returning the Member Reply Form (included with the catalog) through regular mail. This practice is known as “negative option” or “advance consent” marketing and it has been utilized by book clubs such as The Good Cook for more than eight decades. Some people consider it a nuisance, a relic of the past, others find it convenient.
While we are inclined to agree with the former group, in all fairness it needs to be said that these days the hassle really is reduced to a minimum: it's just a matter of logging in to your account on the club's official web site, selecting the “Featured Selections” tab and clicking on the “Don't Send” button. And that's it. You're done. It only takes a minute or so of your time once every three weeks. The important thing is not to forget to do it, and The Good Cook Book Club will even assist you in the matter by sending you a reminder e-mail before the Selection is shipped.
Finally, if you do happen to forget to cancel the Selection, you can always send it back if you really don't want it. You won't even have to pay for the return postage so long as the package was not open.
Managing Your Account Online
In this area The Good Cook Book Club deserves only praise: the web site makes it easy and convenient to manage every aspect of your membership online. View detailed order and payment history; check the account balance, remaining commitment, and the shipping status of all recent orders; respond to the current Featured Selection or view older Selections; change your billing and shipping address and other personal details including payment method; choose shipping method, and, of course, browse or search TGC's entire library and place orders.
You might also want to participate in the club's online community where you can share your own book reviews and recommendations with other club members.
Once your commitment (2 books within 1 year) is fulfilled, you are free to cancel your membership. The process, not surprisingly, is a trifle more difficult than joining. You don't have an option to simply close your account online, but instead have to send an e-mail to The Good Cook Book Club customer service, or a written cancellation request to the Member Service Center. A bit of a complication, in our opinion not entirely unavoidable. But then, perhaps we are being too finicky here. It is, after all, just one simple e-mail.
It goes without saying that you will always be welcome back should you decide to rejoin. You can do so simply by visiting the club web site and enrolling again. If you give it a bit of time, you might also receive an invitation from The Good Cook to rejoin the club; there might be special offer attached to such an invitation, and these offers are often even more advantageous than the standard one available on the club web site (lower commitment, for example).
From the great introductory offer, via club discounts to bonus points and various special offers, savings are undoubtedly one of the best things about The Good Cook and for many probably the #1 reason to join. This being such an important subject, we have put together a separate page with detailed information on it and a real-world example.
Shipping Rates
A word or two on shipping charges as they are somewhat complicated. With the initial order the cost is $5.74 for the first book and $1.99 for each additional book. Somewhat high, but we suspect this goes some way toward recouping the loss The Good Cook has to be generating by giving you first 4 books for practically nothing. With subsequent orders the charges are $3.99 for the first book and $2.49 for others. If your total order exceeds $25, Good Cook Book Club will charge you $2.49 flat shipping rate for the whole package.
Free shipping would have been better; it certainly has a nicer ring to it, plus all decent online book shops are offering it. That said, with online retailers not each and every item is usually eligible for free shipping, so you might end up having to pay for it anyway. The Good Cook, on the other hand, will ship you everything you put in your basket for $2.49 as long as the total of your order exceeds $25. So, all things considered, this is a pretty good deal.
For credit card orders, Express Delivery is available. Express orders incur an additional $5.99 per shipment. State sales tax will be added if shipped to NY, PA, IN, TX, TN, NJ, or SC.
Payment
The Good Cook Book Club gives you an option to pay by credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express), or be billed later. If you choose to pay by credit card, you will be charged when your order ships. Otherwise, the bill will arrive with the shipment and you can settle it either by using your credit card, or by sending in money order or check.
In order for this to work, the club grants you a certain amount of credit. Each time you pay on time, your credit increases, up to a maximum of $500. Note that you might be charged a late fee (approximately $4), if your bill is not settled on time. However, this fee can usually be removed by giving a call to customer support and explaining why the payment is late.
Billing methods are part of your profile and you can add or change your preferred method as you like. You will also have a chance to change the method during the checkout process. If you don't, the method specified the last time you ordered from the site will be used.
If you hold even a slightest interest in preparing meals and everything that goes with the territory, then joining The Good Cook Book Club is worth a serious consideration. You get first four books for next to nothing, a hefty discount on all subsequent books you purchase, plus a shiny catalog in your mail every three weeks or so with cookbook reviews, author interviews, additional recipes etc.
Since you are not required to part with any money up front, joining is completely risk-free. If for whatever reason you don't like the introductory package, or if you simply change your mind, just return it to The Good Cook within 20 days and that's that. No strings attached.
The only real downside to the whole deal is the somewhat awkward business model the club employs, which requires you to take action if you don't want to take action – that is, buy the proposed book (Main Selection). In our opinion, however, just getting a free catalog with recommendations on what to read outweighs this inconvenience by a hefty margin.
Good thing is, even if you feel the practice is an absolute deal breaker, you can still take advantage of the incredible introductory offer of 4 books for $1 each if it tickles your fancy. How? Join, take care of the commitment at once and cancel. You can walk away with 6 cookbooks for less than $50, and that includes shipping charges. Hardly a deal you will find elsewhere.
