Have I mentioned? Book publishing is impossibly slow. It makes my life as a guidebook writer infuriating, knowing that the book I worked so hard on is deteriorating as it sits at the printing press, and then bobs its way back here, on the slow boat from China. And yes, publishers are now actively choosing cheaper presses, in China, even though it slows down the production process.

In my life as a cookbook author, the slowness of publishing is not really such an issue. It’s only a little dispiriting to think that my book won’t be out for almost another year. The only time-sensitive issue in the book is the title–with my luck, profanity will be totally outmoded by fall 2009.

To counteract the slowness of the production process, there’s the deadly swiftness of the promotion period. Basically, you get about three months to make a splash, and then you’re done–this is true of guidebooks, cookbooks and any other kind of book you can think of. Except maybe The Chicago Manual of Style.

This is all maddening, when you consider that the Internet is an instant outlet for new information, and also an infinitely deep archive.

Anyway, what I’m getting to here is Cookstr, a website that will hopefully solve a very small portion of the greater book publishing problem.

Starting yesterday, Cookstr publishes recipes excerpted from cookbooks new and old. The one way in which book publishing is excellent is that for the most part, anything that’s been published in a book has been seriously vetted. (Yes, egregious examples to the contrary pop to mind. But fortunately, nothing in the cookbook field.) So Cookstr–which is run by longtime book publishers–should have an excellent database of higher-than-usual-quality recipes. No more googling “cassoulet recipe” and getting directed to the Kraft-sponsored version involving hot dogs.

Another great feature of Cookstr is the filtering capabilities–you can sort recipes by difficulty, budget and time, as well as ingredients, occasions, etc. I think this is a sign of maturity and wisdom on the part of Internet companies–people are way over the “Gee whiz, there’s so much stuff on the Internet!” phase, and on to the “I want one succinct answer, thanks” phase.

So check out Cookstr. This sounds like such a ringing endorsement, you’re probably wondering if I’m in cahoots with them. I’m not. I’m just happy to see such a smart confluence of books and the Internet, finally. And maybe, when our cookbook is finally published, you’ll see our recipes there too.