What Do Dieters Want in a Diet Book

One major difference between today and the fad-driven 1970-1980s is that weight loss gurus today must boast high credential resumes to attract a smarter readership.

There is an emerging and growing market for sound, authoritative advice on diet and nutrition, with an increased interest in responsible health books, as opposed to "quack" books.

A second generation of diet books and authors are using cutting-edge scientific and biological principles to help people control basic things that happen to their bodies. These second-generation diet books, say agents, "have to meld the psychological and the physiological in interesting ways."

Finally, there are the Weight Watchers cookbooks with recipes based on their weight loss plan. These books have been published for the past 15 years or so by New American Library, and many have over 1 million copies in print. Weight Watchers feels that most gimmick diets tend to be boring, with a limited range of permitted foods. The company also has a captive market through their huge network of meetings and workshops across the country, where these diet books are recommended. By contrast, authors of best-selling diet books often have limited success when they follow up with cookbooks based on their diets.