There’s an interesting article up on culinate.com discussing eight food bloggers-slash-cookbook writers who are using the multiplatform approach to build and develop their careers. Some started with books and some with blogs, but all of them recognize the value that blogging brings to their cookbook writing and vice versa.

Cookbooks aren’t magazines, but I think there are some good learnings in there for our own part of the media world. For instance:

• “Be totally authentic,” says Jaden Hair, who writes a newspaper food column and appears on television as well. She stresses that she presents the same personality—brand identity would be a magazine’s version of that—on all platforms.

• Use the web—and interaction with readers—for inspiration. Zoë François and her co-author Jeff Hertzberg got the idea for their second bread book from requests on the blog.

• Make the web your testing ground, suggests Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini. “As a writer, your blog is your playground.”