When Penguin Random House announced a serious cut to the glamorous illustrated books published by its Lantern imprint and the departure in December of publishing director Julie Gibbs, it suggested the collapse of the crowded cookbook market. But that's not the full story.

Gibbs started Lantern for Penguin in 2004 with the second edition of Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, still its most popular title. Penguin Random's chief executive, Gabrielle Coyne, says in the past year sales of all illustrated books fell 15 per cent and the main problem was the 2011 closure of the REDgroup chain that owned 280 Borders and Angus & Robertson stores.

"These books are a labour of love and take a long time," she says, and they no longer sell the 10,000-plus print-runs needed to be profitable. So Lantern will halve the number of new books next year; the 2015 catalogue lists 22 new books including a cookbook by Guillaume Brahiniand a book on Wendy Whiteley's garden by Janet Hawley.

Although home cooks increasingly Google recipes, Coyne says online sales and apps are a small part of the market for these books, which "you need to see and feel". Asked if the 2013 merger between Random House and Penguin was a factor, Coyne says a flat "No". But it seems likely Random, the senior partner, would be pushing Penguin to lift its profit margin from 3 per cent closer to its own 17 per cent.

FEEDING BOOKS TO THE WORLD

As Coyne says, "Lantern is its own ecosystem", and elsewhere the illustrated market seems healthy. Authors with cancelled contracts have already approached publishers such as Murdoch Books and Hardie Grant. In 2012 A&U bought Murdoch Books, which was failing as a standalone publisher of illustrated books. Allen & Unwin's group publishing director Sue Hines says the number of Murdoch books has grown since then from eight a year to 60 (45 of them cookbooks).

The difference from Lantern, says Hines, is multinationals like Penguin Random House focus on selling books into Australia, while A&U sells Australian books to the world through its London sales office. So A&U is oddly "more of a global entity than Penguin".

The same applies at independent trade house Hardie Grant, which owns Quadrille, an illustrated books publisher in London, and has an alliance with Rizzoli​ in the US. Hardie Grant's managing director, Julie Pinkham, says selling 5000-10,000 copies of books such as Luke Nguyen's​ cookbook overseas makes them cost-effective. Hines also says, "The mix of books is changing. Less of the market is very high-end $100 chef books no one can cook from. But if you're aiming into a broader general market and aiming at the world, it's easier." Still she says,  "It's not good for any industry for a big player to crumble. It did send a ripple through this end of our building."

NAME YOUR BABY

Two Australian publishing houses have new children's imprints with clever names. Black Inc. already has Nero, an offshoot that publishes its more commercial books, and in December it will give birth to Piccolo Nero (a short black in Italian coffee language), named by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz, who owns the company. The first book for Christmas will be Frederick & Basil, co-written by the Nero publisher Jeanne Ryckmans​ and her late father, academic-author Pierre Ryckmans. Melbourne competitor Scribe has come up with Scribble, which will publish six illustrated children's books a year under commissioning editor Miriam Rosenbloom, ​who is Black Inc.'s art director and daughter of owner Henry Rosenbloom.