Lisa Lillien.

Lisa Lillien – aka “Hungry Girl” to fans of her Food Network TV show and recipients of the email newsletter she’s been sending out for a decade – has eight bestselling cookbooks under her belt, and her first diet book, The Hungry Girl Diet: Big Portions. Big Results. Drop 10 Pounds in 4 Weeks, has hit the ground running. The book has already sold more than 50,000 print copies since it went on sale on March 25, according to Nielsen BookScan, and it hit the number one position on Amazon’s bestseller’s list a month before it was even released.

Lillien’s publisher, St. Martin’s Griffin, has had strong success with her previous eight cookbooks (as well as 2011’s Hungry Girl Supermarket Survival Guide), which have sold more than 1.4 million copies combined in print, according to BookScan. To get the word out about the new book, St. Martin’s reached out with pre-pub and publication date advertising that included full-page ads in First For Women magazine and an online package reaching five million 
consumers via websites for magazines like Redbook, Woman’s Day, and Good Housekeeping, as well as heavy in-app mobile placements.

A self-described “foodologist” who shares tips and tricks for eating delicious food with minimal calories, Lillien says that reaching the top spot on Amazon’s bestseller’s list was “a really happy surprise,” and she attributes that enthusiasm to the fact that her audience has long been clamoring for a guide to help them lose weight. “My fans have been asking for me to write this book for ten years,” she said.
The author says it took this long for the book to reach the public because she wanted to make sure she was dispensing accurate nutritional advice. “To be honest, it was really easy to come up with the ideas for the plan – it’s how I live my life – but because I’m not a nutritionist, I got help from David Grotto, a registered dietitian,” said Lillien. “We made sure he felt 100% comfortable with the plan and that it was nutritionally sound.”

In 2004, Lillien sent her first email newsletter, called “Hungry Girl: Tips & Trick for Hungry Chicks,” to a select group. “I contacted everyone I knew – family, colleagues, and friends – and asked if they’d be interested in getting my newsletter.” Around 75 people ended up receiving that first email.
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