Chef Du Grill
By Richard Wright
Photos: © Shaughnessy & Associates Photography. www.shaughnessyphoto.com.
When did you begin writing cookbooks and what drove you to that field?
Karen Adler: “I began in 1988, and I have always been passionate about cookbooks. I used cookbooks early on when I was learning how to cook. My husband is a hunter so I had wild game and didn’t know what to do with it. That was in the ’70s and the cookbook industry was pretty small. I would buy these game books and try some of the recipes, but I was always adapting them.
“It finally dawned on me that I could use regular cookbooks and adapt the recipes for any of the game that I was cooking. I just had to realize that my game was much leaner and I had to be cautious not to overcook it or it would be dry and tough.
“In 1988 I had the chance to work with the Kansas City Barbecue Society and we published our first cookbook, ‘The Passion of Barbecue.’ I then published around 30 cookbooks in the ’90s. At that point, I became an author published by other publishers.”
How well did that first book sell for you?
Adler: “It sold extremely well, over 20,000 copies. Disney was just getting into publishing books and we got a knock on the door from their publishing company, Hyperion. They bought the rights to that book, and that became a really nice Seal of Approval. It was a book on smoking, and there were not a lot of smoke books back then. Anything smoked was usually regional.”
When the Disney folks came calling, that must have made your day.
Adler: “It was great. From that point, instead of thinking regionally, I started thinking nationally.”
Did the relationship with Disney continue?
Adler: “It did for a while. I don’t think they do much in cookbooks anymore. But it made me look for other barbecue and grill books beyond what I was publishing myself. ‘The Passion of Barbecue’ was a joint publishing arrangement, after which I formed my own publishing company with some partners. We published another smoke book called ‘Barbecue Greats Memphis Style.’ It was about all of the wonderful barbecue competitors from Memphis in May.
“Then we published a Texas barbecue book with a couple of wonderful food and travel writers, Paris Permenter and John Bigley. That did real well; Texas continues to have writers who publish Texas barbecue books because all of Texas supports anything about Texas so well.”
Our guess is that ‘The Passion of Barbecue’ was about traditional barbecuing, perhaps with a bit about smoking, correct?
Adler: “Yes. We had it in three parts: 1) simple grill food; 2) marinated and smoked foods that you could do in a couple of hours; 3) all-day smoking for the big pieces of meat such as brisket, shoulder and whole hog. People were clamoring for those recipes and they still do today; we’re seeing that happen today with the new 2015 books that are all about barbecue restaurants and/or barbecue experts who are doing books about smoking. This year the crop of Kamado-style cookbooks has more than doubled.”
When you were publishing your own books, how many did you do in a year?
Adler: “I only published about one or two books a year, and I needed more to sell to stores, to my retailers. So I’m a distributor now. Pig Out Publications is a barbecue cookbook wholesaler. I buy from around 40 different publishers across the country and in Canada; I buy their barbecue and grill books, which include many of the books that I have written myself, and then I sell them at wholesale.
“The first year that I distributed, around 1990, I was able to have a stable of 15 barbecue and grill books. The next year it doubled and I had 30 books. Then in 1992 I had about 45 and it just kept multiplying. Now, if I wanted to carry every book on barbecuing and grilling, including mine, I would probably have around 400 or 500 titles.
“But because I’m a barbecue expert, I cull through everything and pick what I think are the best books for the market, for the retailers I serve. For example, as best I can tell at this point, there may be 30 new books out and I probably will carry 12 of them.
“I have a contract warehouse that I employ. So I buy and warehouse and then I resell; the warehouse does the shipping. Right now the big buzz on the newest book is ‘Franklin Barbecue: A Meat Smoking Manifesto.’ Franklin Barbecue is a restaurant in the Nashville area and it sells out every day. He has so many smokers and he can only produce X amount of meat, then the ‘Closed’ sign goes up when he is sold out for the day.
“With this book I will have to be careful with my retailers, because there are few recipes but a lot of reading. It’s more like a teaching book, like something Julia Child would create.”
When you became a distributor, did you immediately go out after the specialty stores?
Adler: “Yes. I first started going to the National Barbecue Association, and Fiery Foods and the HPBExpo. That was a wonderful way to meet other barbecuers. A lot of times a new store owner may call me because somebody told them about my company having met me at one of the shows.”
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| Adler cooks on the most common grills her readers likely have in their own backyard. | |
How many specialty dealers do you have on your list of distribution?
Adler: “Not a lot, about 150. I would say that 100 of those 150 are regular customers. They order every month, and they look at what’s new with a little bit of skepticism because they feel so comfortable with the books that have kept selling for them year after year. So I have to encourage them by saying, ‘You need this book.’
“The books have changed over the years because, 15 years ago, we didn’t have that many books in color and didn’t have that many hardcovers. Now, because of Kindle and online recipe sites, the trend in books is that if you’re going to publish, it better have color, and if it’s going to have color there are a lot of publishers who say, ‘Then we might as well have it be a hardcover.’”
Beyond your 150 specialty stores, what other companies are on your list?
Adler: “I also sell to some garden shops and especially some of the outdoor garden shops that carry barbecue grills. In the greater Kansas City area, where I live, I have a lot of hometown accounts; they buy some barbecue books from me and also non-barbecue cookbooks as well.
“I have several French-style gift/ gourmet shops in this Midwest area and my new book is ‘BBQ Bistro.’ It’s grilling with a French flare. My French stores will be buying this grill book because it’s French as well as grilling.”
Do you sell through online entities, such as Amazon or anyone else?
Adler: “No, because most of the publishing houses deal directly with Amazon. So books that I carry will be on Amazon, but I’m not selling them to Amazon – not even my own books. My publisher, Running Press, puts them on Amazon. They are part of the Perseus Book Group. They do sell a lot of foreign rights as well.”
How many different titles do you normally carry at one point?
Adler: “Right now I have about 100 barbecue titles, and another 100 that are food related but not barbecue, such as baking books, etc.”
Here’s Wright’s Hearth & Barbecue Shop, which was created just a second ago. You’re speaking to the owner, who sells barbecues and is thinking of getting into the barbecue book business. What should I begin with? How many titles should I have? Do you have any book stands I can purchase? How do I display books for the best results and how do I go about selecting which books to carry?
Adler: “If you want to begin with cookbooks, you have to look like you’re in the book business. Let’s talk about how much money you have to spend and about getting a minimum of 10 titles in, because you have to look like you’re in the book business. Only bringing in four to six titles is just not enough. I’m being modest at 10. If you could bring in 12 to 20 that would even be better, but I realize you’re just beginning.
“With those 10, we need to cover different areas of what people are looking for in books. So we need a good all-purpose book; we need a great grill book; we need a great smoke book; we need a sauce book and, for specialty sales if you’re carrying these items, we need a pizza book, a plank book, a fish cookbook, especially if you’re coastal. That’s eight titles.
“Then we can throw in a couple more to see whether you want two smoke books or whether you want two grill books. Of those titles, I would go to two of the best: ‘Smoke & Spice by Cheryl and Bill Jamison (Bill Jamison just passed away), which is a true classic.
“The other grill book should be Steven Raichlen’s ‘How to Grill’ with 1,000 step-by-step photographs. You have to have both of those. Then for pizza there are several books to choose from. Elizabeth Karmel’s ‘Pizza on the Grill’ is a good one. Our new book last year was ‘Patio Pizzeria.’ For planking there’s Ted Reader’s ‘Sticks and Stones,’ which is still such a fabulous book.
“Paul Kirk (aka Baron of Barbecue), who lives in Kansas City, has a ‘Championship Barbecue’ cookbook out as well as ‘Championship Barbecue Sauces.’ He’s a brilliant flavor guy.”
How many of each of these books would you recommend that I buy for my retail store?
Adler: “I always go on the minimum side because I don’t want people to have sticker shock on their first order with me, unless they say, ‘Just tell me and I want to do it right.’ Ideally I would want you to have six of each title. Minimally you need three or four.”
That’s not much of a commitment, is it?
Adler: “No, it is not. But when I was working with customers I had to be like a dentist pulling teeth; they only wanted to buy onesies and twosies of the titles. Would you ever have one grill in your store? Never. Are you going to have one bottle of barbecue sauce on the shelf? Of course not. So why would you want to buy only one book?”
If I were a retailer and somebody came in and bought a $2,000 to $4,000 grill, I would give them a cookbook and some barbecue sauce and say, “Thank you, come back again.”
So what kind of a margin is Wright’s Barbecue and Hearth Shop going to get on books?
Adler: “You’re going to get at least a 40 percent margin, and on some titles as much as 50.”
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| The first three cookbooks in Adler's Lifestyle series. | |
Which geographic areas are best for you in terms of sales?
Adler: “I really don’t have very many customers on the Eastern Seaboard. The majority of my customers are in the Midwest and West, and that would include the South. That would include Alabama, Louisiana and Texas.”
What is the average number of cookbooks one of your 100 retail stores sells in a year?
Adler: “Well, my two best accounts are in Canada. Interesting, isn’t it? They each buy around $25,000 worth of books a year. One is in Toronto, the other in Alberta. They were both Barbeques Galore stores that went private.”
Can you give me a thumbnail description of your process for creating a cookbook, from concept to publication?
Adler: “First I have to think about content of the book. Is it going to be a grilling book? Is it going to be a grilling and smoking book? Is there a certain area that we want to cover in this book? Is it going to be a planking book?
“Judith Fertig has been my co-author on almost all of these books. We hit upon the best way to do this when ‘The Gardener and the Grill’ came out. We had been in France at the La Varenne Cooking School and had read that book by Amanda Hesser, who had apprenticed with Ann Willan at the school.
“The book was a collaboration between Amanda and a caretaker of the property – a villa – who had a fabulous garden. It was only he who could pick any vegetables from his garden. The book was called ‘The Cook and the Gardener.’ Judith and I both loved it. So we thought, Why not grill from the garden?
“We researched which vegetables are in most U.S. gardens. The book would be about what you’re going to grow in your own garden and then taking those common, ordinary garden vegetables and putting them on the grill. We then had the name of the book and the concept of vegetables on the grill.”
Then you went into your laboratory and started experimenting with recipes. The laboratory is in your backyard. Describe what I would see if I walked into your backyard?
Adler: “You would see common grills that most people have in their backyard. Today, a Kamado might be in someone’s backyard. Ten years ago it was not common; it was an extraordinary grill to have in your backyard. I have a gas grill that has 40,000 Btus. I have a little gas portable grill and it probably can get to about 400 degrees when the lid is down, but then you lose it the moment the lid is up.
“I also have a Kettle grill and a Bullet smoker. We also do a tiny bit with the indoor smokers that a lot of barbecue stores carry. So it’s pretty basic.”
What’s the average time from concept to publication?
Adler: “If we have a year, that’s fabulous. Sometimes we only have nine months. The publisher sets the time frame.”
With your Lifestyle Series, “The Gardener and The Grill,” “Patio Pizzeria,” and “BBQ Bistro,” you basically regard them as a departure from what might be called normal, regular, traditional barbecuing? Explain how those books differ from the regular.
Adler: “It became clear to Judith and me – even though we are totally capable of producing a smoke barbecue manifesto, which we did with the ‘Barbecue Queen,’ and ‘The Big Book of Barbecue’ – that we are not barbecue competitors nor do we own a restaurant, and that is the way book sales are going. Many publishing houses have found that working with a restaurant is a fabulous way to have built-in sales. Just as they have found working with bloggers or competitors is a wonderful way.
“Judith and I went the lifestyle route as women writers and also because that’s really how we both cook. We cook indoors and outdoors and we both have classic French training and we’re curious about all kinds of cooking. That helped us with creating the Lifestyle Series.”
Is there anything else you would like to get out?
Adler: “The most difficult thing for me is getting a barbecue store to carry what’s brand new; they can even buy a single copy to see if they like it. I’m always going to point them in the right direction. In addition to the staples discussing traditional barbecue, they really need to bring in some new titles. Customers who have already purchased the basic books are probably the best customers for the new ones. Retailers should make sure they have the new ones on hand.”
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