Quickly
Rising
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (SEPTEMBER 2004)
Robert
Allen and Kathleen Spinelli established Brands-to-Books
as a literary agency specializing in representing brands
seeking publishing deals. They can be reached at agents@brandstobooks.com.
For anyone
who didn’t get the memo that branded books have changed
from publishing’s embarrassing cousin to suddenly its
favorite child, here’s an update. Not only are publishers
and retailers looking at them with new enthusiasm, but
they can even pass the ultimate snob test. Branded books
can be honored by the foodie community.
This May,
the James Beard Foundation awarded its prestigious
Kitchen Aid Cookbook of the Year prize to The King
Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. The packaging of
the book has all the same elements publishers are apt
to shy away from: the product’s logo dominates the front
cover, and an author’s name is nowhere in sight. Yet
it became one of the most celebrated books of the year.
How did a branded book earn such respect?
It starts
and ends with the brand. King Arthur Flour has
a devoted cult following with bakers, making it the
third bestselling flour in the country. The 214-year-old
company, based in Norwich, Vt., sells its product in
grocery and specialty stores to home bakers, and through
wholesalers to professionals. But it’s more than their
product that inspires devotion. It’s delivering their
brand promise of baking expertise matched by their commitment
to quality interaction with the customer. Want the flour
delivered directly to your door? Order it from The Baker’s
Catalogue, King Arthur Flour’s mail order and website
resource, along with exotic ingredients (like Vietnamese
cinnamon) and specialty gadgets (ceramic ginger graters).
The catalog is published roughly every month, and has
a 7.5 million annual circulation. Baking crisis? Call
their Baker’s Hotline. Want recipes? Subscribe to The
Baking Sheet, a bi-monthly newsletter of recipes developed
at the King Arthur Flour test kitchens. Sharpen your
culinary skills at the Baking Education Center, with
classes for beginners and professionals. The oldest
food company in New England smartly uses the Web to
bond with its customers. Besides its online catalog,
consumers can join the Baking Circle to exchange recipes
and tips with fellow bakers, and sign up for emails
featuring recipes (with convenient links to purchase
ingredients).
In the
early 1990s, King Arthur Flour paired with fellow Norwich-based
Countryman Press for a collection of recipes
celebrating the company’s 200th anniversary and enjoyed
modest success. When Kermit Hummel arrived as
Editorial Director at Countryman (now a division of
WW Norton), both companies discarded the idea
of a revised edition in favor of “a top-to-bottom bible
of baking.” The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion
($35, 640 pages, Sept. 2003) shares the recipes and
techniques honed in their famous test kitchens. The
more than 150 employees of King Arthur Flour developed
the content, and this collaboration was honored by not
naming a single author for the cookbook.
As they
were developing the book, “we kept asking ourselves,
is the book living up to the brand?” remarked Toni
Apgar, KAF’s Consumer Marketing Director. “We made
sure we put the same passion and quality that goes into
our brand into the book.” Hummel says of their partnership,
“King Arthur Flour delivered the trust consumers have
in them, and we brought the national distribution and
national exposure they couldn’t reach on their own.”
The cookbook now has over 100,000 copies in print.
Direct
from Vermont — the advantage to having too many cooks
in the kitchen. The latest collaboration, The King
Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, goes on sale in November.
©2004
Publishing Trends
