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Serving Up Fresh PR: Lisa Ekus Finds Tasty Publishing Niche

See why Lisa Ekus Public Relations and her team are "Considered the most powerful promoters in the cookbook business" by the New York Times.

By Jim Barnes

We have covered many different niche publishers in these pages, but never a niche publicity firm. In true independent fashion, Lisa Ekus Public Relations Company has found an avenue of specialty that represents one of the most vibrant areas of book publishing--cookbooks.

Founded in 1982, Ekus' company does what the typical book publicity firm does for authors, but they do it for authors of cookbooks, chefs, and other culinary experts. They do cookbook and food publicity, create press packages, arrange feature articles and author interviews with TV, radio, and press nationwide, and develop specialized mailing lists for the print and electronic food media.

For 19 years, Lisa Ekus Public Relations has been bringing the expertise of outstanding chefs, cookbook authors, dietary authorities and culinary educators to a wide spectrum of marketing programs. "We have shown that when popular and articulate authorities cook up great new dishes with a featured product or serve as product spokespeople, it increases media attention, public awareness, consumer interest, and sales," say Ekus. "We act as a full-service agency, dedicated to identifying, designing, and negotiating opportunities across the entire food and beverage industry."

The company coordinates in-store demonstrations, cooking classes, book signings and publicity tie-ins in conjunction with food events. They offer media training and consulting, with specialization in food-related appearances. The company also acts as a multimedia placement service matching food experts with corporations looking for product representatives, spokespersons, consultants and recipe developers. The company has represented such noted food authors and chefs as Rick Bayless, Craig Claiborne, Emeril Lagasse, Paula Wolfert and Patricia Wells.

"Culinary PR is enormously labor-intensive, because of all the minute details involved. I love working with chefs and food people, but it's a challenge in that you really have to be thinking all the time about the nuances of what is a very complicated business. As chefs have become 'branded' celebrities, we work to position them, their restaurants, and products in the culinary world by reaching out to regional and national media to share the most current information, trends, menus, and products. "

"For many years, culinary professionals were working as spokespersons, product endorsers and recipe developers for food manufacturers and corporations, big and small, for little or no compensation. Our Creative Culinary Partnerships program has made tremendous progress in making sure that culinary professionals are recognized and compensated accordingly," says Beth Shepard, Director of the firm's Culinary Partnerships program. "We secure opportunities for cookbook authors, chefs, spokespersons and others throughout the food and beverage industry and negotiate the best possible compensation for their valuable time, talent and creativity."

Ekus recently completed the circle of services offered to culinary professionals when she launched a literary agency division of her firm last year. "Our team has always striven to be on the cutting edge of culinary trends," says Ekus. "We are now taking that expertise to publishers in the form of cookbook proposals that we feel are a good fit for the current and future consumer market. So many publishers are looking for the 'superstar' chefs, with established names and reputations, but I think we also have to nurture the next generation." Some of the culinary rising stars represented so far are Susanna Foo, Andrew Schloss, Ken Bookman and Linda Gassenheimer. The company's new focus on author representation and literary agent services is a natural progression of the way her business and the industry have evolved, and is "the last piece in the puzzle," Ekus says.

"After ten years of making matches and putting deals together, I realized there were many, many people out there just waiting for someone to come along to do this kind of specialized agency work. I've been listening quietly to the needs of those in the culinary field, and have positioned my company to be able to do this very effectively. We have the ability to take it beyond just selling a book--we can help build a career for a culinary author."

Through all the years of dedication and hard work, Ekus has acted like a master chef finding a perfect blend of flavors, and has found the perfect balance of career, life at home as a mother of two, and as a community activist. Lisa lives and works in Hatfield, Massachusetts, out of a two-hundred-year-old renovated farmhouse complex, with a working kitchen that quickly transforms into a media-training studio, complete with lights and video camera. Her 8,000-volume library (about a third of which is cookbooks) is a well-known and used resource for chefs and other food professionals.

"I made a conscious choice 20 years ago to make time for my business, but to be dedicated to raising my girls. Working and living in the same area has allowed me to juggle both parts of my life. Of course I never quite get away from the business completely--I tell people I only work half-time...twelve hours a day."

Lisa's girls are 12 and 16, both like to cook, and they work part-time in the office during the summer break. Five-year-old black lab Pebbles is her daily walking companion, and after an autumn wedding, the family will soon expand to include a new husband and stepson.

Another piece of the puzzle in Ekus' busy life is her involvement in community food and nutrition programs, serving on the Board of Directors of The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and as member of Share Our Strength's National Leadership Council. Named as one of the "Rising Stars" by Restaurant Hospitality Magazine (July, 1987), Ekus was a founding member of the Society for Cuisine in America and Northampton Hospitality, Inc. and is an avid fund-raiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America.

"To see the abundance in the field I work in but at the same time knowing that one in five children in this country are hungry really makes me want to get involved and give back to the community. About 15% or 20% of my time is pro-bono work, which a business consultant would probably tell me was too much, but it is very good for the soul." We asked Lisa Ekus about promoting cookbooks in today's changing marketplace, and what it takes to be a successful cookbook author.

IP: How has the explosion of home-style cable networks and cooking shows affected cookbook publishing and marketing?

LE: These niche shows have provided a dedicated forum for culinary experts, which are watched by those interested in cooking. The morning network nationals (Today, Good Morning America, CBS Early Morning) remain the most highly rated, but their audience is a general one. These shows are primarily interested in "celebrity chefs" like Jamie Olivier ("The Naked Chef"), Emeril Lagasse, etc. The rest of the cooking world has little chance for placement on a national show--especially if they're "just a cookbook author."

The viewer base of the Television Food Network and the cable shows, on the other hand, is specifically devoted to food and lifestyle subjects. They have allowed more cookbook authors to appear on air, and have broadened the opportunities for many more culinary professionals to do cooking segments. From a public relations and marketing perspective, we can reach more of our targeted audience through these shows. These segments are also longer, allowing for more flexibility and visibility within the cooking spots. We have very strong relationships with the cable shows and they are often our springboard for national and regional tours. These shows are also difficult to get onto--a cookbook author must have good tape to show; those who have been media trained stand a much better than average chance of being asked to do a cooking segment.

IP: What are some other places to promote cookbooks?

LE: Unless you're Julia Child, Emeril, or Jacques Pepin, traditional bookstores--especially the chains--are NOT the place to promote cookbooks in person. That's not to say bookstores don't sell a lot of cookbooks--they do. But the general public does not recognize most cookbook authors. Rather, they often buy according to subject matter. Promoting cookbooks works very well when one can tap into cookbook buyers and food aficianados. For that reason, demos at cooking schools, cooking classes, special events--food and wine dinners; guest chef appearances and the many Book & Cook events that happen all across the country are much more effective.

We sell cookbooks as part of these events, either inclusive of the ticket price of the event, or for sale during the event. These types of events draw the kind of audience that knows food, recognizes the authors, and collects cookbooks. What works especially well are co-op bookstore/restaurant involvement for the dinner/wine events. We recently did a very successful one with Noel Cullen--Elegant Irish Cooking--at a local New Hampshire restaurant where books and some publicity was provided by The Country Bookseller in Wolfeboro, NH. Independent bookstores are generally heavily involved with their local community, so there are great opportunities to get creative with other foodie-targeted local businesses to generate sales.

Some of the best places to sell cookbooks are non-traditional outlets like QVC (where authors can sell several thousand copies in just a few minutes), the warehouse clubs like Sam's, Costco, etc., and through cooking schools where authors teach classes in their specialty area and books are available for sale before, during and after the classes.

The Internet has become an increasingly valuable outlet for book sales. Pitching books to sites that review cookbooks, with a link to either an author, publisher or independent bookseller site generates extensive book sales. The Internet outlets should be marketed as heavily as print, radio and TV outlets have in the past. Our ChefAdventures.com newsletter always links to a bookseller for sales and we have seen a spike in sales immediately following the launch of each issue.

IP: How do you market to customers who supposedly have "no interest in books," but might have 200 cookbooks on their shelves?

LE: We all need to eat several times a day and our interest in food and cooking seems limitless. Even if one doesn't cook, we're still eating. People are increasingly interested in the context of where there food comes from--how it was grown, harvested, prepared. We love to live vicariously through the travels and culinary exploits of food writers. We love to get ideas from cookbooks. Chefs love the books with color photos and unanimously agree they rarely, if ever, cook from cookbooks, but rather get visual ideas for their own creations. People have cookbooks everywhere--their dens, living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms. As cookbooks have grown beyond mere recipe books, they are now travelogues, culinary guides, social and cultural tomes from which we can glean salient facts with which to impress our friends over dinner at the trendiest restaurant. People are having more fun than ever with food; they are experimenting in restaurants with unusual dishes and are able to buy ethnic ingredients from around the globe at their local supermarkets. They want to be in "the know" even if they don't actually cook. These books appeal to culinary voyeurs.

IP: What criteria should a food expert use to determine whether or not to publish a book?

LE: First and foremost an author should have a passion for his/her topic. To do a book just because you think you should write one is absurd. There needs to be something new about your topic--something that has not been covered in other books. It might be a more in-depth approach; it might entail a more cultural and historical basis, along with the recipes; it might cover a subject area that has changed significantly over the years (think cooking with equipment). Research should always be done. Look in Books In Print; go to several bookstores and look through their cookbook sections; talk to specialty cookbook sellers (Kitchen Arts & Letters in NYC and Cook's Library in L.A. to name two). Just being a good cook and having all your family recipes is not reason enough to write a cookbook. It takes passion, vision and uniqueness. Lisa Ekus started her company in 1982, "doing it all" herself and still able to spend time weeding her garden. Today she has a staff of nine, a computer network, a mailing list of 6,000--and no time for weeding. Here are three business practices she has concentrated on over the years that she feels have led to the growth of her company:

1. Listen to the marketplace. "It was listening to authors and the media in the early days that first led me to concentrate on cookbooks. I'm interested in the unexpected inquiries from 'left field' as well as the hits and misses of our current projects," she says. "Trends emerge and point out what's needed in the changing marketplace, to sell both my services and the products and people I represent."

2. Look for patterns in how work time is spent. "I not only pay attention to the pattern of inquiries but also to the effort that I and my staff make in response. I look closely at the hours we spend--where it is being compensated and where it is not--then I consider how to turn unpaid work into profitable services."

3. Do gratis work. "I have made it standard practice to communicate with everybody who is interested in our industry. We talk to anybody who contacts us. If they have a question that we can answer, or we know someone else who can, we help them out."

Lisa Ekus Public Relations Company's Web presence is ChefAdventures.com, a business-to-business (B2B) website with a growing consumer base (B2C). The site is easily found through all of the major search engines, collecting "opt-in" visitors by offering a "subscription" wherein subscribers receive the monthly link to the new issue in their e-mail at no cost. Each month, the link to ChefAdventures.com is e-mailed to:

1. The top 250 food editors at newspapers nationwide (by circulation)
2. 100 freelance food writers
3. 100 syndicated food writers
4. Members of International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) (approximately 1200)
5. Members of Women Chefs & Restaurateurs (WCR) (approximately 1200)
6. Members of International Foodservice Editorial Council (IFEC) (approximately 350)
7. Top 75 food publications
8. A growing consumer list ("opt-in" consumers who subscribe online)
9. Publicists at every major/minor publishing house nationwide (approximately 350)

Presently, ChefAdventures.com reaches approximately 5,000+ food media contacts, professionals and consumers each month. The issue stays online at the main site for one month and is then archived and can be retrieved or referred to for up to one year.

The format of ChefAdventures.com includes:

* Appe"teasers" - links to "whet your appetite" that include links related to the book/chef/restaurant or food product
* Blue Plate Special - featuring an overview of the book/chef/restaurant or food product
* Last Licks - sample recipes and tips from the featured book(s) or client(s).

Each issue is designed to meet the client's goals and includes book jacket images and inside art, when applicable, product images, photographs and illustrations. New cookbooks are released to coincide with the publication date. The first four (4) issues have been a tremendous success. To review the first three (3) issues, please visit the ChefAdventures.com Archives.

"We are thrilled at the comments we receive via e-mail, and people from both the food media and consumers are subscribing everyday," says Ekus. "The traffic has been excellent and has been averaging 4,000-5,000 monthly with a subscription base of 1,000+ and growing."

Like the rest of her ventures into the world of culinary publishing, that is "m'm m'm good!"

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