Self-publishing a high-quality business book isn’t cheap, with quotes ranging anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000+ depending on the suppliers you use, the number of rounds of editing you need, how many books you get printed and more.
The problem is as a business owner, that level of investment needs to make sense. When making any investment, you want to see a return. And if you’re going to spend up to $15,000 putting your IP into print, the ROI of your business book needs to be higher for that investment to pay off.
But what if you could cover the cost of publishing before you went to print?
While presales and crowdfunding are common paths to raising publishing funds, often finding sponsors for your books is the path of least resistance. Think about it – to cover the cost of your book with presales you would need to sell hundreds of copies, while crowdfunding often relies on a lot of small donations to achieve your funding goal.
By contrast, a single corporate sponsor could order those books, or contribute anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand for the opportunity to reach your audience via your book.
Founder of Time Stylers and author of Me Time Kate Christie had one corporate sponsor cover the entire cost of her first book.
Andrea Doyle, author of the upcoming book From Conflict to Consensus: Managing Workplace Conflict Well, had 20% of her editing and design costs covered by a sponsor in exchange for a one-page ad in the back of her book. (Unfortunately this sponsorship was unable to go ahead due to internal policies at the organisation.)
And Tamara Simon sold two full-page and four half-page ads in the back of her book The Five Little RTO Pigs, which covered her first print run of 1,000 books.
Beyond the financial benefits, though, other benefits of attracting sponsors for your book include increased credibility as an author, the ability to leverage the partnership to distribute your book to more of your target market, and the ability to work together on future projects.
While this sounds great in theory, how do you find these sponsors in practice? And, more importantly, how do you entice them to contribute their hard-earned dollars towards your book?
After consulting Google, conducting interviews and attending workshops on the subject, I’ve condensed the process to the following four steps.
Step 1: List your potential sponsors
When brainstorming people and organisations who might like to help fund your book, the best place to start is with people who share your target market but who aren’t direct competitors with your product or service.
In Kate’s case, her first book was about smart time management for busy women, so she focused on brands, products and services that would make their lives easier that would help them manage their time smarter. The organisation she eventually partnered with was an organisation that provides advice to big companies that saw advertising in her book as an opportunity to get their brand in front of new audiences.
Tamara was in a very tight niche, working specifically with Registered Training Organisations (RTOs), which meant she could focus on highly targeted sponsors: RTO consultants, a membership-based organisation for insurance, insurance companies that work with RTOs and companies that provide training software.
On the other hand, when Book Blueprint first went to print Grammar Factory offered writing workshops and editing services, so our partners could have been other businesses in the publishing space – cover designers, printers and end-to-end self-publishers. Getting broader, we could have also targeted businesses that work with entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their businesses, such as business coaches, coworking spaces and digital marketers.
Beyond sponsors that are serving your target market, something Kate, Andrea and Tamara all highlighted was the importance of finding organisations with shared values – it isn’t worth selling your soul for a few hundred, or even a few thousand, dollars.
When you’re brainstorming potential sponsors, try to think of at least 10 categories of organisations you could partner with, and then at least five specific people or organisations in each category.