If you want to launch a book publishing business, you need to have a solid vision and an equally solid business plan, but the most important of all is that you need money to get everything rolling. Ironically, money is also the most difficult part to get if you don’t have funding yet.
There are some various options available, including grant providers, bank loans, and crowdfunding and angel investors. Each will have slightly different requirements in terms of the types of businesses and people they invest in. Whichever source you choose to approach, before you get their support, they have to buy in to your pitch first. Here are 5 tips for a perfect pitch to get investment for your book publishing business:
1. Keep Your Pitches Grounded in Reality
Large established publishing firms with market reaches that span the globe dominate the book publishing industry. They make it hard for smaller companies to get a share of the pie and they have huge audiences to work with. Additionally, the publishing industry itself is not as easy to break into because there’s very little innovation needed, unlike the IT sector where revolutionary technologies are a dime-a-dozen. So, when making your pitch, don’t try to directly compete with giants. Unless you have a really innovative or market-disruptive business plan, chances are promising to be the next big thing will only make your pitch seem too risky to investors. Put your best foot forward, but keep it grounded in reality.
2. Document Everything
There’s the old chestnut about not wasting an investor’s time, but making sure you have everything accounted for before going to an investor will also show that you’re a savvy, organized person with a knack for knowing where everything is supposed to be, which is a must in any business. So, try to do your work beforehand. Make sure your intellectual properties are trademarked or covered by copyright, get a proper handle on your books, draft a neat write-up of your proposals, and make sure you can present the meat and bones of your pitch without beating around the bush.
3. Always Keep Profitability in Mind
Investment providers, by default, are interested in profitability, so when making your pitch, make sure you streamline and highlight the path to profitability. Then support it with the core concerns for investors: what are the needs that your book publishing business seeks to address? What are the threats in the marketplace, and who are your competitors? If you find the right kind of investor, chances are they already have at least a vague idea of these things, but you still need to present them, because it will show the investors that they’re not throwing money on someone who is just going to use it to test the waters.
4. Pitch to the Right Kind of Investor First
As mentioned above there is such a thing as “the right kind of investor,” and this particularly applies to an angel investor; an individual that will be interested in the book publishing industry, or someone who stands to benefit from getting a market share in publishing. Do your research and look at what investors have supported in the past, to see if they fit your business model. An investor who understands where you’re coming from is more likely to see whether you have a profitable pitch or a solid business plan. It is also a very smart idea to only get money from investors whose vision aligns with yours.
5. Be Patient
This last tip might seem like a generic, useless one, but it’s the one tip that will be very helpful in getting you through the first few months – because yes, you won’t get funding overnight. Funding a business can take a while, and many investors are not in the habit of risking their money every chance they get. So, at best, your book publishing business can get funding in a couple of months, but most likely you’ll have to wait three to six months. So, be patient.
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in January 2015.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]