How to write a request for sponsorship letter for a Baby Food Recipe Book to be written by a small group of mums.

I don’t have a specific answer regarding a template to use for a letter. However, I would like to encourage you to consider doing the project on your own without formal sponsors. You could write your book the old fashioned way, but then sell it as an e-book. (That way you don’t need sponsors or a deal with a traditional publisher.) You could market the recipe book on sites like e-bay and amazon. (Amazon also has a relationship with an on demand publisher which will print only as many copies as you want!)

Another idea might be to turn this recipe book into something larger: dietary advice for mothers, healthy eating for toddlers, childcare issues and food.

Take a look at the site Mompreneurs. http://www.mompreneursonline.com/
Those ladies were just like you. Mother’s trying to market the only thing they had: their savvy at home economics and childcare to other mothers!

Best of luck!

I don’t know all that much about book publication, but I’ve always been under the impression that in order to actually make a profit on books you need to take advantage of economies of scale. I also think getting sponsorship might not be the best way to go. I think your best bet would be to make up a prototype draft copy (and I would think you’d want to include art in it as well since that is a major component of cookbooks—even if it’s just photographs of the steps/final products). Then shop it around to various publishers and/or literary agents to see if you can’t get them to bite on it. Publishers are experts in knowing how many copies of a given manuscript to print, how to test a product, the ways to market them etc. I’m thinking you might be better off taking advantage of that knowledge rather than going it on your own and possibly letting down the people who have invested in you (who will likely be your friends and family).

If you don’t have luck going that route, you may want to consider why they don’t want your book. It may be the case that it’s excellent, but that there isn’t enough demand for such a niche book like that to make publishing it profitable. Or it may be the case that the publishers simply lack the vision to appreciate your product, in which case I would think the print-on-demand may be the way to go, since you won’t have to worry about managing inventory, or getting stuck with a bunch of unsold books at the end of the venture.

Best wishes with your book and please keep us posted if you get it going!

Thanks a lot for your great replies! I meet with the other girls on Monday and we’ll discuss your ideas!
Thanks
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