Why Companies Will Buy Your Books - Part 1

Publishers and authors seeking sales in non-bookstore markets often think only in terms of selling to retail outlets such as discount stores, warehouse clubs, airport stores or gift shops. However, there is an often-overlooked segment made up of buyers that frequently purchase books in large quantities, pays in 30 days and does not require a distributor. This niche is comprised of companies that buy books and other information products not necessarily for re-sale, but to motivate their sales forces, educate their employees, improve their images or use as sales incentives to sell more of their products.

This market can be lucrative, if you know how to sell to the buyers. This begins with an understanding of why they might use your books to improve their circumstances, to make their companies more profitable. An appeal to traditional buying motives may not work under these conditions.

The people with whom you will be negotiating are skilled professionals, used to dealing with knowledgeable, competent sales representatives. The buyer is probably not the Purchasing Agent for the companies, but perhaps the Human Resources Manager, Sales Manger or Brand Manager. The content of your book will determine the prospective decision maker.

Many of these businesspeople have never thought about using books as promotional tools. So if you come across as a consultant with ideas to help them, you are more likely to make the sale. If you know how they could use your titles to sell more of their products or services you will find a willing ear. Below are suggestions to fuel your discussion. Use this list to help plan how they might best use your titles.

1) Human Resource planning. If you have a concept that would help employees plan for their retirement, ask people in the Human Resources department if they could use your titles in their retirement-planning programs. They might also consider titles that would help them implement other parts of their benefit programs.

2) Training and motivation. According to Frank Fochetta (VP, Director of Special Sales and Custom Publishing at Simon & Schuster), “Companies such as Herbal Life and Amway buy motivational and business books to resell to their distributors.” In many other businesses, managers regularly seek new ways to train and motivate their employees, too. Your titles on leadership, motivation, self-help, selling techniques or new business topics could be useful to these executives.

3) Gift to customers. Fiction and nonfiction titles may be the perfect gift for customers, employees or to recognize unusual events or special marketing periods. Mark Resnick (partner in FRW Company) tells us, “Some cruise ship lines, give passengers a thank-you gift upon departing the ship. Sometimes they use a book about one of the destination ports as the souvenir.


4) Sell through their stores. If companies have stores for employees, either on the premises or online, they may purchase your books for resale. Majors Internet Company provides a service called The Company Bookstore. This is a business-to-business solution for selling books to employees of corporations. In effect, Majors puts a bookstore inside the corporation. Purchasing managers, Corporate Library Professionals, and Information Service Managers can link to a customized version of the company bookstore to offer employees access to a comprehensive database of titles.


Majors customizes The Company Bookstore for the corporate intranet, processes credit card transactions, picks, packs & ships, and provides management reports. Majors is a vendor for the corporate employee as well as for information centers, training and development, and research departments. J.A. Majors Company - 4004 Tradeport Boulevard, Atlanta, GA 30354; Phone: 404-608-2660, 1-800-241-6551, Fax: 404-608-2656, http://www.majors.com/corporations/corporations.htm.


Books Are Fun, Ltd. (A Reader's Digest Company) is a leading display marketer of books and gifts. They offer hardcover books, gifts, and educational products at savings of up to 80% off retail prices. Their book fairs and book displays supply innovative, premium quality products to corporations, schools, hospitals, and early learning centers throughout the United States and Canada. Books Are Fun serves over 60,000 schools, 12,000 corporations, 20,000 early learning centers, and many hospitals, universities, government offices and non-profit organizations in the United States and Canada through a variety of programs.


The Books Are Fun formula is simple. They buy huge, non-returnable quantities of books and gifts directly from publishers and manufacturers, and sell those products at deep discounts directly to end users through display marketing events. They typically donate a percentage of the proceeds in books or cash to the sponsoring organization or to a designated charity. Books submitted to Books Are Fun will not be returned. For questions regarding book submissions, email baf_submissions@booksarefun.com. Book submissions can be sent to: Books Are Fun Attn: Submissions Department, 1680 Hwy 1 North, Fairfield, IA 52556.


Brian Jud is an author, book-marketing consultant, creator of the Book Market Map directories for special sales, and author of “Beyond the Bookstore” (a “Publishers Weekly” book) and “The Marketing Wizard CD.” Contact Brian at P. O. Box 715, Avon, CT 06001; (800) 562-4357; brianjud@bookmarketingworks.com or visit http://www.bookmarketingworks.com

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What part of this article got you thinking about contacts you have, people you can speak with about selling large quantities of your books, booklets, audio programs, and other products? Who will you contact first?

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Until next time,
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