How many times have you caught yourself reading and wondering 'Oh! I wish I could earn just by reading!' Or have you ever wished for businesses that wouldn't make you compromise your passion for reading? Reading is a great hobby and reading is fun.
But can you turn your hobbies into businesses? To answer simply: yes, you can. There are so many readers in this world and there are so many businesses that support readers.
If you are a book lover, and you wish to start a book-related business, you are on the right article! Keep reading for eight business ideas that are perfect for every book lover.
1. Start a podcast
Starting a podcast is fairly simple. When you love books, you'll also love talking about them. So, start a podcast talking about your favourite books, authors, controversial opinions, etc.
Make sure you advertise your podcast a lot, because the more popular you get, the more listeners you'll get. And once you have a good number of listeners, publishers, PR companies and authors will be paying you and sending you free books, so you'll feature them in your podcast. You can start a podcast right away on Spotify for free using Anchor, a feature for podcasts. Learn more about this here.
(Image from The Chemical X Podcast)
2. Start a book blog/ bookstagram
This is almost similar to starting a podcast, but if you feel shy while speaking, you can write your thoughts instead. Review all the books you read, post author interviews, give suggestions and soon enough many publishers will be contacting you to review their books. Make sure you leave your contact information on the contact page of the blog, so they can reach you easily. Never hesitate to contact them yourself!
(Image from The Book Reader Club)
3. Open a bookstore
Let's skip the part where we pretend it was not our childhood dream to open a bookstore or a library. If you don't have a place for a physical bookshop, you can open an online one. Sell new books, and old ones too.
Make sure you specify all the details. Get the latest releases in advance. It's the best business you can start if you have some money to put in it.
4. Become a writer
If you're:
- Good at writing,
- Always praised by your English teacher, and,
- Always imagining a fake scenario in your head,
Then trust me, writing is a job for you. You have the potential, you have to sit down and work on that book you have always been thinking about. Mind you, it'll take a lot of time and effort.
You might even get a bit annoyed by double drafts or writer's block, but remember that all good things take time. Alternatively, you can go for journalism and start writing articles.
(Image from Didi Aphra)
5. Become an editor
Do you often find yourself mentally correcting everyone's grammar? Or when reading, you immediately spot an error without even reading twice? Then being an editor is a perfect job for you.
There are so many writers in the world, some published, some unpublished, some popular and some indie, but all of them are searching for an editor. Start your editing business, open a website and promote yourself. Reach out to indie authors and offer your services.
6. Start a book tour company
For every business in the world, the most important thing is promotion. The same goes for books. After a book is published, the author and publisher's first job is to promote it correctly.
That's when they look for a book tour company. You can organise cover reveals, organise virtual or real tours. You'll be in contact with all the authors, bloggers, bookshops and libraries and it won't even require your top effort. You'll just have to be super good at organizing and communicating and that's it.
7. Open a bookbox Company
You can never know if your business will be successful or not, but if there is one business I have never seen in a loss, it's book boxes. Book boxes are wildly popular and have every reason to be popular. Every book lover has bought it.
You might have even bought it for yourself. Again, you'll require excellent organizing skills. Your book boxes will need a book (of course) and you can increase the prices of the boxes according to the number of books in them.
Add some bookish merchandise and trinkets. You can add scented candles, customized lip balms, bookmarks and book sleeves. The best thing is, you can buy all the products at a cheaper rate in bulk and sell the combined boxes at a higher rate. As long as your services are good and true, you'll be in profit.
8. Design book covers
It's a common saying 'Don't judge a book by its cover, but when you take the literal meaning of this sentence, most of us do judge books by their cover. And I'll not lie, but somehow books with good covers have a surprisingly good story. Graphic covers are becoming increasingly popular nowadays.
If you are good at graphic designing and have a good sense of imagination, this might be the job for you. Not only covers, but you can also design the official templates, bookmarks and character cards for the book.
Before starting any business, make sure you do a lot of research on that business. Ensure that it is the right business for you and something you'd like to continue for the long term. And remember to start on a small scale before going all out and learn from others.
Most importantly, don't let anyone demotivate you when you know you are doing your best. Good luck!