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Top 20 Small Business ideas & Opportunities for Book lovers

Are you bookworm? Do you love reading rather than being idle during your spare time? Then below are the top 20 small business ideas for book lovers. As a book lover myself, I was prompted to write this article after searching through the internet for business ideas for book lovers and I didn’t find anything really useful.

I am a great advocate for turning your hobby or passion into money and I strongly believe that book lovers should be given such as an opportunity too. As there are little resources on business out there for book lovers to explore and learn how to make money from their passion, I decided to put this together for book lovers like me:

Top 20 Small Business ideas & Opportunities for Book lovers

1. Book shop

Even though e-books are sort of taking over, bookshops are still making great sales. A Book shop can be set up in virtually any place. It could be in a large city or a small town. You could either choose to set up a general bookshop where you can stock all kinds of books or a niche bookshop focusing on a single category of people.

For example, you could set up a religious book shop for selling religious books, tapes and other materials or a bookshop that caters solely to women.

2. Magazine publishing

Magazines are informative and fun. Magazines like Vogue and Forbes have been around for many years and they continue to make millions in revenue yearly. Magazine companies make money from sales of the magazine as well as paid adverts.

3. Story telling

Story tellers usually offer their services at children’s schools, summer camp programs or libraries.

4. Used books retailing

Selling used books is also a good business for a book lover. You could start with selling off your own book collections which you are tired of reading and helping your friends to sell theirs. With time, you would have been able to establish a profitable full-time business just from selling used books.

5. Book publishing

There are so many topics out there that no one has written about. As the world continues to grow and change, people’s quest for wisdom and knowledge grows and changes with it. People want to learn new things; they want to understand things that are going on around them. Book publishers help to satisfy people’s yearning for knowledge either by publishing books written by other authors or publishing their own books.

6. Start a book club

Every book lover who has attended a book club meeting before knows how interesting meeting and interacting with other book lovers could be. Members are able to discuss about books they have read and also make new friends. A book club is also a very good place for people to network and get new clients for their businesses.

7. Blogging

There are lots of blogs that get millions of hits daily just from publishing stories. You could start a similar blog and post your own stories and also encourage guests to post their own stories too.

8. Writing how-to books

People want to learn how to do a lot of things. You could start writing books that teach such people how to do them. You could write a book on how to bake, how to get books for free, how to get good grades at school etc. Just search for a topic you are passionate about and share some tips and secrets with others through your book.

9. Printing press

You could make money from printing books, flyers, event programs, educational materials and magazines to mention few.

10. Editorial/proofreading services

Proof reading and editing can be very tasking and sometimes stressful for someone who is not passionate about books or reading, but as a book lover, you won’t have a problem reading tons of books and write-ups regularly.

11. Researcher

Being a researcher requires serious reading skills. It is not enough to just scan through information because by so doing, you are likely to miss out on some important information.

12. Translation services

To start this kind of business, you would need to learn more than one language so that you can help people translate documents from one language to another.

13. Information website

Websites like Wikipedia and E-how are good examples of informational websites. These websites provide information to the public on a wide range of subjects.

14. Online Magazine

Online magazines are gradually taking over. Most magazine companies now have their online version too. All you need is a good website and you could start your own online magazine company on any subject you love. For instance, if you love real estate, you could start a real estate magazine to help real estate professionals learn more about their industry.

15. Teaching

Teaching is one of the oldest professions in the world and it doesn’t look like it’s going extinct any time soon. Teaching involves a whole lot of reading and transferring knowledge gained from what you have read to others.

16. Marking and Grading outsourcing company

A lot of schools and examination bodies prefer to outsource marking and grading of examination scripts especially computer-based tests to marking and grading companies to ensure fairness and transparency. Since you love reading, you won’t have a problem reading and grading thousands of scripts.

17. Book dating

There are so many stories about couples who met at book clubs, bookshops or libraries. You could start a dating service that focuses on helping book lovers find each other and start meaningful relationships.

18. Virtual book museum

This involves creating an online gallery where people can have access to old books, scholarly research materials and philosophical writings. For instance, books and writings by great philosophers like Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Confucius, Plato and Aristotle could be showcased for people who are interested in them.

19. Book rentals

One of the challenges that book lovers face is lack of funds to buy as many books as they want. You could start a business of lending books to other people. A book rentals business could be done offline and online. You could even create a mobile application that allows people to have access to books for a specific period. Such an application must have security features to prevent unauthorized copying or duplication.

20. Library

A library not only allows people to borrow books for a token, it also grants book lovers the atmosphere and serenity needed to read and assimilate.