Business At A Glance
Startup Costs: $50,000 – $100,000
Home Based: Can be operated from home.
Part Time: Can be operated part-time.
Online Operation? Yes
Business Overview
The market for personalized story time books for children is enormous.Every child in the world loves to hear stories, and the best aspect ofthis new venture is the fact that this business enables you to createbooks to include children into the story.
This is a business that onceyou have established a relationship with a client you will want to keepthat relationship strong as the product has the ability to almost beclassified as a consumable. This means that once you form therelationship with the client, it’s a given that the relationship willcontinue to generate revenue for the business, providing the quality ofservice and product remains excellent. The average child can easilyhave five or six favorite books, and these books change on ayear-by-year basis.
This can add up to 20 to 30 different story timebooks that can be sold to the same client, and that number can multiplyby the number of children the client has. There are softwareapplications available including the reprint rights for creating thistype of book, or of course you can use the customer’s and yourimagination to create original stories. A marketing technique that canhelp get you started is to pick relatives and friends with children andcustomize books using their children’s names.
Once you have the booksproduced, simply show the story time books to your friends andrelatives. It will be nearly impossible for them to say no once theysee the finished product and how much work you put into creating thebook. profit potential: Once you have established a solid client base,this business venture has the ability to return excellent profits on apart- or full-time effort. As with any business, be sure to use abottom-up approach to product pricing. Factor in all costs, includingmaterials, labor and overhead, and multiply by the desired markup. Theend result of this formula will give you your retail selling price.
Needed Equipment
You will need a good computer system and printer if you plan to producethe books yourself. It can be very costly to have a print shop run asingle copy of one item.
Additional requirements will include softwarethat legally allows you to reprint the books or good writing skills tocreate your own stories. The latter is more fun, and you can base thestories on your local community and community events.
