Much prefer a good book to a TV drama? Get though countless novels a month? Are you very much pro prose? If so, then why not turn your passion for reading into a profession? You can do so in many different ways, one way being to start your own online book store. Taking this route will grant you access to thousands of books. It will allow you to promote your favourite pieces of work, and you might even have the chance to meet your favourite authors and publishers from time to time.
Here’s what you need to do to start your own online book store:
Create your store’s brand
Despite reading not being the popular pastime that it once was amongst the masses, there is still competition in the bookselling business. No matter what kind of book store you plan to run, you can be sure that your market will be inundated with competitors. In order to stand out from this competition, your online book store is going to need its very own brand.
To lay the foundations for your brand, you’re going to need to come up with a memorable store name and create a logo for it that stands out.
Several catchy bookstore names that you could take some inspiration from include:
- Pick-a-Book
- Cover 2 Cover
- Author Attic
- A New Chapter
- Turn the Page
When it comes to logo creation, no matter how experienced you may or may not be in this particular regard, it’s always advisable to make use of logo-maker tools. A number of tools that you could potentially use in this instance include:
- Oberlo Logo Maker
- Hatchful
- Logaster
- Canva
- Ucraft
- LogoMakr
Stock up on your books
It’s vital that you stock up on the books that you want to sell to ensure that you meet the supply and demand needs of your industry.
In order to keep your costs down, you should seek to source books for free or for next to nothing. Many websites offer assistance in this instance, such as BookCrossing and PaperBack Swap, and you will always be able to find second-hand books in charity stores, so there’s certainly no need for you to overspend on your budget at this point in your venture.
If you don’t want your online book store to become known as one that only distributes second-hand books, fear not, as there are still ways for you to keep your costs down as a seller of new releases. The best way to do this is to harness relationships with publishing houses and to then offer to sell the books created by their debut novelists. If you are brave enough to take this route, you will garner a reputation for yourself as being a book store that is willing to champion new writers — that’s always a good look!
So long as you’re out there selling books to masses, the written word will never go out of fashion! Keep up the good work, then, and take your online book store to bigger and better heights.