If you can read aloud well, have an enjoyable, expressive reading voice, and the patience to record the reading of books one at a time, this may be the business idea for you! Let's face it, there are many people that love being read to. What a large market of listeners you could be serving, with a product enjoyed, and they will want to return for more.

With the numerous older ones joining the ranks of the retired these days, there could be quite an interest growing in this field of product ideas for the future. With age comes the loss of good eyesight, which makes it harder to spend hours reading without suffering afterwards with tired eyes. Listening to a book could be much more enjoyable, plus it is also something that you can do while accomplishing something else at the same time.

Many regular commuters have found a very popular way to relax while stuck in traffic, on public transportation, and on long road trips, by listening to recorded novels. These recordings can be enjoyable on vacations too, without the eyestrain; especially for older ones. This popularity provides a possibility of becoming a lucrative 'business idea' worth looking into. The most popular recorded books purchased now, are the recent big sellers; but there are many classics that haven't been recorded and are just as enjoyable.

If you use a book that is in the public domain (free of copyrights), you can sell these books on CDs for about $20 a piece. This is a good size profit from a CD costing you less than a dollar. Your products also will not take a lot to store, since you can record the books on your computer and just burn the recordings when a book on CD is ordered. This is where you introduce the older classic books recorded to listen to too.

Your initial investments will be in a digital recorder, disc burner, and a program to place the file, or recording, on your computer that will enable you to burn the recordings to the CDs. Then, create a website and a catalog so people can order your audio CDs. This type of in-home business will not take a lot of space, huge investment, or many employees to run. Unless you decide to grow into a big business, it will be up to you to decide on whether you want to invest more in it. However, with good sales you should be able to rely on profits from the business to grow.

The continued cost of running your business will just be the cost of a good size package of CDs and the maintenance of a well-designed and easy to use website, which will be well worth the expense. Buying CDs in bulk is the wisest way to buy them, if you know you will be using them all, the cost will usually run as low as 30 cents apiece.
You could also work with authors, if you choose too, but you will want to pay them a royalty. This is something you may want to pursue if your business is doing well and you feel it will be a good business idea for your company. Some people love hearing a book recording by the author of a book.

You might also offer a clip on your site that people can briefly listen to; so that they can hear a small amount from the CD you are offering them. This way they can decide if they like hearing your voice reading a the book they would like to have read to them. If you are able, you might offer someone else money to record their voice reading similar books too, this way they could choose the voice they prefer. If you have little money at first, offer to pay them part of the profit when their voices are chosen and you sell the recording to someone.

Resources:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://google.about.com/b/2006/08/31/download-and-print-copyright-free-books.htm

http://newfreebooks.com/