So many people love to read but don't have the time to drive to the bookstore and purchase a new book once they finish one. This is usually how they spend time relaxing and hate having to look or get a new book to read on a regular basis. Why not offer to do this for them. There are sure to be many that will be willing to pay you to do it for them.
You can have customers contact you on a regular basis and order the next couple of books they would like to read. You won't even need to require them to be home when you deliver their books. Find a discreet place to leave them and pick up the books that they have already read.
Offer this service to people who can't get to a bookstore all of the time when they need to acquire a new book. Alternatively, offer it to those people that hate scheduling the time to go to a bookstore or library. These are the people that you want to target for offering your services, just drop off their ordered books, and pick up the ones that they have finished reading. Make sure that they are always supplied with new books to read when they need, or request, them.
You could offer this service for a monthly membership of around $30 per month, per member. This may seem a little pricey, but you would be surprised at how much they are spending on books monthly that they buy. You might want to remind them of this fact when they are thinking of signing up for membership with you. In order to write a good advertisement offering your services, you may want to remind them of how much books cost these days and how easy it is to spend far more than $30.00 a month on books, they have no need for after they read them.
This type of business will require a person that keeps very good records and is good at keeping all of the required books filed in order, so that books can be pulled from shelves easily and quickly as needed. This in turn would require an area to keep all of these many books, which you offer for the business too.
You will need lots of books and a way to track which customers have what books. Get books from your local library's sales, yard sales, estate sales, local thrift stores, bulk wholesale purchases, and more. You will have to invest in new books that are popular also. If you are running a business you should be able to buy them at a discount, this is something you should look into. Checking on the Internet and auction sites can be great ways of finding these books too.
Once you have a good quantity of books you will need to be able to document them all, noting the shape they are in and how many of each title you may have. If possible, you should take a picture of each and assign it a number for your own reference purposes. This way you should be able to always know; the condition of each book and where it is at all times. Most people don't mind reading used books as long as they aren't falling apart or really dirty. You will need to quickly look each book over before you shelf it, to make sure that it does not need to be replaced with a better one.
With each membership, you could offer a monthly book list to choose from and a few new bookmarks that have some advertising on them. This would encourage your members to use the bookmarks and not bend the pages. Have your website address or phone number on these bookmarks, so that they can easily contact you for a pick-up or delivery. You may want to encourage them to contact you before they begin reading the last book that they may have received, to give you time to make a new delivery soon.
This way they will always have new books to read and not find themselves waiting for you to deliver new ones.
When a member signs up for the first time, you might offer them a complete book list, with a brief synopsis of the plot of each title. It is helpful too, to categorize your books by their types also. Find out from each member what books they typically prefer, this will help you to be sure to keep a good stock of certain books on hand. For example, some people love to read detective stories, science fiction, or romantic novels. There is such a variety of likes and dislikes for most people. Many readers love certain writers also, make sure you find out their preferences for these also.
Resources:
http://www.ecampus.com/help/bulk_info.asp
http://www.betterworld.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=general_keywords&utm_campaign=usa_search
http://www.centurianhealth.com/Purchase-Order-Accounts-s/48.htm
http://www.bkconnection.com/static/regterms.asp
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/offers/offers.asp?PID=20393&
August 2, 2008
