My business idea that I have chosen is that of a book cover design service, titled “Creator to Cover”. The idea for this service came to me when I was talking to one of my close friends who is an author, and she was talking about how it’s really hard to create covers for her books because she doesn’t necessarily have the skills for it and there aren’t really many options out there for custom covers that she could create. Her first book cover she asked a friend to create a simple art piece for her and then took this into Microsoft Powerpoint and added some text on top of it to create the cover. This was not the most efficient way to design the cover and it didn’t quite yield what my friend imagined at the start of the process. My idea would allow authors to get personal design advice and help with their book covers all in one place to help ease the process of this important design choice.
On this site I envision there to be a base form to fill out with information on the plot of your book that is relevant to your desired cover, the title of course and the genre of the work. Along with this there would be a place to submit files and images, be it a sketch you made of a general idea, some art work you had commissioned for your work, some reference images of the style you are going for etc. This information would then be taken and reviewed and some simple designs would be made. The author could then chose one of these they like most to be brought to the final design. A proper final design would then be made and the author would receive this new cover for their book. This service would of course be paid and a discount could be given for purchasing design services for multiple books in a series at once. I see “Creator to Cover” becoming a go to place recommended by freelance authors for their design needs when it comes to creating their book covers.
In addition there could also be a possibility of a cheaper however less personalised service on the website. I feel like this would be an additional point of sale to add to the site later on to bring in more varied audiences with differing budgets. This would be much like a design tool, with pre-made text and images (or alternatively an option to import their own images) that could be chosen and your title and information added to it. As this would be less personal and more generic it could cost less than a fully custom cover and could be a good option for authors on a lower budget. This would be a good idea as then there are two points of sale at the business allowing for people who want to spend a little or a lot being catered to.
I also think there is the option of having people design for the site, or even sell base designs on the site all in one place. This would be more like a Redbubble type of site where creators create the content, upload it and the site is the host. There are already individuals providing this service and having it concisely shown on one helpful website could help them garner sales of their work. This could be a future expansion on the idea for once it is established and consequently more designers could be hired to further produce content who are adding impressive work to the site. There are many other areas of expansion this business could encompass, such as possibly opening its own design and print on demand publishing business and other such large scale ideas.
This business idea is something I find really interesting and to be something that I am passionate about. In college I had a final major project which allowed us to chose whatever we wanted, mine became redesigning some of my favourite books as illustrated covers. I really enjoyed this process and it was something I like doing, so if I had to create a business I do think that an idea centring about books and the publishing industry is something that I would realistically like to be involved in. I think this would be an idea that would interest smaller publishing companies and independent authors alike and would change the industry having easy design all in one place.
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