Thinking about starting a "book business"

ViktorH · Post by **ViktorH** » 01 Dec 2013, 02:14

Hello,

I was wondering if I could get some input on an idea that's been simmering in my head for quite some time.

I am thinking of starting a small business called "book quilts". The idea is to create bed quilts that have class novels printed to cover the entire surface of the quilt. I first came across the idea after a classmate of mine started a company called Postertext - where a novels content is used to form an entire poster. Then I came across Spinlessbooks - more or less the same premise as Postertexts except that the entire novel is used each other - resulting in some rather large posters.

In the meanwhile, I purchased a cheap bed quilt here for the coming winter that happened to be covered in random letters of the alphabet. This got me to thinking - if an entire classic novel can fit on a larger poster, it maybe be possible to have it printed on bed quilts as well. I would just like to get some opinions on the idea. I have the feeling this adds to the bedtime reading atmosphere - literally wrapping yourself up in a favourite book of yours. Please let me know what you think.

I know there may be issues with printing that small (and legibly) on a quilt, but strictly speaking about the idea - what do you think?

I think it would be really cool to have a Hobbit one.

Sincerely,
Viktor

lcbauer · Post by **lcbauer** » 03 Dec 2013, 08:57

I think it sounds like an interesting idea. There is a store in my town that sells t-shorts with classic novel covers printed on them and they are pretty popular. My only concern would be copyright, unless the book is old enough to be open source, you would need to get permission from the author or the author's family to reproduce their work. If you look on the Gutenberg Project website, you can find books that are now open source. Good luck.

ViktorH · Post by **ViktorH** » 09 Dec 2013, 11:06

Thank you for the honest replies.

An Odyssey quilt would definitely be one of the books I would like to use.

I do not believe I can patent this - but like you suggested - I could definitely build a brand around it and trademark the name.

The print size is a problem - but not in the sense of legibility. The manufactures I have spoken too have already informed me - printing on these materials - the fonts can only be so small -much larger than standard size 12 Microsoft Word text. The text has to be large enough to be printable, and withstand possible shrinking after washing. This of course limits the amount of content I can find on the cover as well.

It seems the business would have to cater to individual needs - thus customizable (to a certain degree). Therefore the quilts would be more expensive - but also of a higher quality. I believe quality is the way to go in this situation. People may be willing to pay more for a quilt that is unique to their selection.

The problem with this is finding the right manufacturing and what kind of selection I can offer for customization. Perhaps "Odyssey" could be offered in a selection of materials, templates, pictures/non pictures, text styles, text selection, etc...

Otherwise, trying to sell a single version quilt of a single book to everyone could be very difficult. Customization has it's own problems though.

I did not think to do a "kids version" up to this point either. Perhaps not a bad idea...