There is something I have been wondering.
Various manufacturers regularly put out new notebooks with specialty covers either as a yearly special or a limited edition product.
My question is, why don’t they start making covers instead/as well?
Hobonichi, Midori, Kokuyo and some others make basic covers but none make decorated paper, plastic, vinyl or fabric covers that can be moved between notebooks.
It would be nice to be able to get a fabric cover printed with something like Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
The cynic in me says that it’s because if they did this, you’d have less reason to buy their limited edition notebooks. If you could just buy a bunch of standard A5 notebooks for example, and one reusable cover, you’d probably stick with a cover design or two that you like and just buy standard notebooks which are likely cheaper, especially if you get them on sale. There’s less profit in that arrangement for the manufacturers since you wouldn’t need to keep buying limited edition (and likely higher priced) notebooks as you fulled them up.
This sounds like a business opportunity.
Digging around on Taobao, I’ve found a few shops that provide these, but not very many. (Example picture below with A5 and A6 covers.) One issue I can see is notebook thickness and cover type. You might have to make a few “A5” covers, say.
One issue I can see is notebook thickness and cover type. You might have to make a few “A5” covers, say.
Make it elastic in the middle for the spine. Then you can offer something like only two sizes
Actually looking at how these people make them, you can see the trick with that narrow band on the lower side. They make the back of the fabric tail long and put the band to wrap around the back cover, then you fold the long tail around the back cover of the notebook and slip it through that little band to hold it in place. The result is a book cover that fits a very broad range of sizes.
I’ve got some of these on order because they look kind of interesting. I’ll test them out with various kinds of notebook cores.
OK, I took delivery of an example today. Here’s my report.
If this kind of thing isn’t readily available in North America there’s definitely a business opportunity here. This is not complicated to make, looks gorgeous, feels gorgeous in the hands, and makes even the crap notebook core I used for the test a work of art.
Look at the last (sixth) picture to see a scrollshot of one of the Taobao shops that specializes in these.
