Slave Labor and the Birth of an Idea

Halleluia! I'm a bonefide published author ~ now it's time to peddle my wares to bigger fish in the ocean! :)

My four articles on Suite101.com have garnered 234 page views ~ only 766 to go (the goal is 1000 page views)!!

In my constant quest for work, I stumbled across a web-based homeschool newsletter and I got to thinking... since it seems like a no-brainer to marry my writing and editing with my homeschool curriculum activities, why can't I create and publish a student newspaper or magazine that is mailed to homeschooled kids nationwide? I can do a better job than the one I saw the other night, and kids still love to get physical mail in the mailbox, so why not try it?

So, I thunk and thunk about the market and the potential of such a project, and Mark mentioned a former colleague who used to work with him who is a former teacher with a background in marketing. I contacted her with the idea, and she sounded interested, so we agreed to meet for coffee today. After meeting with her, I'm more excited than I was before. We have a lot of work to do ~ information to gather ~ but I am convinced that our focus groups will show us that there is indeed a market and that it doesn't necessarily have to be just homeschooled kids. If we find a vision that is unique, and use the medium to inspire kids to think outside of the box in everything they do, we can appeal to a wider audience than just homeschooled kids! Can you tell I'm pumped up about this?

The next step is to brainstorm our vision and work on a logo and a unified graphic design element for the website and printed piece, while we also develop a survey and focus group mechanism for determining the strength of the market we're trying to target. Stay tuned for updates as we move forward with this project!! :)