Just two days left in 2021--it’s goal-setting time! YAY for fresh starts, right? The enthusiastic, earnest pursuit of our newest goals! The increasingly vigorous, exhausting, relentless pursuit of success!
Maybe not so much YAY. Maybe more UGH. Maybe you too find this a time when hope and anxiety collide. Maybe you too are aware of the hopes you had last year, and how, despite your hard work, you often fell short.
We get it. In fact, we’ve been feeling that way for awhile. And that's why, a few months ago, we decided to focus on creating and teaching, and stop even trying to sell our Explorer's Guides.
The truth is, it's never felt right. It's not "us" to hide our creativity behind a paywall. We love being creative and teaching, but we’re not natural entrepreneurs or business types. We shrink from the marketing process--trying to "lure" people in, trying to explain what we do in best-keyword terms, trying to use strategies. Strategies! Ick! So not our style!
Still, we both needed the income, so we kept trying to work past the ick factor. We learned lots, and tried lots of new things (too many). We had lots of long sister-talks, about who we really are and what feels right. And we decided to just be us and quit trying so hard.
So, as you may have noticed, we've made changes, for your sake and ours. We're getting all our creative ideas out from behind the paywall, to just share with all of you, all the new homeschoolers, all the extra-stressed-out classroom teachers, as genuine helpers. To do what our hearts, not our brains (or experts) tell us to do.
Our sole goal for 2022 is to make ALL of our Explorer’s Guides, except for the printables, FREE.
Yep, they'll all moving to our new website as free Creative Teaching Ideas, no sign-in, sign-up, or checkout required.* We still have 37 other titles on our old website as pay-for-access Explorer's Guides, but we’ve reduced their price to $12, and are working as fast as we can to transition and improve them. They’ll be better than before--and free! If you join our email list, we'll notify you of new ones each week.
Help yourself--and please share widely!
We’re super excited about our plan! It feels GREAT to share what we've done!! With the sole goal of giving, there’s no way we can go wrong. We're bound to succeed, at least where it matters--in our hearts. And if it doesn’t pay off, well, we’ll go work in a bookshop somewhere. If there aren't any left, maybe we'll open one. It’s all good!
We hope you, too, are setting goals that suit who you are, and yet help you grow and give. Thank you for being part of our growth, and inspiring us with your constant, kind, encouraging words--
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet For auld lang syne
We deeply appreciate all the good YOU do, for kids, for the love of great books, and for us. :)
Now we're off to do what we truly love: making fun, clever, straight-from-the-story stuff for you to share with kids, so they too fall in love with reading wonderful books.
Happy reading--and Happy New Year! Becky & Jenny
__________________________________________ *If you’ve already bought access to the Explorer’s Guide for that book, no worries; we’ll automatically add those printables to your new account--just log in here with the same email you used before.)
