Here's more of the nuts-n-bolts of the project, I just hope my info helps anyone else out there wanting to get something done and realizing that the only way "its" gonna happen is to do it yourself. First of all, some background: I have worked as a commercial artist, illustrator, cartoonist for around 25 years. Though I make very little money as a book illustrator (projects pay less than the fee for writing), my graphic designs and commercial art publications have won numerous awards both national and statewide. Still, being a graphic artist isn't a goldmine. I currently work for a small scale publisher that produces those free press tabloid style papers you see in every medium to large sized city. I design ads all day long, Monday thru Fri. I also work for a high-end plant nursery on weekends. This is where I got the idea that a local publication focused on gardening would be the perfect home based business for me. I am very active here on Garden Web and organize local gardening events, tours and plant swaps. Even though I've only lived here for four years I love this area and its weather and the gardening potential. They refer to the size of any projects potential customer base as your 'universe'. My universe is huge. This area has over a million people and when you consider that 85% of the population considers themselves gardeners - that's a lot of potential newsletter readers. Within one hour you have 4 major botanic gardens, each with a completely different direction, and about 60 garden themed or "outdoor living" businesses. There is also a dynamic market scene involving plants at both the State run Farmer's Market and a city run Flea Market (combined = 34 year round vendors). The city paper has a decent gardening section every other saturday; their ad rates are outrageously high; they have around 12 year round ad contracts (all small sized ads) and during the spring can swell to almost 2 pages of ads each Saturday. The articles are about half from locals and half from syndicates. I started this whole thing thinking that if 5000 papers (32 pages, 4 pages of full color) cost me only 28 cents each, I could sell them for $1.50 - split it 50% with the vendors (which is a better deal for them than standard magazines), which would equal my postage costs for subscibers. In other words I would at least double my money no matter which way I sold the paper. I learned that you can sell 100 papers through one location in May and only sell 12 in June (spring is OVER!). I learned that the minimum order for webpress printing is 1000 pieces and only one printer would even do that (thank god he was down the street instead of across town). When you're starting out and working 7 days a week, it can be kinda hard to unload 1000 papers all by yourself. I learned that selling ads takes months upon months of rubbin elbows with the businesses - they just don't buy ads on the first visit. They also demand results, if your ad does't improve sales right away they will not be buying a repeat ad. They are exhausted by salespeople calling them every 10 minutes - no matter what you are offering, you are just one more voice taking up their time. If you can't get close to them first thing in the morning you won't be able to impress them (I'm at work at my real job first thing in the morning). Seeing as the average sales per store was more like 12 copies each month (outside of the few springtime months), I would need 200 locations to turn a profit and unload most of my product (assuming subscriptions would increase each month). I don't have this many locations. more bad news... Buying the minimum of 1000 pieces the price goes up to 98 cents per issue. Postage per item is $1.06 instead of the planned for 55 cents because I don't have the required 200 addresses to qualify for bulk rates. So, I'm losing money, lots of money each month. I also don't get many subscribers, the few that I get come from people I meet with face to face at gardening events. They tell me they love the newsletter but I feel that their purchase is more like charity - but at this point I need the money to bad to care. I think the garden centers will change their minds if I stay at it long enough. I think I need to quit my weekend job in order to market this project better. I also think that gardeners do a lot of planning and reading during the late winter and early spring - so my January/Feb/Mar issues will be colorful and feature last years successes and failures in the garden instead of just wintertime activities. The annoying parts - people don't hesitate to tell me about a typo. I get phone calls every month complaining about poor gramar or punctuation - even though the masthead states that I am wearing all the hats on this project for now. And I get plenty of people that want it for free.

Congrats to your niece! I read a bit from her stitchtunes blog. She's a good writer. I wish her good luck with future endeavors. Also, my best to her DH. My DH has also always wanted to write & now that he's retired has taken several fiction writing classes over the past 18 months, or so. DH just recently completed his third short story but hasn't yet considered trying to get published. I've marked this thread for him to take a look at since your neice also writes short stories. Nice to see you around, Rita. Hope all is well. /tricia

Since Publisher is *intended* for uses heavier on block graphics and line art that photographs, favoring GIF formats is a good thing. JPEGs are only a good choice for color photographs. I had a client give me a publisher file as a source document when desigining his web page. Of what I recall, it actually made decently clean code, but didn't link itself together well - you couldn't go from side on to side two of the fold out brochure, and it got the column order confused. However, I was able to copy and paste the code into new documents without the usual problem of all the M$ XML garbage that Word likes to include. After getting that pasted into the right places, linking the files was simple. The truth is, a web page has a differnet structure than most of what Publisher is geared for, so it wouldn't have been able to figure out the right arrangement anyway. Export the HTML, then use Composer or another non-MS Freebie editor to look at every HTML document it churns out, and copy and paste the text into new files you create in a differnet directory tree, and link those together as you need to (and move copies of teh graphics files to the new directory to link in from the new pages. I didn't notice an easy way to "save" the generated HTML files, they were too scrambled.

Your kitchen is beyond amazing!! You did an incredible job!! I LOVE that you're turning your passion into a business. I did the same thing, starting an online business to teach Photoshop Elements and photography. If you ever would like some tips/suggestions for getting more visible online with social media, or even how to improve your website (no offense meant, I promise), feel free to contact me. This is a free offer, not a solicitation for business. My business is Everyday Elements http://everydayelementsonline.com and I'm leaving my FB page in the optional link. Here is a link that might be useful: Everyday Elements