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DonnaYoung.org requires a subscription?


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I printed out a form from there a few weeks ago. I went back to print another copy for lesson planning the next six weeks, and now I need a paid subscription to download anything, even samples. I understand that she has every right to charge for her forms, I'm just annoyed that I don't have any more money budgeted for this extra expense.

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I just noticed that last week.  So happy I had one blank planning sheet left that I could just scan & copy.  I was disappointed in the cost - it seemed pretty high for what you get.  I think she'd have made more money with a lower fee.  

 

I won't be subscribing - I'd make my own sheet before spending that much.  

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Yeah, I noticed last week, I guess, when I went to print a form.  I loved her site, though I only printed a few things each year.   It was a great gift to me for most of my homeschooling years.  I won't subscribe though; the cost is too high for the few forms I used.  I guess it would be impractical to charge on a per-form basis, or really any other way than a subscription.  

 

I do wish her well and hope it is successful for her. 

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I've used this site for years...I'll pay....her work is worth it to me. 

 

Agreed.

 

I think I'll be saving a bit of the household money each week until I get to $40 and pay for a year, even though I'm pretty sure I have a downloaded copy of everything I've ever needed from her site. If she needs to make money from her work now, I want to contribute once.

 

What a blessing she's been to the homeschooling community over the years! For freebies, there are already people taking up the slack. It's harder to find and harder to sift, I know, but Donna has done her part. I wish her well. I'm sure she knows and understands that subscribers will be few.

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I just noticed last week too when I went to print a 2-page/week plan sheet. Luckily I found the form saved on my computer.

I've used a few weekly plan forms and some blank handwriting sheets.

 

So, it looks like the basic stuff that used to be free is now $25 and the advanced subscription is $40.

 

I don't think I will be subscribing but I could change my mind if I think I really need something.

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I used her forms for years, but they really aren't that hard to make.

 

On LibreOffice, there's a menu for "table" at the top, where your "file" and "edit" menus are. If you want to add a row or a column later, you right-click the document to add "underwater basket weaving" or "Saturday" to your planbook page.

 

You can do all of that on Abiword just fine, I'm just using LibreOffice out of habit because I used Donna Young for so long. ;)

 

I'm sure M$ or Apple or whatever proprietary word processor you use can do the same thing too. You might want to check the help files if what I just said doesn't make any sense to you at all.

 

HTH somebody

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Agreed.

 

I think I'll be saving a bit of the household money each week until I get to $40 and pay for a year, even though I'm pretty sure I have a downloaded copy of everything I've ever needed from her site. If she needs to make money from her work now, I want to contribute once.

 

What a blessing she's been to the homeschooling community over the years! For freebies, there are already people taking up the slack. It's harder to find and harder to sift, I know, but Donna has done her part. I wish her well. I'm sure she knows and understands that subscribers will be few.

 

You know, this post has me thinking..  I don't use many forms, and am on my last 2, or maybe 1, year of homeschooling (my junior may go all DE next year).  But, over the years I have used forms here and there.  Not a ton - not enough in a year to justify $20 a year, kwim?  But still, a few each year.   So, maybe I should subscribe this year as a pay-back sort of thing.  

 

ETA:  I can and do make some of my own forms.  But it was kinda nice to just be able to go there and get forms.

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You know, this post has me thinking.. I don't use many forms, and am on my last 2, or maybe 1, year of homeschooling (my junior may go all DE next year). But, over the years I have used forms here and there. Not a ton - not enough in a year to justify $20 a year, kwim? But still, a few each year. So, maybe I should subscribe this year as a pay-back sort of thing.

 

ETA: I can and do make some of my own forms. But it was kinda nice to just be able to go there and get forms.

That's kind of how I'm looking at it, especially since I never could have or would have paid a subscription during the years I used her work. There was a reason I looked for free stuff. :) I'm still thinking on it - $40 is still a lot - but I probably will.

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I used one form for the first time a few weeks ago, went to reprint, discovered the subscription, and went to excel and made my own. The only real difference between hers and mine is the font...and I customized mine with my own pre-printed titles, eliminating some writing for me. I won't bother going back to subscribe, because I can easily make most of what I'd need...which isn't much. 10 years homeschooling, never used it before. $25-40 a year is a lot for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For the one form I use on a regular basis (and only print once a year), I made my own in Numbers and fixed the formatting stuff I didn't like plus added a some count,if formulas to get it to automatically do what I did by hand, plus I can now work on it on my Mac or my iPad.

 

I think she deserves to make money off what she's made, but at $40/yr for a few forms here and there? Nah. imo, she'd be better off selling individual forms as a download kind of like they do at Teachers Pay Teachers with a similar price point. That way I could buy the handful of things I use without having to pay for a yearly subscription.

 

Maybe the subscription/format made sense before? Just not sure it's a good long term plan. Time will tell.

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I print one calendar a year from Donna Young. Certainly not worth the annual subscription fee.

That said, if she'd went towards a TeachersPayTeachers-type model (paying a small fee for a single file downloaded), I'd have no problem with that. She should benefit from her hard work, for sure -- I just think the route they went is a bit unaffordable for most.

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I wish donate buttons were more common.

 

That site was a great help to me when we were still homeschooling. I could have never afforded a yearly subscription. I could have donated a few dollars from time to time.

 

I'm surprised that ad revenue was not a better way to go.

 

I agree!  Even just spending 1-2 weeks a year ASKING for donations of any size to keep the site running would probably have been quite profitable for her, IMO.

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I have used dy over the years and recommended the site to many others. But $40 is too steep for me, with less need for it, and perhaps too steep for some younger families just getting started. Too bad she didn't start with a $5 or $10 level. Forty bucks is the full monthly cost for one of our twice a week activities - that's where I need those funds to go, not for more organizational paperwork.

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I have used several of the schedules for Apologia Science Co-op classes. Since many of those were donated by other people, it looks like they are still available for free.

 

Yes, I was super excited to find her biology schedule many years ago. I modified it to fit our school year and add in a few projects but boy was I glad not to have to start from scratch. 

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I wish donate buttons were more common.

 

That site was a great help to me when we were still homeschooling. I could have never afforded a yearly subscription. I could have donated a few dollars from time to time.

 

I'm surprised that ad revenue was not a better way to go.

 

I think so many people have ad blocker now that ad revenue probably isn't as profitable as it used to be. 

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Proof positive that if you are nice and give your work away for years, then begin to charge, people will think poorly of you (ETA: I meant to say "your price," not "you" - sorry for the confusion), yet if you start out charging and suddenly offer a single freebie you are seen as generous. Marketing is a weird weird world.

I've used and loved her stuff for years. I don't have a need for it right now, but the next time I do, I won't hesitate to subscribe.

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Proof positive that if you are nice and give your work away for years, then begin to charge, people will think poorly of you, yet if you start out charging and suddenly offer a single freebie you are seen as generous. Marketing is a weird weird world.

 

I've used and loved her stuff for years. I don't have a need for it right now, but the next time I do, I won't hesitate to subscribe.

Who thinks poorly of her? Pretty much everyone here has acknowledged her right to make money off of her work. The issue is not her charging.

 

People can set their price point however they see fit. They can structure their business in a way that makes sense to them. This is also not debated here.

 

Likewise, that I have appreciated some of her forms in the past does not obligate me to purchase from her regardless of price or business structure.

 

How does my unwillingness to subscribe at $40/yr mean I think poorly of her? I would have gladly paid for the forms in the past were they sold individually. The fact that they weren't sold individually in the past was why I did not buy the CD-Roms she offered for sale. I didn't want everything - just a few forms here and there.

 

Like I said, I don't think her business model makes sense in today's internet, but I do wish her the best in her future ventures. Should she ever choose to sell files individually in the future so that I could get what works best for me, I'd be glad to pay for those downloads. I like TPT and CurrClick for just this reason.

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I think so many people have ad blocker now that ad revenue probably isn't as profitable as it used to be.

I in no way begrudge her charging a fee, but I will say that last spring when I wanted to print some lined paper her website was smart enough to make me turn off ad blocker first. Some kind of internet magic.

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I in no way begrudge her charging a fee, but I will say that last spring when I wanted to print some lined paper her website was smart enough to make me turn off ad blocker first. Some kind of internet magic.

 

I've had to do that on the occasional website. And when I'm done the ad blocker goes right back on. ;)

 

I wouldn't mind the ads so much (on websites in general, I mean) if there weren't always so many and they didn't take so long to load. Before I had ad blocker, it got to the point where I could hardly use the internet because the ads slowed things down too much. The page jumps around as different ads load, then you can hardly scroll down to read stuff because you've got a video ad playing at the top and animated ads all over the place. I just don't have time to wait five minutes for every website to fully load.

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It is a strange business decision. Ten years ago a subscription fee would have made sense (but not $40). Now the Internet is full of free forms or you can buy one of Etsy for a couple dollars.

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I don't think poorly of her for charging. I just don't think the price is worth it for what I occasionally use it for. I'm not going to pay $40 for the record management and calendars I print from the site - I can buy PDF versions, that have *more* to them, for less elsewhere. Honestly, I could buy a hardcopy of similar forms for far less elsewhere.

If I were using her site frequently and taking advantage of all she has to offer, the price would definitely make sense - but I don't honestly know anyone who uses that much from her (I'm sure they're out there - but most I know just use her recording forms and calendar sheets).

It would have made more sense for her to charge by the download and to bundle some forms together, or to charge different rates for different services (or levels of subscription). 

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It is a strange business decision. Ten years ago a subscription fee would have made sense (but not $40). Now the Internet is full of free forms or you can buy one of Etsy for a couple dollars.

This. I'm trying to justify $40 for an Erin Condren life planner (with coupon). The EC is printed in (lots of) color, bound, includes all kinds of other little goodies, and I still went with a cheaper planner.

 

$40 for stuff I still have to supply the paper and ink for is not happening. I would pay $1 or $2 for one form if I found it useful and wanted to download, but I never saw what everyone else seemed to see that was so great about her stuff, anyway. $40 is a couple extra curricula and/or resource books for my homeschool.

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I think she should have been charging all along...her stuff is great and though I use it Infrequently every time I do use it, I'm super glad she had exactly the thing I needed.

 

HOWEVER, very very few people will pay 40.00 for it. When you have to pay for the ink and paper, it's just not motivating. I think if she had kept it to 10.00 and asp placed a banner explaining the necessity ...people would gladly cough it up. But 40.00 is too expensive for occasional users.

 

That said, I hope that her frequent users pay up and it becomes a better situation for her.

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