Would you buy / be interested in...

[abba12]

My kiddos love worksheets, love them to bits. And i've taken to making some on my own, things like cutting and pasting, tracing (non-letter sheets, tracing shapes and stuff) and puzzles. I began to wonder if there's any market for making these sheets a little more professional and selling them as ebooks. Bright and colourful but not 'busy' like common store books, focusing on a specific motor skill or early learning activity. Continuing to use cutting as my example they would be rather like the schoolsparks sheets. (http://www.schoolsparks.com/kindergarten-worksheets/category/cutting-worksheets) or like these sparklebox sheets (http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/topic/creative-arts/art-and-design/craft-activities.html)

 

It's all stuff people could make on their own if they wanted, but, most people don't have the time or patience, so I'm selling my time/work rather than skill, to people who want a quick open and go solution.

 

I know there are great books out there, like the Kumon books which are amazing. But my kids will beg to do 4 or 5 cutting pages in a session, and to do a session daily! When there's only 40 activities per book, that doesn't last long, and while each book is cheap the cost adds up quickly if you're buying a dozen of them!

 

I know there are big books of worksheets around, but, none of them have worked for my family so I wonder if they mightn't work for others either. The 'big book' ones from the store are very busy and unfocused and my kids end up scribbling on them because they're overwhelmed by the page or because they're skipping from one activity to another each page. Schoolsparks, which I linked above, has amazing worksheets, colourful while un-busy, lots of white space, but they're only selling their book in hard copy which rules out overseas customers, and at their price point ($32) you'd want to scan them in, which, sure, they've done it with perforated edges, but it still involves tearing it all out and scanning it and then what was the point of buying their book (the worksheets are free online but you have to click past their advert every time for each individual sheet). Plus, I wouldn't use their math or reading sheets, and they only sell it as a complete set, making it even worse value.

 

And I know there are worksheets and worksheet ebooks out there on teacher websites and kids websites and even etsy, but printing out dozens of single sheets is time consuming and tedious, and the books tend to be a small 20-30 sheet compilation of random sheets which might have the same skill but show very little connection and no progression and usually look cheap and thrown together. Or, like sparklebox linked above, great activities but each pdf is 1-6 activities, so time consuming and tedious and, to me, frustrating. Plus they're all at the same level, no gradual movement in difficulty.

 

So am i the only one looking for something more or would there be a market for this sort of thing? I'm thinking sizable ebooks, maybe 80-100 worksheets for basic activities, or 40-50 worksheets for more involved ones. A simple clear objective focusing on one or two skills, nice clean pages, but with lots of colour in the activity itself like the above linked sheets, and gradual progression, kumon style, rather than all sheets at the same level. Also, marketed specifically to homeschoolers, not through teacher worksheet websites (though putting them there in addition is not out of the question)

 

This wouldn't suit everyone's teaching style obviously, I know a lot of you don't do these sorts of worksheets, but if you've used things like Kumon or know others who do, let me know what you think, would you buy this, or know people who would buy this? Is there enough other reputable stuff around that you wouldn't bother and don't need it? How much would you pay for, say, 100 sheets of cutting activities ranging between the two levels I linked to above? I'm thinking around the $5 mark, and then adjusting the size of the book to suit, so maybe 100 cutting activities, but only 50 drawing activities or something. Is that too much? Too little? Could I get away with $10 for 100 sheets and still be appealing as an ebook?

 

Edited January 28, 2017 by abba12

[Rosie_0801]

I'd say no. I bought Kumon workbooks and such so I wouldn't have to go to the effort of printing them out. If I was going to take the trouble to print it out, I'd use free stuff or DIY.

[Andromeda]

I'm sorry, I would say no as well.

 

I bought Kumon books, cheap busywork books, and Scholastic eBooks on the $1 special sales, and in my personal experience the thick, colorful, busywork books end up being the most cost effective.

 

Kumon books have nice, thick paper, which makes a big difference when children are starting out and don't have good fine motor skills. After that, the $3-$5 busywork stuff is perfectly fine. Yes, it has many activities that we skip, and it is not organized in a way I would like, but it is the most cost-effective method. It took my kids about 30 seconds to do a maze or a couple of minutes to cut through a page regardless of how intricate the design. They were not staying in the lines or anything, they just made their own tracks. They can stay engaged far longer with a thick book with color printing than a few sheets of printer paper. They leaf through the content until they find what they like, scribble, cut, and move on. At this level it is fine because they are still getting the fine motor practice even if it is not the kind I would prefer.

 

I printed some eBooks that I liked - easy mazes, cutting, tracing, etc., but they were finished within a few minutes. The cost of printer ink and paper plus the cost of the eBook is just too much. Those who are looking for specific activities/themes/skills will probably print out a selection of free pages available on Pinterest, etc. 

 

 

[regentrude]

No. Would not have been worth it for me.

 

while each book is cheap the cost adds up quickly if you're buying a dozen of them!

 

Printing adds up quickly, too. Especially when you say "lots of color". Cost per page for color is around $0.10 on a color laser printer, more for ink jet.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2017 by regentrude

[silver]

I actually don't like colorful printables. I have a black and white printer, and color pages look awful. I prefer line drawings for pages that I'm going to be printing, as it uses less ink and looks nicer. It was a bonus for my middle child, because she liked to use the images as coloring pages when she was done.

[Lori D.]

...It's all stuff people could make on their own if they wanted, but, most people don't have the time or patience, so I'm selling my time/work rather than skill, to people who want a quick open and go solution...

 

...This wouldn't suit everyone's teaching style obviously, I know a lot of you don't do these sorts of worksheets, but if you've used things like Kumon or know others who do, let me know what you think, would you buy this, or know people who would buy this? Is there enough other reputable stuff around that you wouldn't bother and don't need it?...

 

I think it will depend a LOT on:

- whether or not the family has limited access to resources

- what kind of printer they have and how expensive printing is for them

- and if access to free printables is enough to meet the needs for that type of material

 

From my own experience, we had a access to a lot of local, very low-cost workbooks (remainders, close-outs, used book stores and $1 store workbooks). And we have a workhorse of a printer for printing free activity pages (HP B&W laser printer, 25 years old and still chugging along nicely after having printed at LEAST 500 pages a year). Which also means I can't print color, so having to print in color from an e-book would be an added expense (and effort) for me to take the e-book file to a local copy/print shop.

 

 

...How much would you pay for, say, 100 sheets of cutting activities ranging between the two levels... I'm thinking around the $5 mark, and then adjusting the size of the book to suit, so maybe 100 cutting activities, but only 50 drawing activities or something. Is that too much? Too little? Could I get away with $10 for 100 sheets and still be appealing as an ebook?

 

Preface: I am cheap:

So I personally wouldn't pay more than $3-4 for 80-to 100-page *already printed* workbook, unless the material was very original / creative / unique in subject material and type of activity. Then I might pay up to about $8-10 for an *already printed* 80- to 100-page workbook.

 

I would likely NOT purchase an e-book that I had to print to use. Period. But, if I didn't have a lot of local resources (or ability to buy from online book sellers), I might consider purchasing an e-book, but because of the cost in ink/paper and my time, I doubt I would be willing to spend more than about $2 on an 80- to 100-page workbook that is similar to the free printables out there, and maybe $4 if the material was very original / creative / unique, and absolutely *knew* it would meet our special needs in a way that nothing out there would.

 

I'm sorry. :( It's not you, it's me -- as I said, I'm cheap. Also, over the years of our homeschooling, I had to go through SOOO MANY different resources over the years for every single subject to find what worked for one DS with mild LDs that I just had to keep expenses down wherever possible. 

 

 

As a side note:

Totally understand your situation. I have a lot of material I've developed over the past 5 years for the Lit. & Comp. co-op classes I teach, and am "on the bubble" of whether or not to take the large amount of time it would take to fully develop it into marketable curricula. From what I'm seeing of business costs, and what materials are priced at, I realize that this would NEVER be a money-making proposition, as the amount of profit per book would be so very little. I realize I would be doing it to be a blessing/help to other homeschoolers who might find it a good fit for their specific needs. I am getting closer to a decision, and am thinking I am okay with that. It's more a matter of time to put the material into shape, and effort of researching the publishing/self-publishing aspect.

 

Good luck as you work out what decision best fits YOU! And wishing your family all the BEST in your homeschooling journey! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Lori D.

[Emba]

well, I'm with a previous poster: I have only a black and white printer, so the phrase "lots of color" turns me off.  I have bought ebooks that required printing to use, for certain topics.  I don't know if cutting activities would make the cut for me, as far as something I would pay money for, because I am cheap.  80 to 100 pages would make it much more likely that I'd buy, though, because it seems like a good value.  On the other hand, if they were all on the same topic, it would have to be a topic I REALLY wanted more worksheets in.  Variety might win over sheer quantity. 

 

It's like this: there was (is?) a lady who sells applique quilt pattern books.  And they are cute, so cute.  But each book only has one kind of animal.  So 25 patterns of bunnies in a book.  A book of horses, a book of dogs, etc.  And I bought the bunny one, but I only need so many bunny quilts.  And I liked all the others, but not enough to have 25 of each one and pay full book price for each type of animal.  If she'd had a book of a few of each type of animal, all in one volume,  though, I'd have bought it in a heartbeat.

[deerforest]

I'd have to think that there are things like this already at Teachers Pay Teachers. Yep, I just went and searched and there are! So, you could look there and see if your stuff is unique enough to offer.

 

My kid has hated worksheets since she first encountered them so I'm not one to vote!

[abba12]

Ok, so, obviously i have been totally spoiled with my Continuous Ink Supply System printer, ink costs are negligible for me and most other families I know use them too. I guess I'd thought the worry about ink costs was fairly obsolete among homeschooling families these days with options like CISS and hadn't heard anyone limited by ink cost in a very long time. I can see that's not the case and my little bubble of friends must actually be unusual with our modified setups. It's funny when you don't know you're outside the normal until you make a big assumption like that and then get a reality check! I just printed for the new school year about 2000 pages of workbooks I've scanned in previously, most of which were full colour, and due to my printer ink cost wasn't even a factor (of course it cost something, but, maybe $20?) I didn't realise how far outside the norm that was even now and among heavy print users.

 

Well, back to the drawing board I suppose!

[Free Indeed]

I had never heard of a CISS, so I looked it up on Amazon. I definitely do not have a $300-$500 printer, nor do I know anyone who does. Looks great though if I ever could spend that kind of money.

[OneStepAtATime]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:

 

[abba12]

I had never heard of a CISS, so I looked it up on Amazon. I definitely do not have a $300-$500 printer, nor do I know anyone who does. Looks great though if I ever could spend that kind of money

 

lol, neither do I. Third party units can be fitted to plenty of cheap printers with traditional ink systems. We got a cheap printer on sale that we knew was compatible with the third party setups and just fitted that afterwards, works great. 

[sewingmama]

I pay close to $100 every time I buy new toner...and thats every cuople of months. I use quite a few PDF curriculums as its cheaper for me then postage to Australia. My kids always hated worksheets and the times I used them there are so many free ones available fot that type of thing I wouldnt pay. The only ones I bought were the $1 Scholastic ones and we barely ever used them.

 

Not a helpful post really...I'm just jealous your kids like worksheets 😒 My kids always acted as though they were death on a sheet of paper.

[J-rap]

I would have been interested in worksheets.  (My youngest has graduated now.)  I often made my own, too.  My kids loved them.  But I'd want to be able to order a packet and have them mailed to me, rather than printing them myself.  Color wouldn't be necessary.

[drjuliadc]

I am interested in your CISS too.  I bought an add on system and it was a big pain in the behind.  It was mostly because I would go as long as a month without printing color and things would dry up in between uses.  It was for our office and it was a bit fiddly.  I was able to add ink, but no one else was.  It would really have been nice to have staff able to do it instead of just me.

[abba12]

I'm having trouble getting google to present me with American results, maybe it's less popular there? This is the Australian store I use, for reference, and it has some information there.

http://www.rihac.com.au/index.php

 

Here's an American site, they seem to sell printers with the CISS system pre-installed, which doesn't seem particularly cost effective, but if you go to the sidebar and just click CISS you'll find the individual units you can install yourself. 

http://www.inksystem.com/ciss/

 

Here are two informative 'what is CISS' pages, however their shop pages are for Europe and the Philippines respectively, so you can't buy from them. It's odd to have so much trouble finding American websites, do the printer companies perhaps have some sort of legal ban on DIY CISS systems there or something??? That sounds like something American companies would do lol.

http://cissmarket.com/blog/eu/2011/05/what-is-ciss/

http://www.ink.com.ph/how-printer-ciss-works

 

I don't know if there's better websites in the US for buying them, you'll have to look from a US computer. Do note though, that you can't just buy the $10 'works with every printer' system off amazon, it wont work. There are different systems for different series of printers, for good reason. In my experience in my country, a CISS system plus ink will cost the same as 2-3 cartridges up front, but, it will do the printing of 20 or 30, so it's an investment but definitely paid off for us. 

 

Also, drjuliadc, yes you need to print regularly enough that things don't try out. I print for my business and my homeschooling records (including colour photos) weekly, so that's not a concern for us, but it will dry out if you go too long between print jobs. The systems can be cleaned but if you're not a particularly techy person it's a pain. DH is an engineer, so that's helped lol.

 

We pay a LOT more for our tech here, our dollars are similar but we generally pay twice the price for technology items 'because of freight' and other nonsense (we're closer to the production countries than America is!). But, I bought my printer for about $150 australian dollars, and the ink system WITH it's first batch of ink was $130 Australian dollars. http://www.rihac.com.au/product_info.php/j925dw-100ml-inklink-ciss-p-1077

I'd expect both of those costs to be half in US dollars, making it $75 and $65. I think even in your terms that would more than pay for itself quite quickly.

 

We bought new ink about 18 months ago, which was $55 for me, for a full refill with two blacks I think. I've printed about 6000 pages since then, two thirds colour (and a good chunk of those in heavy block colour) and we're only just thinking of ordering ink again now. So, we're happy with it. Most other homeschooling or photo-crazy families i know have these systems, which is why i was caught by surprise that people here didn't know what they were, they're very popular among a certain subset of the population here. 

 

[Tumbatoo]

I also don't have that kind of printer. It's cheaper for me to buy the Kumon workbook. For print, I definitely look for black and white, but I prefer just to buy a printed book.