It’s been just over ten months since I published ScintillantSquares: A Geometric Coloring Book for Adults. (Also, just over ten months
since my last blog post here.)
Part of my goal in creating and publishing it was to prove to
myself that I could bring a project from initial idea through development to
the production of a high-quality product I could be proud of. I was and still
am proud of the book, so that part was a success!
Another part of my goal was to create the kind of coloring
book I would want to buy. In essence, I wanted to practice creating a product
for a target audience, and I thought I was stacking the deck by picking a
one-person target audience that I am intimately familiar with – myself.
That part didn’t work out so well.
Consumer-me didn’t actually use the coloring book at work,
even on lunch break, and creator-me decided she deserved a break after pushing
herself so hard to create a high-quality product, even if it wasn’t what
consumer-me wanted. I can neither confirm nor deny whether there was sulking
involved.
But the itch was still there. Over the next few months, creator-me
toyed with ideas of how to revise the coloring book into something consumer-me
would actually use, and consumer-me continued doodling in the margins of her
notebooks and coloring in the monthly pictures in the coloring planner she bought on Amazon.
You see, creator-me got so caught up in doing market
research on other coloring book publishers and other colorists that I
internalized the industry standards and wound up creating a product that had
the same downsides for consumer-me as all the other coloring books on the
market. So even though it was a good product, it wasn’t the right product.
So I’m working on something new, that will hopefully be a
better fit.
This time, though, I’m not expecting to get it right the
first time. This is going to be an iterative process of creating something,
testing it, making changes, and testing it again. I’m also training myself to
take a more sustainable approach this time, working on the project a little bit
each day rather than getting a ton done once in a blue moon.
Part of that process is restarting this blog. It’ll take a
little while to see how it fits into my routine with work, CrossFit, creating
my next product, and home life, but I’ll shoot for at least one post a week to
get started. There’s plenty to talk about, including what, exactly, the next
project is shaping up to be!
Until next time – don’t be afraid to add some color!
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