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!