Incorporating Homeschooling into the Entrepreneurial Family

The following was submitted by a listener,  friend of  and fellow Unplugged Mom.   I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Lisa and her endeavors and I think you will too.  Lisa’s story is such a wonderful inspiration to parents everywhere who are struggling with how to juggle home education with family expenses and their own personal passions.  Tremendous applause to Lisa Cottrell-Bentley and everything her and her family has accomplished and enjoyed!   Read on…

Incorporating Homeschooling into the Entrepreneurial Family

by Lisa Cottrell-Bentley, Author/Publisher/Mother

As a homeschooling mother of two daughters (Zoe 09/1996, and Teagan 09/2000) who doesn’t have an outside-of-the-house job, I take my job as an educational facilitator very seriously—being a mother is my most important role in life. My family homeschools by following our interests in the style that is commonly referred to as Radical Unschooling. This means that rather than follow a strict course of curriculum, or even a strict schedule, we allow our lives and our interests to guide us. This allows us to follow our passions and see them through both deeply and broadly on a wide variety of topics.

I currently own two companies: Do Life Right, Inc. (DLR) and ZenActOS, Inc. The first is my primary business focus: an independent publishing company which specializes in books for and about realistic homeschoolers of today. I started DLR in 2005 in order to help inspire people to be the best they could be through healthy living and mindful parenting, through my own family’s personal quest to “Do Life Right”. In October 2006, we incorporated DLR to be a business and we created the Mission Statement: “Empowering all people to reach their full potential in life”. In August 2007, after many requests to do so, I added the blog feature to our then-only site (now my personal blog, www.DoLifeRight.com) so that all new content could be readily accessible and in an easy to find format. In April 2009, DLR expanded into the publishing world and created www.DoLifeRightInc.com. Continuing its mission, DLR now publishes books featuring realistic homeschoolers of today. I continue to offer one on one e-mail counseling services for people striving to live a vegan lifestyle and/or an Unschooling lifestyle, as well as offer speaking engagements on Unschooling, homeschooling, veganism, and publishing.

Before owning these companies, I was the sole proprietor of Portraits & Pages, a photography and webpage design company that I started when Zoe was a baby (I’d quit my job as a software engineer in order to stay home with her; she and I went out on Portraits & Pages assignments together). This was fun and successful, but I outgrew it on a personal level, especially when I had two young children in the home. While I kept one primary client, I slowed back a lot on the business front when Teagan was born. During my “down time”, I turned to writing (a hobby I’d had as a child). It was therapeutic and quiet. J Before I knew it, I had several novels written.

One day, when Zoe was around seven years old, I asked her about the fiction books she’d been reading. As an early (and fast) reader, she regularly went through a book a day and I couldn’t keep up. She told me that the stories were fine, but that she was incredibly disappointed in everything I’d given her to read for months. This shocked me! I’d spent a lot of time researching good quality, award winning books for her to peruse!

When I asked why, her answer was simple: every book had kids who (1) either went to school and/or were abandoned (like on an island alone), (2) had absent or dead parents, (3) hated their siblings, and (4) had friends who acted like enemies.

Once she told me more specific details of at least twenty books, I couldn’t believe it! She was completely correct. There were no children’s books out there that didn’t have at least one of those elements! Since we don’t deal with those elements in our everyday lives, we knew we couldn’t be alone. Plus, not a single book she’d read had anything good to say about homeschoolers. She felt as though she had no role models out there in fiction for her.

So then I asked her what would make the ideal story for her. She had a variety of criteria: (1) it had to be a series, (2) the main child/children character/s should be homeschoolers like her—realistic ones, too, not caricatures, (3) the parents had to be present and likeable to their children, (4) the siblings had to love each other, even if they didn’t always get along, and (5) everyone needed to grow and age. Adding some personal preferences for action/adventure and sci-fi interests, quickly my Wright on Time series of children’s chapter books were formed. Since I was already a writer with several (unpublished) books under my belt, it was logical for me to actually write this series for my daughters with their input.

We started with this simple concept: take a homeschooling family out of their home and out into the world! The series takes the fictional Wright family (Dad Harrison, Mom Stephanie, 11 year old Nadia, and 7 year old Aidan) on an RV, roadschooling adventure through all 50 U.S. states (one book for each state). We added in a pet turtle, Prince Pumpkin III, and we were off! The series begins in Arizona (where the family learns about caves, bats, and minerals), and continues through Utah (dinosaurs), Wyoming (alternative energies), and South Dakota (newspapers and motorcycles).

Before we knew it, I had the first six books written in the Wright on Time series, and concept ideas for the following eighteen. For research for these books, we travel to the various states. While we are there, we discuss what possible topics the Wright family would want to see and do. So far, my family has traveled to forty U.S. states and seven countries. We have a goal of going to the remaining ten states within the next three years (or less).

Once the first few Wright on Time books were written (and edited, etc.), I started taking them to publishers and agents. Ironically, from those who responded I received this feedback: “Get rid of the parents, put the kids back in school, make the siblings not like each other, and have the friends have more conflicts with each other…and then we’ll talk, because your writing style is great.” Sound familiar? It should, as these were nearly the exact same items as on my daughter’s list of the things she didn’t like in modern fiction. Interestingly, too, everyone I’ve brought this up with agrees with my daughter completely!

So, taking that information, armed with a marketing plan, business plan, and a whole lot of research, I started seeking investors. I quickly found an angel investor who gave me enough starting capital to change my consulting business into a publishing company, publish the first two books in the Wright on Time series, and get the ball rolling on everything needed to become a real publishing house. I’ve used all the proceeds from the books to publish even more books. We currently have seven titles in our www.doliferightinc.com catalog, with four more scheduled for this year, and a line-up starting for next year. I’m extremely excited by the submissions I’ve been receiving. There are a lot of really talented writers out there who have been told the same exact things as I’d been told by publishers and agents.

Once two Wright on Time books were published, we started accepting submissions from other authors. While the third WOT book was being published, we signed on Linda Fields, the author of Cody Greene and the Rainbow Mystery, a children’s chapter book mystery set in an art gallery in New Mexico. It’s my intention to have my own books only play a miniscule role in DLR, as I’m wanting to show that homeschooling today comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes (with no “one size fits all” like the stereotypes say), and I want to have hundreds (maybe even thousands!) of authors and illustrators who are proudly published by Do Life Right, Inc.! I want future homeschoolers to never have problems finding themselves represented in fiction!

On a day to day level, I involve my daughters in as much of the business as they are interested in—which is actually quite a lot! They help with initial (and final) edits, give input on illustration concepts, and brainstorm future Do Life Right, Inc. plans. I value their opinions more than any adult’s, as they are my target audience!

We don’t have a specific routine to our day, since we work in batches based on pressing needs and commitments. We’re often found traveling, and often found at home. We’ve found that, for us, these intense times of doing different activities are the most productive and rewarding way for us to live. We need the go-go-go of trips, and we also need the rest and calm of long days at home. Both are equally engaging in different ways.

Through involving my daughters in my businesses, they’ve learned a variety of entrepreneurial skills that they wouldn’t have learned as easily on their own or even in a classroom environment. In making presentations, my daughters have seen me painstakingly write my notes and practice over and over again. This has helped Zoe in her pursuits, especially as she’s made presentations in front of Heads of Education of NASA, given speeches in front of hundreds of homeschooling families at conferences, presented a myriad of videos on her website, and even been interviewed by The Today Show. With her goals of becoming an Exogeologist for NASA, and working on the Clue Crew on Jeopardy!, these are useful skills for her to be learning.

Through my daughters’ editing skills, and helping me teach creative writing classes, both have also become writers. Zoe has several young adult books in the works: two collaborative projects with other teens which are both being published later this year (Fractured Fate in October, and The Epic Story of Me in November), and a couple of her own. Teagan has a middle-grade work, Novel Concept, which was published in April 2011. Teagan also uses her skills to run her own small favicon business on her website www.TeagansCreations.com.

Running businesses while having children in the home has been an incredibly rewarding process for me. Together we’ve learned a million things! My daughters are my inspiration, and they often come up with new ways of thinking that I never would have considered without them. While we inevitably have set-backs, “failures”, and mistakes within our personal and company decisions, they help keep me grounded through them, encouraging me to look at the long-term bigger picture, rather than a timeline that I’d tried to adhere to too rigidly. Yet, at the same time, they encourage me to reach for bigger and better life dreams! With their help and support, I know we can do anything we dream of, and so can you!

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About Lisa: Lisa, originally from Iowa/Illinois, has spent the past 12 years in Arizona. While still considering Arizona home (and keeping her residence there), she just moved to California on a part-time basis with her family. Lisa’s books can be found at www.WrightOnTimeBooks.com, her publishing company at www.DoLifeRightInc.com, and her blog at www.DoLifeRight.com. Zoe’s award winning site is www.ExogeologyRocks.com. Teagan’s site is www.TeagansCreations.com.

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