I have been a small business owner and know very well the ins and outs of running such and how it can be hard in these economic times, but I believe there are many options in this situation. I'm sure Lampstand has consulted business advisors and has had many options presented to them.

These are just some things that I have thought about over the past few days and wondered why they have not been considered, or if they have why they are not being implemented. Again, I know people tried to offer me advise when I was in business and sometimes it was futile.

1. The year plans are already digital. They are already in PDF form. The Loom, Evals, Maps, etc. What is stopping Lampstand from mass burning CD's and continuing to promote their product in this format. Sure it may not be as "fancy" as they would like, but it's available immediately Y1 - Y3. I would be promoting this new product and creating more sales.

2. Create a partnership with an outside book source, namely Rainbow Resource to offer the needed books via drop shipping.

3. Move fwd with Y4, but removing unnecessary staff. It was my understanding that the Redesign was just cleaning up the classic, the curriculum is already written. Again I could be wrong.

In the end, I do not see why further expenditures would be needed in software and changing the way things are already done. Over time, maybe, but to have the opportunity to keep producing a high quality product would be the most important to me. Also, I think that you could offer one bulk printing of each year plan each year. When you get the orders needed for each year plan then print that many, period. Don't try to keep stock on hand. I also would not keep staff year round and possibly only seasonally.

Just some thoughts.

Hey Dawn,

Thanks for your thoughts. I am so blown away by the care and thoughts that many of you, our friends, have offered since our news came out. THANK YOU!

Briefly:

1. We have never had rights to sell the World Book excerpts that populate our Teacher's Notes in digital format. All copyrights are specific to the medium under agreement. We never sought World Book for digital rights until this month. Part of the reason was that we wanted to finish the Redesign product before starting a new product line. This was our plan until the day that AIG folded, thus beginning the impossibility of investors following through with promises for up-front print money. When digital became our only remaining option, we did seek out WB, and they gave us a verbal green light. However, it will take us some weeks to finalize these agreements in writing. We also do not own the rights to MapAids 1 and 2. These are joint products with Terri Johnson of KnowledgeQuest. So, we'll need to get agreement with her, too. Same with Writing Aids; there are contributing authors. These things take some time, but meanwhile we are confident enough of them that we have announced the direction and are busy making conversions to discs. We anticipate doing as you suggest--taking new orders--as soon as we have copyright agreements in writing.

You are right that we currently have the content of Years 1 and 2 complete digitally, and the first two units (and practically the third) of Year 3 are also complete, but these are formatted for a printer and must be (if you will) sliced and diced, and they must be more protected than the files we have put onto the Loom in the past. (This is the requirement of said copyright holders above, understandably so.) So, that takes some time. But we are confident enough that we are already doing this work while we wait for solidified copyright agreements.

2. We've looked into this possibility and are starting via Amazon. As we sell out of books on the Bookshelf, we'll be replacing our book links with links to Amazon. That way, you can still use our interface to sort, sift, and plan. Unfortunately, Amazon was incapable of allowing us to create any kind of "batch orders." We are not sure that we can't continue the Bookshelf, which is profitable. What we lack, again, is the capital that we expected to have in order to stock the two new units of Year 3 before the new selling season ramps up.

3. Our staff is amazing and cut to the bone at present. You've not got it quite right about the conversion. It's much more like Classic was a draft (albeit an award-winning one! ) and Redesign is the much-expanded polished product. Believe me when I say that we've looked this option over very carefully. My current team works way over what they get paid for, and is heroic in their efforts to serve homeschoolers because they believe in TOG and love our moms!