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Homeschooling Entrepreneurs
. . . that are doing it!
©2009 Homeschool-
“Eat Healthaliciously...Savour Your Life!”
At just 15, this young lady has taken her interest in nutrition and developed, written,
and published her own cookbook! She’s learned a great deal in the process, and shares
some very good advice you won’t want to miss. She has some especially good tips you
can use to create a GREAT PR campaign-
Read about other “Homeschooling Entrepreneurs”:
>Midnight Oil Scrapbook Designs
>Don Lewis Designs and Homesteading!
About My Business, Aurelie’s Healthy Cuisine
The name of my business is Aurelie's Healthy Cuisine Inc. I started this business
with my mother's help in November 2008 to publish The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook.
The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook is a healthy-
My cookbook contains over 80 recipes of all sorts (dips, side dishes, soups, pasta,
legume dishes, breakfast, desserts, etc.), over 20 photographs, and detailed nutritional
information. It aims to help out the beginning or experienced home cook who wants
to learn how to cook healthier. All the recipes are sugar-
Currently, the cookbook is our only product, but I am hoping to expand the business and to begin offering healthy cooking classes for kids and adults. Due to North America's current lifestyle, cooking is a skill that needs to be almost completely relearned for many. I try to offer others a practical, creative, and delicious way to do it.
Can you tell us a little about your family and your homeschool?
Our family is compromised of my father, my mother, my younger brother (12 years old),
and me (15 years old). Up until 9th grade, I attended public school, but after moving
back to Canada following a long stay (9 years) in the US and after the publication
of my cookbook, my mother decided to homeschool me. The 2009-
As mentioned, both my brother and I are being homeschooled this year. My brother
uses a variety of curricula, most of which were found online, found at home, or borrowed.
I use A Beka for literature, grammar, vocabulary, and chemistry for this semester
and will be using A Beka for physics, history, literature, grammar, and vocabulary
next semester. This was the first year I used A Beka and I like it since it is very
in-
What/who inspired your idea for your business?
I started writing the The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook three years ago, when I first started to cook. I was interested in cooking at first mainly because my parents would let me repeatedly eat my favorite meals if I prepared them, but after a few meals, I realized that I had found a new passion. In the beginning, I didn't experiment much; but after our family became more or less vegetarian, my budding interest in nutrition prodded me to experiment with health cooking. I created different dishes and recorded my family’s favorites. After a while, I had built up a large collection. Thinking people could reap benefits from knowing how to cook healthier, I decided to put the recipes together into a book. I underwent the long (but exciting) process of publishing a cookbook for three years before finally completing all the writing, editing, photography, design, and recipe testing last year.
Who in your family is involved and what part do they play?
Although my mother and I do most of the work when it comes to AHC Inc., everybody in our family helps out in some way. Running a business is a team effort!
What online services have you used-
Online, we have used KnownHost as our web host, Mal's e-
Being book publishers, shipping was a concern for us and we did quite a bit of shopping around for a shipping company that would offer us the best service at the best price. We looked in to FedEx, Purolator, Sameday, and UPS, but Canpar proved to be the best when it came to sending small amounts at a low cost while Day & Ross was the least expensive for larger amounts.
(*shipping in Canada is very different from the US -
How do you schedule your busy day? Any time mgmt tips?
Having a publishing business doesn't affect my day-
My time management tips would be:
1) Expect to waste some time in the beginning. It may take a while before you become effective at choosing worthwhile promotion and work strategies.
2) Don't go in over your head, even though it can be easy to do so when someone else suggests it. It's rare that we deal with someone in the same positions as ourselves in business and I find that this makes it easy to succumb to the unrealistic expectations of others who simply don't know any better. Be clear about what you can and can't do and explain why, if need be.
Looking back, what would you have done differently?
Honestly? Not much. I think I should have planned out the details a bit more concerning
the direction of the business and the way the business would function, but because
of the lack of information available concerning my type of business and situation,
I don't think there was much I could have done. I was very thorough in my research
for the cookbook, but I find the only thing that could have made me more thorough
from a business aspect would have been to have experience in business. I find that
there should be more of an emphasis on learning about businesses and how they work
in schools: entrepreneurial skills are life skills! (*emphasis ours . . .we agree
completely! -
What do you like best about having your own business?
Getting to do something I'm passionate about (cooking) and getting recognized for
it seem to me the best benefits of having a business. I took on a part-
What's your biggest struggle in your business?
Decisions. Having a business requires continuously having to make decisions even when I don't know how to make them. I find this especially difficult because in almost all cases, there is no right or wrong answer. I never truly know that my choice was the right one.
Building a website is often the biggest undertaking for new business owners. Would you share a little about your experience building yours?
I used KnownHost for my website today from the very beginning. I constructed my website myself, although I did use a very basic HTML template to create the columns, header, and footer on my web pages. My host offers an HTML editor, so I didn't have to learn much HTML to construct my website. Although I've changed the information and the navigation of my website a bit, my website is essentially the same as it was in the beginning. I think it probably took me about 20 hours to get my website up and running, but several of those hours were spent trying to figure out how to do basic things. I think if I had to redo my website now, as long as I had the website text on hand, I could do it in a couple of hours. Having a website has proven useful for informing other businesses we work with about our work, but we don't get as many sales from it as we expected. Of course, we could probably refine our internet marketing plan to get a bit more.
What advice would you give other families/individuals looking at starting their own business?
Since I have been in business only a short time, I thought I'd take the opportunity to instead to pass on some tips for collaborating with the media. This is a very popular topic among authors, who accord many interviews for TV shows, radio shows, and print media. The following tips were learned through both advice from generous hosts and writers who took the time to give us a few pointers and from personal experience:
- * Certain media (magazines) will need to be informed of your product launch or event 6 to 10 months beforehand. Make sure to make a media contact plan that will allow you to reach these people in time.
- * Make sure you create your press release in the professional fashion. If you are not sure what the professional fashion looks like, do a quick web search or use an existing company's press release.
- * Make sure that you do not accidentally give a false connotation to your press release. Many manners of speaking and writing that we are accustomed to have double meanings, so make sure that you mean (literally!) everything you send off to media.
- * In addition to a press release, make a Q and A sheet. Many media are simply too busy to take the time to thoroughly research your story and you'll increase your chances of being interviewed if you include Q and A that they can use immediately.
- * Send your press release to the right person. Sending it to the "news tips" or press release email address typically doesn't work. For radio and TV shows, ask for the contact information of the assignment editor or the producer. For newspaper and other print media, ask the receptionist to suggest the appropriate writer or if you are familiar with the newspaper, send it to the person who treats your type of "story". Send them your press release, Q and A sheet, and a sample product when necessary.
- * Follow up. Again, most media are very busy and won't contact you, even if they may be interested in your story. A phone call is especially effective for following up. You may find that they didn't realize that you can only be interviewed for a limited time because you are traveling or they may not have even received your email. Often times, media will work on shows only a few days ahead of time and you may get a last minute call (I only learned about my biggest TV interview three days beforehand).
- * To make sure your website and your product appear on-
screen during a TV interview, send both to the producer ahead of time. The graphics for TV are often done in advance.
Also, one last (but highly important) business tip before bidding adieu: if you do anything right, make sure it's your product. I spent hours working on my book before it's publication, but every one of those hours was compensated for post publication.
This is excellent advice, Aurelie, and Homeschool-
Be sure to visit Aurelie’s website at:
Follow Aurelie on Twitter! http://www.twitter.com/aureliepare
Network with Aurelie on LinkedIn! http://www.linkedin.com/aureliepare