The Wheel of the Year, She is A-Turnin'. . .
Since I put the Wheel of the Year document (WotY) on my CaféPress site in late October of 2005, I've sold 37 copies of it. I made $3.02 off of it before I revised it and published it at cost last July. 15 copies were then sold at no profit to me. I've only once held an actual published copy of WotY, thanks to _crow365__: I don't even own a copy of my own book. It's kinda funny, thinking about how much work I've put into it, and what the return has been.
That return has been amazing.
It's interesting: the monetary return has been so darn low (so low I can't even collect it from CaféPress), but the value I place on the experience and the comments I've gotten back from it has been extremely high. Watching Dedicants use the plan (even if only for a month or two) has been very good, and a fairly solid indication that the program is helpful to at least some people.
My original, stated goal with the WotY was this: "If it helps one person, it will have been worth it."
I think WotY has surpassed that original goal.
The highest validation I got that it was a Good Idea™ was from Ian, who said he saw the next edition of the DP as including the WotY, possibly as an appendix, or even as a "book two". That, of course, was before the newest call for DP revisions* took place.
Now, I'm in an interesting fix. By reformatting the DP into more of a "path" than a "program", WotY faces an uncertain future. I fully support the revisions, but I wonder if there's any room for WotY in that path. More to the point, I wonder if WotY is more problem than solution: it was made unerringly clear that many folks feel we focus too much on "completion", and in my eyes WotY contributes to that.
No one else has worried about this, just me. No one has ever said, "Hey, you know, what you did was great and all, but we're looking to go a different direction." There's no pressure on me to re-think this, to re-work it, or to remove it from circulation.
But over time, if we wish to de-emphasize the idea that the DP is "a program you must complete" instead of "a path you can follow", we're going to have to back off on concentrating on the requirements. WotY, of course, is all about the requirements, and it is a central, driving force in the perception of the DP as a program you need to finish. This, then, puts WotY in a jam.
So now I'm stuck here, looking at nearly two years of WotY circulation, thinking about whether WotY will see another full year of use, wondering if it was worth it to write it and then come to a point where we might scrap it.
And I find myself saying, "Yes, it was."
Who knows, though, what the future holds for the WotY document? I certainly don't, and I'm not making actual plans for it. I'm really just thinking about it, and surprised at how satisfied I am with the six or so months I spent working on WotY, and how obvious it is that no matter what happens, what I decide or what ADF's Council of Lore decides, I'll be very happy with the outcome.
* - FYI: These DP "revisions" don't affect the exit standards, so don't worry about work you're doing somehow becoming obsolete. The booklet is just being cleaned up.
That return has been amazing.
It's interesting: the monetary return has been so darn low (so low I can't even collect it from CaféPress), but the value I place on the experience and the comments I've gotten back from it has been extremely high. Watching Dedicants use the plan (even if only for a month or two) has been very good, and a fairly solid indication that the program is helpful to at least some people.
My original, stated goal with the WotY was this: "If it helps one person, it will have been worth it."
I think WotY has surpassed that original goal.
The highest validation I got that it was a Good Idea™ was from Ian, who said he saw the next edition of the DP as including the WotY, possibly as an appendix, or even as a "book two". That, of course, was before the newest call for DP revisions* took place.
Now, I'm in an interesting fix. By reformatting the DP into more of a "path" than a "program", WotY faces an uncertain future. I fully support the revisions, but I wonder if there's any room for WotY in that path. More to the point, I wonder if WotY is more problem than solution: it was made unerringly clear that many folks feel we focus too much on "completion", and in my eyes WotY contributes to that.
No one else has worried about this, just me. No one has ever said, "Hey, you know, what you did was great and all, but we're looking to go a different direction." There's no pressure on me to re-think this, to re-work it, or to remove it from circulation.
But over time, if we wish to de-emphasize the idea that the DP is "a program you must complete" instead of "a path you can follow", we're going to have to back off on concentrating on the requirements. WotY, of course, is all about the requirements, and it is a central, driving force in the perception of the DP as a program you need to finish. This, then, puts WotY in a jam.
So now I'm stuck here, looking at nearly two years of WotY circulation, thinking about whether WotY will see another full year of use, wondering if it was worth it to write it and then come to a point where we might scrap it.
And I find myself saying, "Yes, it was."
Who knows, though, what the future holds for the WotY document? I certainly don't, and I'm not making actual plans for it. I'm really just thinking about it, and surprised at how satisfied I am with the six or so months I spent working on WotY, and how obvious it is that no matter what happens, what I decide or what ADF's Council of Lore decides, I'll be very happy with the outcome.
* - FYI: These DP "revisions" don't affect the exit standards, so don't worry about work you're doing somehow becoming obsolete. The booklet is just being cleaned up.