Curriculum

Well, I've finished with the curriculum/IEPs for my kids: lots of life skills stuff, not as much academic right now. We'll see where we are in December.

I'm a bit torn right now. Half of my books are going to come directly from the publisher, but another half can be found much, MUCH cheaper on a particular homeschool discount site.

Here's the problem: when people order things through a discount site (like Amazon), the authors/publishers take a pretty stiff hit in their paycheck (they may see 10-20% of the book price at most). For larger publishers, this really isn't that big a deal. But for small publishers who know they aren't going to see a lot of sales in the first place, this becomes a terrible business model. Unfortunately, a lot of homeschool books fall into the small publisher category. Since I know people in the writing industry, and I know a bit of how publishing works and what's involved, I don't like seeing authors lose their ability to support themselves in a system that should be able to support them. Already it's clear that a writer can't really support him/herself without becoming huge and those involved in small presses have an even worse time because of all the money/time spent promoting the product.

On the other hand, I have a budget. And the amount I spend needs to be as small as possible.

I'm pretty sure I already know what I'm going to do, but any and all comments would be appreciated.