Success Story
CECIL CHILD
A
Parenting Magazine for the Residents of Cecil County, Maryland
www.cecilchild.com
160
Funk Road, Port Deposit, MD, 21904 Tel:
410-378-4521
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief: Katelyn Thomas
Eagle’s Rest Publishing Company, LLC
Cecil Child
is a newly created parent-oriented website and free publication that
provides local Cecil County families with parental guidance as well as
entertaining stories, games, poems, and comics for children, and information
on local events and activities in Cecil County that children and parents can
enjoy. Katelyn Thomas, the publisher and editor, developed this home-based
business by building on years of experience as a writer and library
associate. While working at Port Deposit Branch Library, she was often
confronted by parents saying, “There’s nothing for children to do in Cecil
County.” When she tried to locate a newsletter or publication that would
cover activities for children in Cecil, she couldn’t find one. So, she did
what entrepreneurs do. She created a business built on customer need, lack
of product, little competition, and her own information and writing skills.
Katelyn has actually created two products:
a website and a publication. Cecil Child, the publication, was first
issued as a free quarterly this summer. Cecil Child, the website,
has been online for about one year. It offers an online copy of the
publication, but much, much more. Online you are greeted by a blue crab,
the logo for Cecil Child. There is a calendar of events,
kid-friendly recipes, reviews of children’s books and toys, identification
of local kid-friendly restaurants, access to a database of licensed
child-care providers, an online forum, and an archive of previous
publications.
Katelyn had already developed her website
when she decided to stop by the Small Business Information Center. She had
already developed her product, but needed help establishing her website into
a growing business that would also encompass a publication. Even though
Katelyn was well-educated in information resources and computer technology,
she still found she needed some help with how to advertise and develop a
media kit. She said she found the Getting Started in Business in Cecil
County publication the SBIC recently developed was really helpful in
showing her the steps she needed to go through to become established as a
business. And, she also found it helpful to talk to someone who could be
both receptive and encouraging about starting the magazine.
You can pick up a free copy of Cecil
Child in the library, if they haven’t all been taken! Or, you can log
on to the website and download a copy at
www.cecilchild.com.
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