Going it alone in publishing

Okay, so you know the story so far. Basically, my contract where I am now runs out at the end of May and for various reasons (mainly to do with childcare) I was trying to find something that paid well but gave me flexibility with hours - which was looking pretty impossible. Most of my career so far (apart from the cleaning jobs) has had a strong administrative backbone so I was toying with the idea of setting up my own Virtual Assistant service working from home, and had even got as far as designing a website .... but then I went to the One Life Live exhibition in London and everything suddenly fell into place.

I found myself talking to a woman at a stand in the Be Your own Boss section but she turned out to be from Herbalife, which isn't my cup of tea at all .... but when she realised she brought out their other project, a health care magazine where you find the local advertising. Because of my publishing background it appealed but only a bit - I've no experience of sales and the subject matter didn't interest me particularly. But then the next stall was a company called Community Times and though I didn't do more than have a cursory chat and take the info, all the way home I was thinking about it and it really DID get me excited!

The concept behind Community Times is that you pay a licence fee to publish a glossy free monthly magazine in your exclusive area. You get full backing and support, even down to the company supplying layouts and editorial, but to all intents and purposes you are your own boss - you set your advertising rates, you can find and write your own editorial, you can use your own printers and distributors if you want to.

So that's what I'm doing, in my small rural area of south Oxfordshire. At the moment I'm still planning things out - after all, I'm working full time still and haven't got enough time to do anything much - but come the end of May I'll be leaving work, starting up on my own and hopefully producing a successful local magazine.