Yes, I placed this classified ad in the May and June 2005 issues of
  Games Magazine

Yes, I will consider the best offers.

After more than twelve years working for a non-profit organization (part-time income, more-than-full-time work), I now choose to work for myself, doing what I enjoy most, working with my computer and creating puzzles of various kinds and just plain having fun. But I will be the first to admit that I do not have all the skills that I need or know how to succeed in business without really trying. (Sorry, I couldn't resist including that musical title here.) I'm great at making the materials, but I'm lousy at marketing.

I'm working on a number of different projects, with my ideas coming from different directions. Battleship solitaire games; Bible crossword puzzles (with emphasis on certain books and chapters); Triomino solitaire, and many other ideas. Sometimes I'll create hundreds of variations of one puzzle, then switch to something completely different (a symptom of my Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and forget about what I've done for a long while.

The writing idea is starting to excite me. I started the Religious Message Board last year, then forgot about it until relatively recently. An editor who wished to work with me on a future writing project could join the same list and challenge me or ask questions that would lead me to write even more material in various directions. Please note that I do NOT want to hear from vanity publishers. I am only interested in hearing from people who might be willing to share the risk and the rewards.

I'm most interested in arrangements that let me work from my home. Right now, I live in rural northwest Arkansas. I live in the garage-house behind my 83-year-young mother, so as long as she lives here, I plan to continue living near her for her convenience. When she moves into some kind of alternate housing {not anticipated at any time in the future and certainly not planned as she's still working part-time as a soloist}, I'll think about moving elsewhere, perhaps near Tampa where my brother runs his own airbrush mural company (www.Letterfly.com), or perhaps nearer to someone who is working with me by that time.

I'm not sure what my best bet is, but I will entertain discussions in various directions, and as I think about it, I will add more information to this page.

My main goal is to seek income based on my work, whether by cooperating with an agent, working with a partner, or working for another puzzle-oriented group, but I will consider partially selling the domain that I was lucky enough to be the first person to buy as one method of creating both upfront payment and future income. As far as proposals go, these should be considered separate transactions.

Please note that I'm only willing to sell partial ownership of the web site (and possibly not even that). I wish to retain partial ownership, even if the buyer wants most of the creative control. In other words, I will only partially sell www.MAZES.com for a to-be-negotiated purchase price plus a percentage of future revenue.

As far as the personalized products idea is concerned, I know that http://www.CafePress.com has a program that lets you sell personalized products, but that would be very time intensive for me to create such a storefront. I'm more interested in working with someone who might be able to create such a program themselves, and I'd supply all the artwork for a percentage on each sale. In addition, if that company had an affiliate program, I could link to their pages and possibly also get an affiliate commission on sales that my pages would drive directly. (In other words, the company would be able to deal with other affiliates also.) I'm open to reasonable suggestions.

John