So, I’ve been avoiding one of my managerial tasks- writing the Editorially Yours column. Looking in the archives, the last column I published was in mid-July. We’re past the midpoint of September, so I’ve done a fine job of procrastinating. *Sigh* That’s not like me at all.

With PeKu being a smaller enterprise I had reduced the frequency of EY columns from weekly to biweekly. That worked well. I could write about the happenings of PeKu, our team, and other assorted topics. However, in August I could see a change ahead, a set of storm clouds approaching on the horizon. Although I could see them, I couldn’t write about it yet, or at least I didn’t want to do so.

Then September arrived, and I was determined that I would write. But I found excuses not to do so and waited and waited, until today. It’s time to talk about those storm clouds.

Like many other online publishers the last two years have been a struggle financially. PeKu works on an advertising revenue model, and the numbers have been going farther and farther south. To combat the loss of income, I’ve made strategic changes: reducing the number of sites on which we publish; reducing the number of articles published on each site; doing more writing myself. Even with all of that, it was apparent in August (or sooner actually) that PeKu needed to be shuttered, kind of. So, as of late August, there is no writing team at PeKu, just me.

I felt overwhelmingly sad making this decision. I built this startup, and it has felt very much like another child. I have nurtured it, shaped it, put thousands of hours into it, lost sleep over it, and now I needed to say goodbye. No, I did not want to do this.

Being a stubborn person, I haven’t fully given up. I’m taking PeKu back to where it began in 2007, food. Think Tasty was the blog that PeKu was built on, on which I wrote during my final year of teaching. Conveniently I still love cooking and writing, plus I have nothing to lose, so I am continuing to publish on Think Tasty by myself. Since I’m stubborn and also like parenting, I’ve continued to write for Your Parenting Info as well. I’ve spent my last twenty years raising two kids, so I figured I might as well share some advice.

For now I am focusing on these two publications. Maybe if I can give them plenty of attention and find the right eyeballs, I can grow PeKu once again. If not, I at least am giving myself a creative outlet to help fill the empty nest that I now have. And I still have my work as Dean of Content and Instruction at WV Academy, so there’s plenty to fill my work schedule.

I apologize for taking so long to share the news on these changes, but it’s been hard to admit defeat. So, today I acknowledge that PeKu is just me. But don’t be fooled, as someone wrote about me, I’m a “petite powerhouse.” PeKu may be much smaller than it has been in years, but I’m going to give one heck of a fight before throwing in the towel.

2 Responses to “Ending Where I Began”

1. Joan Jacobsen says:

   September 22, 2016 at 9:55 am

   Good luck Michele, I was thankful and happy to write for My Fitness Tunes! Many good wishes to all of my editors as well. It’s always good to go back to your roots, you never know where it may take you!

   Best Wishes,
   Joan

2. Michele says:

   September 22, 2016 at 11:48 am

   Joan,

   Thank you for your kind words. Although I’d rather that PeKu could’ve stayed a bigger company, I am excited to see where this path leads.

   Best wishes to you and Running with Wrinkles!