I’m building Hometown Coloring Book, a local advertising business that gives families free coloring books. Businesses pay to sponsor custom coloring pages, and I’m preparing the first books for distribution through local storefronts and other community locations.

I got interested in the model while looking at free local magazines. Advertising pays for a publication that people can pick up around town. I liked that model, and a coloring book gives it a more specific audience: local families with kids.

I color with my daughter all the time, so I also like the product itself. A book about places in your own community is a fun variation on something families already use.

For advertisers, the page itself becomes the ad. It can feature their shop, products, or services, with their name, an offer, and a QR code included in the drawing. Families get an activity for their kids, and the business gets a way to reach local parents through that activity.

Businesses can also stock copies for free without paying for a page. Kids can color during a visit, and families can take the book home. That gives businesses a reason to help distribute it, while giving sponsors more places for their pages to reach families.

An open Hometown Coloring Book with two example business coloring pages, with closed Holland, West Ottawa, and Zeeland books behind it.
A mockup of the first district editions, with example business pages.

AI is a big reason this business interests me now. Every local edition needs different artwork, and every sponsor needs a page connected to its business. Producing that much custom illustration at a reasonable cost would have been difficult before these tools became available. AI makes that production much more affordable, which matters when the books are free and advertising has to cover the costs.

I’m also using AI to build the systems that run the business. I’ve built the website so a sponsor can choose districts, buy a placement, and review and approve the artwork online. I’ve built workflows for researching potential sponsors and preparing personalized postcards that show each business what its own page could look like.

I’m starting with the Holland, Zeeland, and West Ottawa school districts. Each has its own book and sponsors. A business can advertise in one district or several, depending on where it wants to reach families. That keeps the offer relevant to a local business without requiring it to pay for distribution across a much larger region.

The production and sales systems can then be reused in other districts, with new artwork, sponsors, and distribution locations for each. I’m building the first three editions with that expansion in mind.