Montanye Arts

Not many people take the initiative to create and publish a book from start to finish. Jeff Montanye did and he is proud of his accomplishment. Jeff has self published his own book, Maze Zing, a book of mazes from photographs, designing and developing his own unique ideas and enduring all the challenges a small publisher faces. With about 175,000 books published every year, a new author has very little hope of getting the interest of an established publisher. That is why Jeff chose the path of self publishing. Using this method, getting exposure can be difficult but Jeff is now a published author. That makes it worth the investment of time and money. It's not a get rich quick scheme. There is something special about seeing people enjoying your creation that makes it worth the effort. Since he was a child, Jeff has designed and created things with his hands from model railroads to remote control airplanes. He would also spend hours developing toys and games which now sit in boxes on shelves in his garage. Jeff has always felt something was missing from his creations. Aside from relatives and close friends, he was the only one who got use or pleasure from his creations. "It's not the creation that I enjoy, it's seeing other people enjoy them that makes me happy." Maze Zing is all my ambition and desires wrapped up on one package. The Maze Zing book lets Jeff do what he loves most, create things with his hands, photograph them and publish them for everybody to enjoy. And after that, he gets to take them apart to give room for more creations without losing them forever. He has the best of both worlds now. Now he can see people enjoying his creations through his books. There is one setback about self publishing though. Being an unknown author and publisher, marketing the book has proven to be a huge challenge. However, Jeff doesn't consider it a hardship. It's just another avenue for his creative mind to work.

Since he was a child, Jeff Montanye spent most of his time developing things from his creative imagination. He enjoyed building things from wood and nails such as tree forts and go-carts. As a child he was constantly inventing things to make life a little easier. Some of his inventions were a personal portable air conditioner and an electric sander for craft projects. He also enjoyed creating games and toys. When he was younger his creations were constructed mostly from paper and glue but as his skills increased he started utilizing more sturdy plastics and metals. His early games were simple dice games with instructions on the board where your game piece lands. Later Jeff began utilizing computer chips that talked and designed games with complicated mechanical features. Some of the games Jeff created include "Easy Street", an improved Monopoly type game, "Fuzzle Pop", "Crux", "Laser Battle" and "Puppy Find a Home". It is this type of imaginative and creative thinking that got the book Maze Zing going.

"Getting money was always a challenge. It wasn't handed to me. I had to earn it. But how could an eight year old boy earn money? I always found a way." When eight year old Jeff Montanye needed cash his creative mind went to work. His first bite of the entrepreneur bug happened when his mother suggested he grow and sell gourds from the garden. He set up a board between the corner fence rails in the front yard and placed his gourds for sale. It worked. Jeff was running a business at eight years old and he enjoyed the challenge. Next he found wild violets growing in the woods and began selling them door to door. After that it was pom-pom monsters and yarn dolls at the mall. He sold candy bars at school and snakes and turtles on the side of the road. Night crawlers turned out to be profitable and then lawn mowing and snow shoveling. He began a full-fledged lawn care business in high school. Next a wedding photography business which grew into disk jockeying, invitations, business cards and silk flower arranging. Later he started a supply company for granulated wax called Crystal Candles. As he learned computers in college Jeff began a computer repair business and got into web page designing. He purchased a small commercial building to set up his computer shop and began doing digital photography. Finally, he formed his publishing business and created the Maze Zing book series. The experience from all his Entrepreneur adventures put together is what got the Maze Zing book idea off the ground.

At the age of twenty, Jeff Montanye decided he wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. This would mean he would need to raise a couple thousand dollars for equipment and food for the two-thousand mile journey. To do this, he decided to raise money for a charitable organization. People would pledge money to the charity per each mile Jeff walked. People also donated money and equipment to the cost of the hike. Each night of the week Jeff set up a table at a bowling alley in nearby towns. Every town seemed to have one. Through this method, he was able to raise enough money to finance the hike and raise thousands of dollars for charity. On April 9th, 1988, Jeff flew to Atlanta Georgia and began his long trek home. On the way he encountered many lifetime memories. It is this ambition and drive that Jeff has that makes it possible to do the things he does. It is this same ambition that got the Maze Zing book off the ground.

"What does a Hess truck carry?" For a very young child who loved playing with toy Hess trucks, it was no wonder little Jeff Montanye wanted to know what a real Hess truck hauled inside its tank. Jeff would have to wait until he was older to find out. Born with a severe stuttering problem, Jeff had a hard time getting others to understand what he was saying. Stuttering made things awkward at times but it did not slow down his ambition to earn a few dollars. He did eventually get his message out as he sold yarn dolls at the local mall at the age of ten. Potential customers would wait patiently as Jeff stammered through his sales pitch. "You just never know how things are going to come out", Jeff says. School was difficult. His speech impediment caused him to be misunderstood leading to other kids teasing him relentlessly. Jeff learned to make deals with the teachers at the beginning of the school year so they would never ask him to speak out loud in the class room. He made it all through high school without ever speaking aloud in a class room. By the time he got to college, Jeff decided that enough was enough and simply decided to speak out loud, stuttering or no stuttering. This new boldness has helped almost completely eliminate his stuttering problem. Today Jeff teaches adult classes and gives presentations to groups with virtually no stuttering at all. It is a major accomplishment in his life.