Not many college professors would pay $10,000 for a fortunetelling machine and use it as a teaching tool, let alone write a fantasy novel for the same purpose.

But City College marketing professor Julie Brown has done both.

She and her best friend from Scotland devoted the last two years to write the next chapter in the story of Sleeping Beauty. Brown, an experienced entrepreneur with spiritual roots and a penchant for fairy tales, is looking at the book as the latest move in showing her students how to be self-starters in the world.

“I believe that it’s important for vocational teachers to have their hand involved in their discipline,” Brown, a seven-year City College professor, said. “The best way to do anything in life is to experience it.”

Thirteen years ago, Brown started Holycards.com, a Web site with downloadable images of religious figures. Earlier this year she purchased Zoltar, the fortuneteller that sits in Ventura’s Pacific View Mall.

“I asked my students whether or not I should buy it,” she said. “I told them how much it costs and all of that stuff and they told me I should buy it.” Zoltar brings in about $200 a month.

But it was her experience watching a performance of “Wicked” that compelled her to convince her friend to write a novel.

Brown and co-author Oonagh Pope decided to write “Alinda and the Loch” as a fantasy story based on Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty,” a beloved story of Brown’s.

“Your best friend as an only child is your imagination,” Brown said. “My favorite TV shows were ‘Bewitched’ and ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ And my favorite movie was ‘Sleeping Beauty.'”

Brown hit writer’s block late last year, around the same time legendary Disney animator Blaine Gibson gave a lecture to art students. She attended the event. “I sat at the foot of the master imagineer,” she said. “I was changed for good.” Brown then called Gibson, spending an hour discussing the direction for her novel with him. That discussion gave her inspiration for one of her favorite parts of “Alinda and the Loch,” a letter to the title character from her parents.

“It’s something I would tell my own daughters,” Brown said. “As a parent and as a teacher we make sure that the next generation has surpassed the one before it. Alinda had to have the qualities of her mother, but surpass them.”

Brown believes the best part of her book is that, while more female friendly than anything, it has appeal to a wide range of ages.

“It’s marketed for younger girls, but it’s written in British English, so it’s not boring for adults,” Ashley Dryden, one of Brown’s marketing students, said. “It’s really cute.”

Dryden, with the rest of Brown’s students, has read the book and is working on ways to market it.

“It’s very interesting, because you don’t think about what happens after the ‘happily ever after,'” Odrice Eugene said.

The discussion and debate between her students is how Brown justifies the roughly $20,000 she’s spent on making the book.

“My goal is to raise awareness,” she said. “If that means to give away 10,000 books then I’ll have met my goal.”

Her co-author is using the book to teach her third-graders about cultural differences, such as disparities in the English language. Brown has already created another business out of her book. Across the Pond publications has been set up to help other authors looking to self-publish.

Brown is even more thrilled when her own entrepreneurship rubs off on her students. She gets excited when students from years past get behind their own start-ups.

“My students are so entrepreneurial,” Brown said. “This is the birthplace of creativity.”