Julie's on my team!

After years of dancing around the opportunity, I've finally found the perfect chance to work with Julie Berry of Rivendell Communications to promote my Bride's Gratitude Journal! This is definitely a case of blasting through obstacles, summoning up persistence and resilience, and good divine timing! Unable to get any publisher to take a risk on a First Time Ever project -- a gratitude journal for brides, to get them to focus on what's going RIGHT with the wedding plans -- I self-published it. (Hey, if Dan Brown and Jack Canfield can knock it out of the park with that method...)

Julie took on publicity for this book, and in a day, she came back with ALL positive responses from the bridal editors on her list. That never happens, so I credit Julie with fabulous pitching and will take her on full-time as my new publicist. Scott Buhrmaster stays on with me for special projects, as he is a god in my eyes. So invested, so generous...I learned more from him than from any publicity book, course or trial and error.

I have amazing people on my team, from my heart-sister agent Meredith Bernstein to the publicists at my publishing houses, to my Web master Mike Napolitan. It's quite an inner circle. I'm very lucky to have found these people all over the country. They bring my ideas into action.

I'm quite proud of the Bride's Gratitude Journal, as it's a goal of mine to get wedding couples to look at the bigger picture, to focus on the good things that happen, to create a keepsake of their planning process, to de-stress, and keep a better attitude so that they consciously enjoy the process. I'm so happy that I didn't take No for an answer and made this happen. I hope it goes out into the world and has a wonderful effect for millions of people. Which is why I got into this business in the first place.

Publishing is a sharktank. Sometimes it stings to see a questionable character get 6-figures for their book about lowlife living (and don't get me started on Michael Schiavo's book and movie deal), and it's easy for the sensitive writer soul to lapse into doubt. But as many of my writer friends say, these stories are motivators. They bring out the best in us to write more, to rise to our natural levels of integrity, and know that the reward may not be a 6-figure deal but rather a note from a mother of the bride with thanks for saving the day, or from a groom who writes in from the honeymoon to thank me for an idea to surprise his bride.

I am so lucky that I get to do this for a living. Even when it's a challenge.