Since the publication of my book, which is my single greatest accomplishment to date – I have entered the absolute most stressful and busiest time of my life. So stressful and busy in fact, that my personality, behavior – and day to day existence has completely changed.

I am not worried that the books will not sell, I just have to do all the work myself to sell them. If I had a publicist, all I would have to do is sit back and let the publicist sell the books – but I do that type of work for a living. So why should I pay someone to sell my books and get me press? So while I may have saved money being my own publicist – I have paid triple in time, stress – and workload. Meaning that it is my job to get the press for my book, arrange the book signings, market the book, solicit sales, and travel to customers to sell it – all while doing all of the other things that I normally do. This has literally doubled my workload – and to be honest – has made me feel very lonely inside.

With all this stress and work on my shoulders, I have not had the mental ability to do anything but think about all that I have to do on a twenty-four hour basis. In other words, when I watch a show with my friends, they are hysterical laughing – while I am busy planning my next phase of distribution for the book. And while my friends go home and sleep soundly through the night – I am tossing and turning because I am thinking about what work lies ahead. I have to say that this task, while a significant accomplishment – is truly the hardest thing I have ever done.

It is not that I am without help, because my mom, Christine and my friends have been trying to sell the books to as many people as they can think of, but the majority of the work has to be done by me – because I have the media connections, the ability to write the letters and press releases – and the drive to get the books out of my house and into the hands of anxious readers.

For example, tomorrow, I plan to head to the World Trade Center site with a case of books in the hopes that visitors to the site will want to read a book about what occurred there – rather then waste their money on the framed pictures of the exploding towers that some low lives are selling – or on my favorite item that is selling at the site, which is a ten dollar “book” called Day of Terror – which is nothing but a collection of stolen photographs taken by newspaper photographers during and after the attack. But if I go to the site and sell my book for fifteen dollars – readers can get, for just another five dollars – a real book containing stories and photographs that came from my heart – rather than being stolen from someone else.

While I may be living through a very difficult time right now, I knew to expect this when I decided to take the leap and become an author. And with my history of making it through crisis after crisis after crisis – I am sure that somewhere down the road is the end of this very dark tunnel…

…I just can’t wait until I get there.