3/10/25: SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! Fresh Starts and Finding Passions

As a creature of habit, consistency, and predictability, fresh starts can be hard…but they don’t have to be bad.  Fresh starts can be about finding your passion and using that to do things you never thought possible. 

If you aren’t part of the direct sales world, you probably don’t know there have been massive changes in the past year or so.  Major companies such as Epicure and Thirty-One have closed their doors, leaving thousands of direct sellers without their passion…and job.  Others have merged or restructured, causing their sales forces to completely rethink how they operate their business and lives.  Beneath closures, buyouts, and restructures, there are other changes.  The ones that you don’t see unless you are “one of us”.  The ones that make you sit up, take notice, and wonder what is coming next.  All those changes are what changed my perspective in 2025 and made me start saying “YES” where I’ve said “NO” in the past.

Let me just say, I LOVE PaperPie, being a literacy advocate, and this company is a great vehicle to bring amazing books into homes across the country and has brought me unimaginable joy and peace.  I’m also a bit of a skeptic and a lot of bits a realist.  I have seen my friends losing their businesses (and a piece of themselves), I have watched companies be absorbed by other companies and lose their identities, I have watched team structures crumble and a long with that, pay structures shift entire livelihoods.  My heart has ached for my friends who now I must find a new passion or worry about making ends meet. As all of that happens, I have seen changes in my beloved PaperPie – a decline in new Brand Partners, leaders and friends who have been here for years deciding this isn’t the best fit anymore, and less new titles.  That doesn’t even hit on the social media (specifically Facebook) struggle bus and how it sometimes limits how we’ve been trained to run our business, perhaps these are the reason I find myself looking deeper for my fresh start and passion, or perhaps it is all just ingredients in the recipe for change. 

So, if you’ve made it this far, you officially get to “hear” me say the words some of you probably thought you’d never hear (and some of you may have already heard), but after 7+ years, I am choosing to leave my PaperPie business behind and start a new adventure.  My book business has meant a lot to me, personally and professionally, and the decision, although on my terms, doesn’t make it easy.  I will continue to overstuff our home with books and be a literacy advocate, I will just no longer have the title “PaperPie Brand Partner” to go with it.  This is not because of something that PaperPie has done or not done, this is me deciding on my own terms to move on to something that excites and breathe life into me.  I will be announcing in next week’s blog what that is.  In the meantime, if you need a new book lady, let me know, I have an awesome friend I’d like to connect you with!  If you have questions, I’m an open book and you can shoot those over to me, too. 

Words cannot express how thankful I am for everyone I have met on this path over the past 7 years.  Everyone I have encountered has added value to my life and I am so so grateful for that.  On to the next!