Mary Ellen Gross, the owner of SIZZLE!—Marketing and Public Relations Solutions, has been involved in nearly every aspect of promotion, marketing, and public relations for more than fifteen years. For three years, Mary Ellen served as publicist, director of communications, and vice president of marketing for Wharton Publishing, where she promoted nonfiction titles, including one that sold more than 250,000 copies. At Wharton, she arranged promotional appearances on national radio and television shows as well as book signings and speaking engagements. In addition, she successfully developed special distribution markets.

Mary Ellen was also president of PVA Systems, a software publishing company, where she was responsible for establishing the company's strategic alliances, developing and maintaining media and public relations, and negotiating licensing agreements with CBS News and C-SPAN.

Sharon Goldinger is the owner of PeopleSpeak—Concepts and Communications Consulting. A professional writer and editor for more than ten years, Sharon specializes in nonfiction publications. An expert in manuscript preparation, Sharon assists writers and nonwriters in meeting their literary goals by providing complete consulting and hands-on services from initial evaluation and editing to press kit materials.

Sharon's varied background includes working on congressional committees on Capitol Hill and serving as assistant to the president of a national service organization. She has been the editor of a Los Angeles monthly newspaper and an Orange County lifestyle magazine.

Sharon's experience also includes marketing consulting. Since 1985, Sharon and her staff have created individualized public relations, advertising, and media placement campaigns for a variety of clients. These campaigns combine an appropriate blend of public relations, publicity, promotion, marketing, and advertising strategically devised for each client.

Mary Ellen and Sharon are co-authors of "Taking Advantage of Media and Sales Opportunities," and they actively support the publishing community as members of the Publishers Association of Los Angeles, Publishers Marketing Association, Women's National Book Association, People in Publishing, Northern California Book Publicity and Marketing Association, and San Diego Professional Editors Network.