Entrepreneur Laura Di Franco lives by a profound principle and purpose:

“To wake the world up to what’s possible for healing, one brave word at a time,” said Di Franco, who is CEO of the Maryland-based and global-reaching book publishing company, Brave Healer Productions. “I love having the time, energy, money, and resources to generously take care of myself and everyone I love and serve.”

Di Franco’s company’s newest venture is the recently announced Brave Kids Books, which will focus on solo children’s book authors in addition to a yearly kids book collaboration. The first effort – Brave Kids: Short Stories to Inspire Our Future World-Changers – was just published. The second collaborative book will be published in 2024, and Di Franco said they are actively searching for authors to participate.

“It’s just been a blast,” Di Franco said. “These authors deserve a bigger voice. That’s why I’m here—to help us get the word out about healing, about what's possible. We’re waking the world up to what’s possible for healing.”
Di Franco said her company has helped immensely in her own personal journey. For decades, despite being a high achiever, she struggled with severe shyness and had a difficult time looking people in the eye or attending social events.

Interviewing authors, she said, has helped her come out of her shell.

“I love talking to people, and I’ve gone from one extreme to the other,” Di Franco said. “If I had had people around like the ones I partner with now, I would’ve come out of my shell much earlier.”

Di Franco launched her entrepreneurial career in 2008 as a physical therapist, and she began Brave Healer Productions in 2016. She ran both companies until 2020, when Covid shut down her original venture.

On March 20, 2020, shortly after the country locked down, Di Franco organized her publishing company’s network of authors on Zoom and asked whether 24 would like to participate in a book collaboration. Forty-eight hours later, two dozen accepted, and five weeks later, the collaborative effort was published.

“That was the beginning of our collaborative book publishing company,” said Di Franco, whose business has published over 50 bestsellers and just passed its 1,000th published author.

Di Franco, 55, is a lifelong athlete who played collegiate soccer, is a third-degree black belt and who has finished three marathons. She said playing on a team and being an athlete used to represent the world where she belonged.

Now, Di Franco said, she’s created her own publishing world with more than a 1,000 fellow healer authors.

She can’t wait for that number to continue its upward trajectory.

“Being a healer and publisher of healers has been the purpose of my life,” Di Franco said. “We make beautiful books for healers. I want to have as much fun as possible in this life and take this ride with people I love … and in service of love.”

For more information, visit https://lauradifranco.com