As a creative—author, speaker, recording artist—you need a team. You can’t go it alone. The job is just too big. You may have to start small, but you have to enroll others to help you get to your destination.

Several years ago, my friend Robert Smith, Andy Andrews’ manager, shared with me his concept of “The Train.” This represents all the people on your team who are helping you get your career down the track faster than you could do on your own.

In this brief, seven-minute video, I interview Allen Arnold, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Thomas Nelson’s fiction division. I have known Allen for almost 20 years. When I first met him, he was in marketing at Word, Inc., a company that Thomas Nelson eventually acquired.

Allen is one of the most creative people I know. He is truly a great publisher. He has that rare combination of being unwavering in his core values along with the ability to spot projects that have commercial potential. In his eight-year tenure as Nelson’s fiction publisher, he has built one of the company’s fastest-growing divisions and become an industry thought-leader at the same time.

In the past three weeks, I have received several email messages from individuals trying to get published. They are frustrated because they can’t get an agent to represent them. Yet, they know that most publishers, Thomas Nelson included, won’t consider proposals unless they come through an agent. If you find yourself in this situation, read on.

As you may have read, earlier this week Harlequin announced that it has formed a new self-publishing division called Harlequin Horizons with Author Solutions. This is similar to the announcement we made several weeks ago about WestBow Press. This has created quite a stir on the Internet.

For nearly as long as I have been in the publishing industry, the term “self-publishing” has carried with it a certain stigma. Publishers who specialized in it were branded “vanity presses.” We hope to change that perception with the announcement of WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson. This imprint officially launches today.