Gina Otto, Award-Winning Cassandra's Angel Author, Launches 20 City Bus Tour to Kick Off Change My World Now

Oct. 26, 2011 - PRLog -- GINA OTTO, AWARD-WINNING CASSANDRA’S ANGEL AUTHOR LAUNCHES 20 CITY BUS TOUR TO KICK OFF HER  CHANGE MY WORLD NOW INITIATIVE


NEW YORK, NY, October 26, 2011 -- Gina Otto, the award-winning author of Cassandra's Angel, international speaker, producer, social entrepreneur, and children's advocate, is kicking off a 20-city tour to reach and inspire children in local communities across the country. She is also pioneering a movement to inspire individuals around the globe with her Change My World Now (www.changemyworldnow.com) initiative.

In an era where children suffer from low self-esteem and peer pressure, Gina will be visiting schools and participating in community events, as part of her global moment to help children of all ages cultivate a sense of self-reliance, confidence and self acceptance.  

For additional cities, please visit www.cassandrasangel.com for more information.

Cassandra’s Angel was written with the intention of igniting and empowering today’s youth.  Via this bus tour, the story comes vividly to life for large audiences across the country so that they can experience, firsthand, the tale’s underlying message and engage in a national conversation about tolerance, compassion and respect.

Along with a 20-city, 20-week national tour for Cassandra’s Angel, Gina is launching her new website, ChangeMyWorldNow.com, a safe, values-aligned, socially-conscious, social network where youth can connect and unite their voices to become local and global thought leaders.

Gina is the Founder & CEO of Gina's Ink, a mission-driven media and entertainment social enterprise designed to create a foundation of self-esteem, leadership, and self-acceptance that empowers children around the world.

Gina’s heroes are the everyday change makers she has encountered. She hopes that the story of Cassandra’s Angel will help both children and adults recognize that each person has a gift and that life is about finding that gift and bringing it forth. She reminds children, living even in the most desolate circumstances, that they have a bright light within them and when they find that bright light they shine for the world.

At age nine, Gina wrote her first book, The Dream, and sent it to Macmillan Publishing.  She received a rejection letter, a box set of the Chronicles of Narnia, and a hand-written note from the President of the company that said, “You are a very good writer…keep at it and someday you will be an author.”  Gina was inspired to keep writing until someone told her no one would publish the scribblings of a child.  She put her writings and her books under the bed for almost twenty years.

Now, a best-selling author, Gina wrote Cassandra’s Angel, a children’s book about the stories we are given from the people in our lives about who they think we are and then dropping those stories so that we can become the who we came here to be.  This modern-day fairytale empowers readers of all ages to find their own “bright light” and shine for the world. Originally published by a small, independent publisher, Cassandra's Angel won several awards and enjoyed record sales. Gina was able to buy her rights back and started her own publishing company, Gina's Ink, in her basement in Denver. With no national marketing, and no national distribution the book went on to sell over 3.5 times what would be considered a national best-seller. Cassandra’s Angel is now slated for national release by Sterling Publishing in October 2011.

Gina worked twelve years in the film, television, and fashion industries working with luminaries at LucasFilm, NBC, CBS, and Viacom. She was filming a commercial in Malibu when she realized she no longer wanted to be part of an industry that used anorexic models to sell diet cola to teenage girls. The next morning she woke up a girls’ advocate. She began speaking to young girls and women across the country to reveal how the media manipulates self-perception. When a full two-thirds of her audience started staying after her talks to share their own experiences, she realized the "story" was about so much more than body image, and Cassandra's Angel was born.

Gina has traveled the world with the book and its message, which has inspired people everywhere to let go of limiting beliefs and find self-acceptance. Gina was invited to speak in Taiwan before 100,000 people on the steps of the presidential palace with Grand Master Hsing Yun and Taiwan’s President Ma to celebrate the Buddha’s birthday. She traveled to Sri Lanka and worked with children in the war zone and with victims of the Tsunami. She visited land mine fields in Sri Lanka and Laos. She traveled to Vietnam and through the Somaly Mam Foundation, while in Cambodia, worked directly with young girls who are victims of the sexual slave trade.

# # #

Barnyard Digital Communications uses digital marketing and communications to create a monetizable business approaches and messaging development with the goal of moving the brand forward.