Gretchen Reis, MD, has spent her career helping patients find freedom from the kind of stress that shows up not just as a feeling, but as a physical reality. Trained in both Family Medicine and Integrative Medicine, Gretchen founded Integrity Wellness MD in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she and her team take a whole-person approach—combining nutrition, healthy lifestyle habits, bioidentical hormones, and supplements to help patients achieve optimal health.
Her book, From Chronically Stressed to Fully Blessed: A Faith-Filled Functional Medicine Approach to Breaking Free from Stress and Overwhelm, is a natural extension of that mission. It’s a resource for the woman who has tried to push through or ignore her stress only to discover it never fully goes away. Gretchen challenges the way we’ve always viewed stress and invites readers to see it differently: as something that can actually strengthen them and draw them closer to God’s purpose for their lives.
We are grateful Gretchen chose our team to help bring this important message to life, and it is a project that challenged and stretched us in great ways, from start to finish.
About This Recent Project
Manuscript Edits & Formatting
Gretchen came to us in a unique position. She had previously worked with another individual on edits and design for this manuscript, but that relationship was not able to reach completion. That meant our team needed to start fresh, stepping in to complete our own thorough editorial pass and create an entirely new design from the ground up.
Danielle led the copy and line editing phase for the manuscript. Her work focused on refining flow and clarity, smoothing readability, and ensuring consistency throughout, all while honoring Gretchen’s voice as a physician and a person of faith. Because Gretchen’s writing weaves together medical expertise, biblical truth, and personal narrative, Danielle worked carefully to preserve the balance and integrity of each of those threads.
Following Danielle’s editorial pass, Randi completed the final proofread and formatted the clean manuscript for our designer. The attention to detail in the proofread phase ensures the file passed to design is clean, consistent, and publication-ready.
Cover and Interior Design & Typesetting
This project gave Nelly, our book designer, the opportunity to create something completely fresh and distinctly Gretchen. With no previous design direction to carry forward, Nelly had the creative freedom to develop a cover that would authentically represent the heart of this book, and she delivered beautifully.
Nelly developed several cover concepts for Gretchen’s review, and the chosen direction reflects the dual nature of the book itself: the heaviness of chronic stress paired with the lightness and hope that comes through faith. The final cover features a breathtaking golden-hour landscape—a sunlit meadow, a lone wooden bench, and a backdrop of pine forest and mountain ridgeline. The color palette of creams, golds, deep greens, and soft earth tones is both grounding and hopeful, a visual representation of exactly the peace this book invites its readers into.
The title typography is equally intentional, balancing an elegant handwritten script with a bold, commanding serif. The subtitle is set in a lighter, clean serif at the base of the cover, giving the full title room to breathe.
Milena completed the post-design proof of the finished files, reviewing both the interior and cover with care before they were approved for upload. The result is a book that is polished and visually worthy of the message it carries.
Publishing & Optimization
We formatted and published From Chronically Stressed to Fully Blessed for both IngramSpark and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, making it available in print, eBook, and audiobook formats to ensure readers can access it however they prefer.
As part of our standard publishing process, Sara, our publishing strategist, conducted comprehensive metadata and market research to position the book for maximum discoverability. She selected categories and keywords for both KDP and IngramSpark that reflect how Gretchen’s ideal reader actually searches across topics like Christian living, functional medicine, stress management, and faith-based personal growth. Sara also crafted an optimized product description and author bio for the Amazon product listing and Author Central profile, ensuring that every element of Gretchen’s presence on the platform reflects both her credentials and her heart.
Mandy implemented Sara’s research and created the product listings on both platforms, ensuring all print and eBook files were properly uploaded, approved, and optimized for smooth distribution. The book is registered under the Market Refined Publishing imprint, with ISBNs for print, digital, and audiobook editions, as well as a Library of Congress Control Number.
Website Design
This project included a single-page website designed specifically for the book and its launch. Hallie designed an on-brand, single-page WordPress site for From Chronically Stressed to Fully Blessed that gives readers a dedicated destination for the book, complete with an email list signup integration for Gretchen to begin building her launch audience.
Mandy handled the development and technical setup, ensuring the site was fully functional, properly hosted, and ready to support Gretchen’s promotional efforts through launch and beyond.
Digital Assets & Content Calendar
To equip Gretchen for a strong launch and sustained post-launch momentum, Randi created a full digital assets package and coordinating content calendar. The package includes a variety of social media promotional graphics, book scene placement graphics, branded social media cover images for Facebook and Instagram, pull quotes, and suggested social media prompts for Gretchen to repurpose now and in the months ahead.
The content calendar maps out a clear pre-launch, launch, and post-launch strategy, giving Gretchen a practical roadmap for sharing her message consistently across her platforms.
We also added Gretchen’s release to the Market Refined Publishing campaign portal, so her launch has additional visibility beyond her own platforms.
What Gretchen had to say…
“Y’all are amazingly talented! Thanks for working with me on this. It’s always hard to keep medical explanations understandable, and even harder to depict them graphically but the book is great!”
Services Included in this Project
- Copy and line edits, final proofread, and formatting for design
- Book cover and interior design, formatting, and typesetting for IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing (Print, eBook, and Audiobook)
- Metadata, category, and keyword research for IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing
- Marketing copy for the product listing and author bio
- Product(s) and author profile setup and optimization for Amazon Author Central
- Market Refined Publishing imprint, ISBNs, and Library of Congress registration
- Single-page WordPress website design with email list integration
- Digital assets package and content calendar
Team Members Involved
Randi Avant
Nelly Murariu
Danielle Raymond
Mandy Roberson
Milena Ulrich
Sara Ward
Hallie Woodham
Find out more about these ladies and the rest of the team here at MRM: Meet the Team
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