✨ A BEAUTIFUL journalling ritual for 2026 and an invitation to better understand your legacy!
Guest Stack - A hybrid Substack, a journal and some BIG dreams!
Don’t forget there’s a 14 day free trial for Sparkle on Substack if you’d like to join us over the holidays. The community and membership will re-open on Wednesday 7th January. Before then, you can join Russell Nohelty and I over at January Joy(ful) Growth Club with Russell and Claire for daily joyful growth prompts, challenges and advice!
Hello lovelies,
I’ve saved you a LOVELY treat for you reading pleasure this twixmas!
My lovely friend and fellow Substack writer Selina Barker is here to tell us more about her GORGEOUS Goodbye 2025/ Hello 2026 Journal.
I first discovered the journal and Selina’s work on Substack last year and I’m part of her membership here. We recently went live to chat more about big dreams and the magick that comes with visioning out your life - my journal was delivered LIVE on the call - what a moment!
It’s given me accountability to reflect on my dreams, goals and what feels important. I love being part of Selina’s gang! Memberships on Substack are becoming increasingly popular and the model for memberships is a whole different beast to that of a paid newsletter. You’ll find some writers run hybrid type spaces here - you can STAY creative here and do what feels GOOD to you.
We can create books and experiences for our audiences on our terms and Selina is living proof of that. I caught up with her to ask more about this year’s journal as she tackles the ninth year of getting her work out there. It’s going so so well for her and I know you’ll adore hearing about it.
Hi Selina Barker, welcome to Sparkle on Substack I’d love to ask you MORE about your process with the journal… my first question is…
Where did the idea for Goodbye/ Hello Journal come from
I created the first version of the Goodbye/Hello journal sixteen years ago and I created it for me.
That year I had gone after a big dream - I had quit my life in London, to travel around the UK, living and working from a little yellow campervan called Beryl.
As I came to the end of that year, with the adventure over, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. And so I sat down with my notebook and scribbled out a little exercise to help me first reflect back on the year I’d just been through - on all that had happened, all that I’d done and the lessons I’d learnt along the way.
And then, I asked myself a series of questions to help me get clear on what I wanted the following year to be all about, to set an intention for that year and choose which dreams I wanted to go after.
I loved the process so much that I shared it with some of my friends, family and clients and they seemed to love it too. For the next few years I started sharing it more and more and found that people were emailing back from all over the world saying what an impact it had made. A teacher out in Ohio even wrote to tell me she had done it with her high school students. 🥰
And it was having a really profound impact on me too. Taking the time to take a step back and make space at the end of each year to go through this process really started to help me create the life I wanted to be living.
And hearing how it was helping others go after their dreams and design lives they loved got me thinking…what if this exercise became a journal you could hold in your hands, that you could fill in each year. Imagine watching your collection of Goodbye, Hello journals growing over the years, keeping a precious record of the lessons you’d learnt and the dreams you’d gone after…and that was how the dream for these journals began.
I love that story and what’s your favourite thing about creating it?
There is SO much I love about creating this journal. I love that every year I get to collaborate with the designer, Lou Desborough, to come up with a new design.
I enjoy seeing what I can do each year to improve the journal. Even since the first physical journal was launched in 2017, it has evolved, both in physical design and the content. You now get quarterly check-ins to keep you on track throughout the year and last year I included for the first time a ‘Yearly Life Design Plan’ where you can sketch out your plans for the year onto one page. When I used that page myself at the start of this year it prompted me to book a trip to Argentina with my mum to visit our family!
And I enjoy the fact that every year between October and January I get to play a game of seeing how many journals I can sell, what shops I can get it into and how far it can reach across the world. There is always such a lovely buzz around it and I look forward to it every year.
But above all I love the sense of community that has grown up around these journals. Right from the very beginning I’ve been blown away by the support and love people have had for this journal - even when it was just a Word document. I think people can sense when something has been created from the heart and so they respond with such loving support and appreciation, but also the journal really has made a difference to a lot of people’s lives. It has become a much-loved New Year ritual for people all over the world and that for me is priceless. The reviews people leave on Amazon and on my website blow me away every year.
It’s so lovely to get feedback isn’t it. Can you talk through your process of getting it to market?
It has been a long and winding journey, so maybe best I do a quick summary year on year:
2017: We launched the first journal, Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018, with a Kickstarter campaign. My business partner, Vicki Pavitt, took a leap of faith with me, and together, we self-published under our brand Project Love. We hit 150% of our target, sending over a thousand journals to 27 countries (Christmas-time post office queues were intense!).
2018: We released Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019 and got amazing press with the help of our PR friend Jo: a double-page spread in the Evening Standard and mentions in Grazia, Red, The Independent, and Psychologies.
We also, amazingly, got it on shelves at Oliver Bonas - turns out they are a fantastic champion of independent makers. However, we quickly learned most book shops, even independents, wouldn’t carry self-published journals without a main distributor.
2019: We signed with an independent publisher, which meant a smaller advance than self-publishing, but way less workload, no financial risk, and better distribution. Suddenly, people were spotting the journal in shops worldwide! As well as seeing on the shelves of Oliver Bonas again, we also got to see it stocked at the Tate Modern. The publisher also improved its quality with little design tweaks, like thicker paper, spot UV on the cover and fold-in cover flaps.
2020-2022: With the pandemic, the journal vanished from shelves, and all the press coverage came directly from us. While it was a relief having a publisher to handle printing and distribution, it was frustrating to see minimal effort to get it into stores or press, plus they were negotiating smaller advances each year which didn’t feel great.
I also published Burnt Out in 2021 and had another journal published, Goodbye 30s, Hello 40s, but came away from both those experiences feeling disillusioned with the publishing world.
2022: Vicki and I decided to close Project Love, and I carried on with the journal under Project You. Our publisher was bought by a major publishing house, and they offered me a two-book (or rather journal) deal, but for less than what I pay my designer now to design the journal each year. And by then, I was over the publisher-creator relationship. And so I decided to go back to self-publishing the journal, running another Kickstarter to launch it. Goodbye Hello returned to Oliver Bonas online, and I got it featured in the Evening Standard and the Metro.
I used a fulfilment house in Newcastle to post all the journals (as I was going to Venezuela for Christmas) and Squarespace for orders. The Royal Mail strikes made it tricky, but we managed!
2023: I got the journal back into the Tate Modern (and it was even featured as a staff pick!) and back online at Oliver Bonas. I launched a Shopify store so that I could sell directly on Instagram and Facebook and shipped all UK orders myself (I learnt a lot but never again!). My friend in Germany handled European shipments, and I experimented with Amazon sales in the UK and US.
2024: I went for a stretch goal of selling 2000 journals by 7th January and hit that goal ON the 7th January! It was my first year of leaning into selling on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com and it became an Amazon Choice in the UK. I know Amazon has a bad reputation, but it was great having the journal available on Amazon Prime. People say they don’t like buying on Amazon…but they seem to around Christmas!
And an incredible member of my community - Suzie Siddal - offered up her factory to store the journals AND sent out 500 of them out of the goodness of her heart. She taught me what supportive partnership can be like and it inspired me as to the kind of team I want to create going forward.
2025: This year I decided it was time to really go for it and see if I can make the Project You Journals publishing business my full time business. I teamed up with a magazine distributor and the journals have been selling in Barnes and Noble and WHSmith. And Oliver Bonas had it on their shelves in stores all over the country. I invested for the first time in advertising on Instagram and Facebook and wow, it has really worked. I’ve sold more so far in December than I sold in total last year.
But this year has not been without it’s dramas. I had hired a marketing agency to run the ads, but had to fire them just before Black Friday, but then found the most amazing Meta ads expert - Catherine Sinclair from Vibing Social
Then just before we were about to enter into peak selling time Amazon.co.uk lost 800 of my journals. But I have to say they jumped into action when they found out it was my ONLY selling window and they found them again.
What I’ve learnt from these dramas though is that rather than finding them stressful, I seem to enjoy rising to the challenge. And that has confirmed that this is a business I could really enjoy running full time. And so I am determined to make it work.
But no matter what, I am fully committed to creating the Goodbye Hello journals until the day I die. And like to think they will carry on after I’m gone.
Next year will be the Goodbye, Hello’s 10-year anniversary and I’m so excited to celebrate that. But I’m also picturing myself celebrating the 25th Anniversary and 50th Anniversary of the journals. By then people will need entire book shelves to house their GH journal collections - and what collections those will be - documenting the lives they lived, the lessons they learned and the dreams they went after, year after year.
Wow what a journey! I love how dedicated you’ve been to finding ways to make it work. Does it link with your Substack publication, if so how?
My Substack publication is Another Way with Selina Barker - which is the name of the official Project You podcast and every Monday I post a freshly-made Pep-Talk episode to give people a dose of inspiration and motivation to kickstart their week.
It’s also where my membership lives - currently called the Another Way club, but that’s changing soon to the Project You Club, with some new tiers to the membership coming in 2026…so watch this space!
Everyone go support Selina Barker - she’s has a Substack featured publication and is just the most wonderful human!
Last question, what are you hoping for in your creative life in 2026!
Well, I haven’t filled out my ‘Goodbye 2025, Hello 2026’ journal yet so I don’t know! Honestly, often it’s only as I fill out my journal that my dreams for the following year really become clear.
But I know 2026 is going to be a year dedicated to growing the Project You Journals business and I cannot wait. But first…I need a break - to rest, restore my energy and fill my cup back up. So that will be my immediate focus as I step into 2026…and then the adventure will begin!
Thank you so so much Selina for sharing your inspiring process, your heart and your success with us!!
Incase you missed it…
I usually only email once a week now but I post here multiple times and include everything in round ups. You’ll find everything you might have missed here in the archive.
It’s a pick and mix adventure here at Sparkle on Substack - you can pick and choose what feels good to you. My whole publication is an INVITATION for your most creative self. There are resources for beginners, creative expressionists and business owners. If you are brand new to Substack - start here -
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I’m SO excited to tell you that 12 Chapters Club is BACK for another year… come join us and let’s write books!!
From the archive….
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Beautiful - I've blocked out time this week to take myself off to a cafe and create in mine xo