If there’s one thing I’ll never fail to procrastinate about, it’s promoting my books. I mean, I worked really hard on them, I’m super proud of them, and I wrote them hoping lots of people would enjoy them. But taking that step to say, “Please buy them” just feels kind of, y’know, icky.

Promotion is the writers’ equivalent of a root canal, a tax audit, or sitting through a marathon of all 97 Transformers movies back to back. I would do just about anything short of colluding with Russia to get around it.

So I’ll make this quick.

Maddie – loves fairy tales, can’t stand her stepbrother

My books are coming out, and I think you’re going to love them. They’re fun, irreverent twists on four beloved fairy tales, with lots of humor and heart. They’re great for kids and fun for parents who like to read to kids. They answer questions like “What if the glass slipper fit one of the wicked stepsisters before Cinderella got a chance to try it on?”, “What if Belle wasn’t beautiful?” and “What if the seven dwarfs were kick-butt karate masters?” You can read more about them here.

Obviously, I’d love to see them sell a bunch of copies. Then, hopefully my publisher would order more books in the series and I’d get to spend even more time with these characters I’ve grown to love. So that’s my pitch.

Um… please buy them?

Since there are four books, you can take your pick! Cinderella, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, Snow White. Buy whichever one is your favorite fairy tale, and you’ll see how Maddie and Holden mess it up and then try to fix it. (If you want to read them in order, Cinderella is book 1, but reading them in order isn’t essential.) Check one out and see if you like it — or heck, just grab all four at once! That’s a great idea, too! (Ick.)

Have I convinced you?

Well, wait! Don’t do it yet!

Holden – can’t stand fairy tales, loves driving his stepsister nuts

Here’s the thing: if everyone who’s planning to buy one or more My Rotten Stepbrother books does so at roughly the same time, they’ll make a much bigger splash. They’ll rank higher and get more attention, which could lead to more people discovering them. I did this with my memoir Mommy Man, and it made a huge difference. Thanks to all you awesome readers and followers, that book went to #1 in its category, #2 on Amazon’s Movers & Shakers chart and #260 overall. (That’s right. It was in the top 300 of every single book on Amazon!)

So I’m asking you to do me a huge favor. If you’re going to buy one or more of the My Rotten Stepbrother books, please do it as close to 12pm on their release day, August 1st, as you can.

If Amazon is your preferred vendor, then do it there. But if you like to support brick and mortar stores or another online retailer, then please stick with them. Anyone who sells books in 2017 is OK by me. Or buy the eBook if that’s what you prefer. Those are great, too. FYI a fuller list of vendors and links to their My Rotten Stepbrother pages can be found here.

And of course, if you’re coming to one of my events, I’d love for you to wait and buy the book(s) in person so I can sign them and support the stores that are hosting me.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017. 12pm your time, wherever that is. Or as close as possible to then as you can manage.

Mark your calendar, follow my tweets or leave a comment below if you’d like to be reminded by email.

OK, thanks for listening to my shameless sales pitch. See, that wasn’t so painful after all. And I did it without any help from the Kremlin. Yay me.

(Ick.)