Tag Archives: memoir

Apr 2 2014

Win a Free Copy of My Book! No Fooling!

goodreadsI guess it’s fitting that I played an April Fool’s joke about my book, since there’s a chapter in the book dealing with a very notorious (among my friends and family, at least) April Fool’s prank I pulled back in 2004.

To anyone who fell for the Oprah thing I posted yesterday, I’m incredibly flattered that you think the most powerful woman in publishing would have my little old book anywhere on her radar, let alone in her very enthusiastic hands. I sincerely thought the idea (along with the shoddy photoshopping) was too preposterous to reel anyone in. I stand corrected. Furthermore… gotcha!

Of course, if Oprah were involved, I could just sit back and let the royalties wash over me in giant tsunamis of bling. Instead, I’ll be treading the more typical publicity routes… appearances and giveaways!

I’ve already set up appearances in Manhattan, LA and Rochester, with more to be announced soon. Check out my new appearances page for details. If you’ve been reading the blog and you live in one of these areas, I really hope you’ll show up. It’s a great opportunity to buy a copy or ten of my book — or, for those of you on the fence about shelling out the cash, you can listen to me read, be won over and then buy it. It’s win-win!

Now, for the free part… Goodreads is giving away 15 copies of Mommy Man: How I Went From Mild-Mannered Geek to Gay Superdad to nice readers like you. If you’re not on Goodreads, this is a great reason to join, along with the fact that Goodreads is just plain awesome (and yes, FREE!). It’s like Facebook for readers. You can even sign up through your Facebook account rather than fill out a bunch of new forms. Feel free to friend me and/or mark my book “to read” while you’re there.

Once you’re a member, go to this page to sign up for the giveaway. The contest runs through April 21, 2014.

Also, be sure to check out the early reviews of my book on Goodreads. (I know, it’s weird that some people have already read it, but people in publishing and distribution have access to advance copies, and some of them are nice enough to post reviews. I promise those are real, honest reviews from people I’ve never met. Especially the lady who suspects Drew might be a psychopath. Should I be concerned???)

And good luck!

Mar 3 2014

The Big Book Update

mommymanpostcardsIt’s hard to believe my book will be released in just over two months. It was picked up by the publisher early last year, but due to the editing and promotion schedules, the actual books are still a few weeks away from being printed. (That picture above is a box of promotional postcards that came in the mail.)

It’s been a long wait, and I couldn’t be more excited for it to come out so everyone can finally read it. Anyone who enjoys this blog will appreciate the humor and will get to hear a lot more about me and how my family came to be.

As the release date approaches, I expect to be increasingly insufferable with my promotion efforts, both here on the blog and, hopefully, live at a bookstore near you as well. I’ll keep the blog updated with any appearances, and if you do get a chance to come see me, I’d love to meet you. Yes, you!

Next week, I’ll be traveling to San Francisco to speak at the Families Through Surrogacy conference. I’m very honored to have been invited, and I’ll be doing a talk that’s a bit of The 5 People You Meet as a Gay Dad, a bit of What to Expect When You’re Expecting (and Gay), a bunch of new stuff and mostly, lots of cute pictures of my kids, because I know how to shamelessly pander to a crowd.

The entire lineup is great, and it should be very fun and informative for anyone considering surrogacy. If you’re interested, you can register to attend here.

I’m also very excited to announce a reading/signing at one of my absolute favorite book stores in the universe, Book Soup in Los Angeles, on Monday, June 9. If you’re on GoodReads, you can RSVP for the event here.

Thanks again to everyone who twerked their preorder with me, and if you haven’t ordered yet, you can find information and links here. If you prefer to patronize a brick-and-mortar store (and if so, good on ya!), then now’s a great time to check in with your favorite one and make sure they’re ordering it and will have a fresh, shiny new copy waiting for you on release day.

Keep checking back for updates. Or better yet, subscribe, Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads, yadda yadda.

Jul 31 2013

Book Update! And more!

Where Do Gaybies Come From, bookshelf, great books, literatureThere’s some big news concerning my upcoming book, WHERE DO GAYBIES COME FROM (available May 2014 from Taylor Trade Publishing, ahem, plug plug plug). And the news is that it’s no longer called WHERE DO GAYBIES COME FROM.

To be honest, I’ve never loved the word “gayby.” I know what you’re thinking: so why did I name both the blog and then the book WHERE DO GAYBIES COME FROM? Well, it had a clever ring to it. It got people’s attention. It did a reasonable job of explaining what the book was about.

Still, it bugged me, and I finally figured out why. When you come up with a cutesy name for the child of gay parents, it implies that the kid is the one who’s different, that something about having two dads classifies you as some kind of unique species. Worse, it gives my kids’ future bullies ammo to use against them. “Hey, gayby!” “I’m not a gayby!” “Oh yeah? Well your dad said so in his best-selling memoir!”

I understand we’re a non-traditional family, that gay dads are still a relatively small minority, so if there’s some cutesy term that applies to me, I’ll embrace it fully.

But my kids are just kids. I wrote 264 pages (official page count!) explaining how two dudes ended up with two perfectly amazing yet perfectly common human infants, and that’s kind of the point, so why have a title that suggests otherwise?

Also, I know there are plenty of other people who dislike the term “gayby” — because it’s cutesy, because it implies the kids are gay rather than the parents or for the same reason as me. Who needs a title that turns people off?

I briefly flirted with calling the book “Breeders,” even though that term irritates people even more than “gaybies,” but at least it referred to me, not the kids. Then, my editor came up with a much better idea, one that was right under our noses all along.

Announcing my upcoming memoir:

MOMMY MAN: HOW I WENT FROM MILD-MANNERED GEEK TO GAY SUPERDAD

If I have one reservation about this title, it’s that it’s entirely focused on me. Sure, the book is mostly about me, but it’s also also about my amazing partner, Drew, and the two incredible women who helped us become a family. And it’s about the kids, of course, although (spoiler alert!) they make kind of a late appearance.

Just don’t call them “gaybies.”

* * * * *

A couple of other things to report… I did my first podcast! The delightful Karly and DJ at What’s With the Drama invited me to take part in their show about stay-home dads, and we had a really fun chat.

* * * * *

I was also invited by the Daily Post at WordPress to take part in a roundtable for parent bloggers. We had a great conversation about privacy, dealing with criticism and our personal blogging tips. Part 1 of 3 is up now!

* * * * *

Sorry for the repeat image at the top of this post. Until there’s a real cover, this one will have to suffice.

Feb 22 2013

Hey, Everyone! It’s the Greatest, Most Thrilling Post Ever With Huge News! Wow!

Where Do Gaybies Come From, bookshelf, great books, literatureI’ve been hoping for a long time I’d get to write this post. I’m so excited about it that I’m actually going to skip over the rambling, often unrelated intro I sometimes give my posts and just get right to the announcement:

My book sold.

Insane cheers, tears of joy, sigh of relief…

It sold.

Let’s be honest. Until now, calling it a book was a bit of a stretch. Until now, it was really just a very big file on my hard drive. In about a year, though, my book will be a book. A book with a list price and an ISBN and my name on the cover. You will be able to read it, download it, buy an illegal copy for a dollar on the streets of Chinatown, borrow it from the library, burn it, give it no stars on Amazon and/or purchase it in whatever bookstores still exist when it gets released. You may even be able to get sworn in on it on The People’s Court. I’ll have to check on that. In short, all the qualities that qualify something to be termed “a book” will apply to something I wrote.

My book.

To those of you who are newer around here, “my book” is a memoir I’ve been writing for the last few years called WHERE DO GAYBIES COME FROM? It’s about how my boyfriend Drew and I became dads. For the short version of our story, you can read the Modern Love I wrote.

The full version comes out in March 2014. More details here.

This book is not a compilation of blog posts or a bunch of stuff you’ve already read. It’s made up of all-new material, except for maybe a joke or two that I used somewhere else and which was just too good to leave out. It’s a story, with a beginning, a middle and (well, since you already know, I’ll just be honest) a happy ending. I guess you could consider it a prequel to this blog, or alternatively, Mommy Man’s origin story.

I have plenty of time to hype it up over the next year, so I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say I am incredibly proud of my book. If you like this blog, then the book should have just the mix of inappropriate humor and shameless sentimentality you’ve come to recognize as constituting “my thing.”

At the risk of this turning into some unwarranted acceptance speech or of spoiling the acknowledgments section of my book (my book!), I want to thank everyone who visits, comments, subscribes, shares, likes, Diggs, Reddits, pins, stumbles upon, reblogs, emails, freshly presses, puts me on television or just wanders in here through a google image search for angry cat pictures. (Still my #1 referral!) I begged you to do all those things, and you did. Then publishers noticed and determined they could likely get a fair number of you to pony up twenty bucks or so to read my book. The system works!

In other words, brace yourself, because now begins Phase 2, wherein I raise the stakes and ask you to actually pay money to read my writing, (i.e., buy my book). I promise not to do too much of that, but you can expect some hard-core pimping for sure amid the usual pee and poo posts I put up here. Also, if you happen to be Oprah’s niece or Stephen King’s gardener and you can help me slip them an advance preview copy, now’s a good time to make yourself known.

Thanks to Drew and the kids for putting up with all the time Daddy spent neglecting his parental duties writing over the last few years.

Finally, I need to point your attention to the greatest agent I could’ve asked for, Laurie Abkemeier of DeFiore and Company, whose advice, wisdom, editing skill and unflagging dedication to me and to this project made this happen. If you have any interest in publishing or just knowing cool people, you should follow her on Twitter, read her Tumblr and download her Agent Obvious app (it’s free!).

Most of all, just thanks.

Also, thanks.

Thank you.