A book rollout rolls over, ice bucket challenges, and other tales of woe

Coming Attractions has had delays getting up in print and e-platforms other than Kindle, although it's coming soon. There was also a problem with an illness, the details of which I most definitely don't want to share (and I'm getting better).

But it is up on Kindle, and you can read a sample here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KM6JWQC

 These things happen. It's my fault for making premature announcements when I knew I was going on vacation--a virtual guarantee of illness or injury, or both. I went so far as to promise to post an embarrassing photo of me if we sold 100 copies in the first couple of weeks.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks.

I know many of you want to see me be embarrassed. So, in the hopes that we'll have everything set up in the next few days, I've extended that promise.

Never mind the question of whether an author should lure in readers by promising to make fun of himself. I spent years making fun of myself in my humor column--why stop now?

So if we sell a hundred copies of Coming Attractions by January 1st, I'll read one of my own poems online (and trust me, I'm bad at it). In addition, I'll share one or more truly embarrassing pictures of myself. We've been going through photos for a book project, and I've found one of me in my prom tux, and another that was even worse.

And if we make a thousand total sales of all our books between now and the end of the year, I'll do something even better. Or worse. I've been told the ice bucket challenge is so last winter, so if any of you have better ideas, I'm open for suggestion. Or I could just do a book giveaway? What do you think?