I remember just a few years back when my book tours were very different. They usually began with a national NPR interview – Fresh Air, Diane Rehm – which catapulted the book to the top of the bestseller lists and that kicked of a two or three week national book tour – Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Dayton or Columbus Ohio. In each city, there would be newspaper features and TV interview leading up to and promoting big evening readings at great bookstores with huge crowds, long lines of book signings.

Newspapers don’t review books much anymore, many of those bookstores are gone, and Fresh Air’s guest today was Anjelica Houston. Books have been pushed farther to the perimeter of our culture, even as more people are reading them all the time. The new writer has to go where his readers are, and they are online. This is not a lament, it is an opportunity. I make my own news for my book. The world changes, I will change with it.  But I had a good and interesting day. I was interviewed by Connie Brooks of Battenkill Books on Book Talk Nation a new book innovation between bookstores and the Author’s Guild. More online reviews – good ones, and some not so good. This is not a corporate blog, you get the good and the bad here.

I changed my idea of a book tour this year,  to accept the reality of the new publishing world – even NPR shows mostly interview movie and TV stars and there are fewer bookstores and even fewer book reviewers. I decided to ask Random House to let me use my blog and Facebook and other new media technologies to construct my own book tour. My agent supported this move, and so did Random House. They are helping me with social media promotions and publicity – otherwise, I am on my own.  I have lunch at the Round House cafe, not four-star restaurants, and it feels good, it feels like me.

No limos, room service, luxury hotels, media escorts. I do miss the great Thai restaurants and seafood.  I realized today that I was so busy giving stuff away – free dog food, free books, photos, Maria’s potholders – that I had really  talked very little about the book itself, and I don’t want the meaning of the book to get lost in all of the self-driven digital touring that I’m doing. Connie Brooks has shipped more than 700 books, a couple of hundred more are arriving this week, I am determined to get to 1,000 books sold at Battenkill Books and beyond. (You can call the store at 518 677-2515.) We are doing some innovative stuff on my Facebook page – real-time reviews, video and image story-sharing. And it is working, the book is in a second printing, people seem to be loving it in a very exciting way. I hope for a third printing before Christmas.

But I want to talk about the themes in the book this week on the new book tour, not just ways to buy it or inducements to sell it. The theme is resonating with the first wave of readers, I am hearing from them in great numbers. Our media and political culture gives us too little reason to be hopeful about our work, our love, our lives. Aging is mostly portrayed as a horrifically expensive medical entitlement. We do not see images of encouragement anywhere in our culture, and this is both discouraging and disturbing. Love, like death, is rarely discussed or represented in what is called the news.

In a way, my life with Maria is about second chances – for me, for her, for Frieda. It is also about having faith and finding love. You’ve all seen photos me, if I, at age 61, could find someone like Maria right across the street from me in a remote town with more cows that people, then anyone can find love anywhere. You just have to be open to it, and I had a loveless life before I opened to love, and when I was ready, it was right under my nose. This is not to say finding it is simple or easy, but you will never in your life see a story on the corporate news about older people who find love, there are too many people getting shot, too many houses burning down, too many politicians arguing and posturing.

I vowed to myself that I would not again lead a loveless life, that is a promise I will keep. As Frieda, Maria and I move into our lives together, I am so happy to relay a story with a happy ending. We are all living our lives in love and meaning, we got where we wanted to be. That is the message of “Second Chance Dogs.” Yes, I hope everyone buys it, sure I want to sell a lot of books,, but I am much closer to the end of my life than the beginning, and more than anything I want to touch people’s  hearts and show them the light and color and love that exists in the world. That is what “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story”  is about, and I need to make sure that message does not get lost in my determination to make the radical transition to the new life of the writer and the reader.