If you pre-order my next book “Talking To Animals,” from Battenkill Books, you  will get a free bright blue and white tote-bag (above) celebrating the independent bookstore. I will also sign and personalize the book in any way you wish (within  reason). Some people will also get a photo postcard from the farm and a few will get one of Maria’s potholders for free.

We will have a lot of tote-bags in stock.

I smile when I write this.

My life is full of ironies.

Even a decade ago, the idea that I would be giving free stuff away as an incentive to buy my book would have seemed outrageous, I would have been horrified. Best-selling authors did not need to give stuff away to get people to buy their book.

Now, I put the red panties on and dance in the two square.

As publishing has turned into a Darwinian kind of cultural Hunger Games, here I am, hustling tote-bags and post cards and signatures like a street hustler in Times Square.

And I have to say, I like it. I love fighting for my own stuff, and the writer who won’t do that may not be a writer for long. A few years ago, after the Great Recession, my divorce, and the collapse of traditional publishing, I thought I was finished as a writer. I am not, my 19th hardcover book is coming out in May,  I will soon have a contract for my 20th. I am just getting started.

Lots of people benefit when you pre-order a writer’s book in this way:

-You support the  resurgent and precious independent bookstore, you cast a vote for individuality, community and creativity.

-These days, even small sales mean a lot to writers. Publishers don’t do much promotion anymore, and most book critics are gone from newspapers and magazines. Authors are on their own, and I am looking to have more than 2,500 pre-orders for Talking To Animals before the book even comes out in May of 2017.

This will be a significant number to the publisher, who would probably print more copies, which means more sales. This kind of promotion matters. And authors are on their own.

I am counting on my blog and Facebook audience to drive this book and get it launched. Hopefully, the content will do the rest. The book describes my 15 years of research and experience talking to animals and listening to them, it also recounts the stories of the animals who have shaped my life and calls for a new way of understanding animals and keeping them in our world.

In the new world of the writer,  I am out in the trenches, where I belong. I mean to be relevant for a good long while, and independent bookstores are proving every day that they be intimate and useful and help preserve a diversity styles and the best kinds  of books.

Battenkill Books is my local bookstore, a beautiful bookstore in a small community. These sales mean a lot to Connie Brooks, who has done a brilliant job of keeping her store profitable and closely tied to our community. The people at the store are incredibly nice and highly efficient. They take Paypal and credit cards, you can buy the book online or call the store at 518 677 2515.

I hope to sell more than 2,500 copies of Talking To Animals in just this way. Maybe wheedle a book tour of the publisher as well.

When Winston Churchill was 22, he decided he would be Prime Minister of England one day,  and he predicted that he would one day save his country. My ambitions are not so grad, and I am not as confident, but I believe Talking To sxnimals will be my most successful book in a long while.

So if you’re interested, go here, and thanks. And special thanks to Connie Brooks for working so hard on my  behalf and on behalf of many other writers. The tote bag offer applies to people who have already pre-ordered the book as well as those who will in the future.