Connie Brooks sorting through the orders for “Going Home.”

Pub Date. We’re off. I think I’m going to make the point on the book tour that while it’s very sad to lose an animal we love, it doesn’t have to be depressing or miserable to talk about it.  I do not intend to be depressing or miserable on the book tour, not about losing animals or anything else. Going for helpful and informative instead. There are enough people lining up to share news of the end of the world.

One of the bright spots of “Going Home”, even before it is officially published, is Connie Brooks and her gambit. The first of three huge shipments of books arrived at the Battenkill Bookstore yesterday and I signed a bunch. More tomorrow and over the weekend. This is bigger than either of us thought. Connie and I are each embarking on our own gambit.

I bet that writing, books and story-telling thrives in the coming years, and she is betting that a combination of personal service, smart use of technology, and connection with community and writers will help her reinvent the independent bookstore. She is well underway. She is not only taking orders for signed and personalized books, she is going to give three of the people who call to pre-order 518 677-2515 – free books. We will choose the winners this week (the woman whose family dog died this week while her husband was in Afghanistan definitely gets a free book).

I love Connie’s gambit, for a number of reasons.

– America is becoming a Corporate Nation, where big business sometimes seems to be the only entity that is protected and thriving. Individuals have a right to exist – from farmers, to pharmacists to artists and independent bookstore owners. Connie’s survival is our survival, all of us who want to shape our own lives, live our dreams, pursue the American opportunity to change our lives.

– Independent bookstores, like libraries and Post Offices are critical to our culture. We get to talk to people about books, see the books, touch them. E-books are a good and valuable addition to the publishing spectrum, but I would prefer a world in which human creative contact is possible. It is important. Connie knows me as a person an as a writer,and she knows her customers as well. That is a critical element in the creative life of a community or a writer.

– Connie (and her mother) is worthy. She is brave, determined, honest, a mother, wife and businessperson. She is taking the plunge, starting an independent bookstore in the middle of so many publishing changes and a nasty recession. Unlike me, Connie is shy and quiet. She does not make a lot of noise for herself, at least not until this week. This may be changing.

And this is important too. Connie has already sold more than 400 of my books, before “Going Home” was even published. (She is taking orders for signed copies of all of my books, past and future.)  That’s pretty impressive. And I plan on writing a lot more, as do other local authors. I have the feeling we might help turn a tide.

So feel free to join Connie’s Gambit, and celebrate individuality and my publication date by ordering signed, personalized copies of “Going Home,” the book and the video. And support  Connie’s Gambit. It adds a wonderful dimension to publication of “Going Home.” This is our gambit too. 518 677-2515.

Tonight: 7 p.m., Barnes & Noble, Colonie, N.Y. (Albany) Book tour kicks off with talk and signing.

Around noon I’ll be stopping by the Saratoga Barnes & Noble, as is my tradition, to sign some books.