shaking hands, kissing babies

My publicist (that sounds weird) suggested, along with a couple of other things, that I make business cards for book promotion purposes, and that I start giving them out to everyone I know, have known, or will ever know. That seems a little grassroots in These Modern Times (or possibly borderline inappropriate--I'm not going to do that anywhere near work or the hospital for instance, because that's freaky), but the act of making the cards seemed easy enough. So I did.

(I made them on Qoop, by the way--seemed like a good service, and they make full-color two-sided cards, which is nice. I wasn't in love with the idea of having a black-on-one-side-red-on-the-other business card, because it feels a little bit Third Reich, but their choices of background colors are limited, and it matches the colors on the book cover, at least.)

I do wish I had that gene that makes schmoozing total strangers easy instead of enervating (let's call it the Bill Clinton gene) but it's something that I'm going to have to work on. One other thing that my publicist wants me to do in advance of the book publication is to work on an article (something like an opinion piece or an Op-Ed) that we could try to submit and hopefully get published right around the book publication date. She told me about this, by the way, the day before I read Amy Chua's "Chinese Mother" article in the WSJ, which is why 75% of my reaction to that particular article has been, Oh my God, that woman is a genius, because everyone on the freaking planet is talking about her and her book right now.

I don't think that my book has as much built-in potential to inflame (nor would inflammation necessarily be my goal--in general I am an anti-inflammatory), but it can't hurt to pick a topic that people want to talk about. Certain hoary old chestnuts are probably played out, or at least I know I'm sick of reading about them (the whole working mom thing, for one) but if there's any topic that either directly or peripherally relates to the book or this blog that you feel that people would be interested to read about in a more conventional periodical setting (think: newspaper, magazine, morning program, NPR) I would love some outside input on what people Out There In The World are generally interested in reading/hearing/talking/arguing about. Look at me, asking what real people are interested in, just like a robot who longs to be a man. What does it feel like to have emotions? What is this human concept called you call "love"?

(Also, if you know me and want a pile of these business cards, just ask, because I am probably going to be too embarrassed to actually distribute them. Maybe I should just leave them scattered all over the sidewalks and phone booths in Midtown, like those porno flyers.)