Over the past several months, I’ve been on book tour promoting my new book, Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance. I’ve done several local events at bookstores and book fairs, and my 4-year-old daughter has attended many of them. She now sees herself as something of an assistant. Her main duties are as follows:
Publicity. She has taken it upon herself to be the person who “hands out books.” Which means that when somebody wants to purchase a book, she hands it to them. It also means that when somebody does NOT want to purchase a book, and is simply browsing the store, she hands it to them anyway. This leaves the person in the awkward position of either having to tell a very earnest 4-year-old, “No, I do not want this book your mommy wrote,” or having to cough up $20. It’s honestly my best marketing strategy.
Autographs. I sign a lot of books when I do readings, and my daughter wants to assist. She just recently learned how to write her name, and she volunteers to scrawl it on anyone and anything. She doesn’t get a lot of takers, but she’s ready — and certain that her autograph will be worth millions someday, backwards “R” and all.
Just the other day, my husband heard her yelling from her room upstairs, “Dad! Can you bring me a Sharpie?”
This is an alarming question to hear from a child of any age, so he went to ask what she needed a Sharpie for. He discovered her sitting happily on the floor of her room, with a stack of 15 fresh, brand-new copies of my book in front of her, all ready for her signature.
These days, I give her a stack of construction paper and a pen, and tell her, “This is what Mommy’s book looks like now!” and let her autograph every sheet until it’s time to go to bed. It’s a hard life, being a famous 4-year-old author, but I think she wears it well.