Friends, I’m entering the weird world of the Book Giveaway, which is a small and theoretically habitable planet in the Book Promotion system. Here’s how I got there:

I have a novel, The Divorce Diet, coming out on December 30, and the publisher just sent me a box of advance reader copies, also called uncorrected proofs. I know they’re uncorrected because the bio shaves twenty years off the time I lived in Minnesota.

Having gloated over them for as long as I decently can, I’m ready to offer one to half a dozen people who promise to post a review online somewhere—preferably on a site people actually read. Goodreads or BookLikes accept early reviews (or so I’m told); Amazon and Barnes & Noble (again, I’m told) don’t accept reviews until a book’s been published, but if you’re more organized than I am you can wait and post it on New Year’s Eve. Early on New Year’s Eve, before you get too happy. Hey, do I know how to celebrate or what? If you have a blog yourself and want to review it there, that would also be great. It doesn’t even have to be a good review, just an honest one. Of course I want everyone everywhere to fall in love with the book, but that’s one of the many things I can’t control. I’ll be grateful for any visibility you can give it.

So here’s what you do if you want one: Before October 5, send me your email address as a comment. I won’t publish it, just set it aside, so that if you win I can contact you to ask for your mailing address. If more than half a dozen people want one, I’ll use the high-tech approach and toss the names into a hat.

The publisher also sent me a stack of covers and I have no idea what to do with them. Anyone want to dozen or more? They’d make the perfect placemats for, I don’t know, a divorce party or something.