I’m uncomfortable asking for favors, and when I’m uncomfortable, I preamble.

I don’t have an RSS feed. Every blog I follow is on my LiveJournal friends list. A couple years back, I had an author on there with a strong, interesting voice and outspoken opinions. We probably wouldn’t have gotten along in real life, but I enjoyed her LJ.

Then she made a post that (paraphrasing) suggested she expected people who were reading her LiveJournal (“for free”) should also buy her novels. I dropped her from my list immediately. See, I’d already read one or two of her books, and I didn’t care for them, but I was very interested in the way she talked about current events.

Anyway, I would never ask anyone reading this to buy my book. If it seems like the kind of thing you’d be interested in and you have the eight bucks, then cool. *I* certainly think it’s worth it, in my completely and thoroughly unbiased opinion, but what else would you expect me to say?

However, I would like to ask a favor (he said, 170-some words later): Today, June 29th, is exactly three months before the publish date of the Child of Fire. I just went over to my public library web site, clicked on the “Purchase Suggestion” link at the bottom of the page and asked them to order the book.

Would you please do the same at your local library?

Many of them have a way for you to do it online, and if you need to find the ISBN or other information, you can get it off Amazon.com at this link.

Every library in the country is scaling back their acquisition budgets, I know, but money is tight for readers, too. I’d love for my book to be available to them. And, of course, I’m a big fan of libraries in general.

Anyway, if you can take a few minutes to put in this request, I’d be grateful. Thanks.