I’ve just noticed a new feature on Amazon:

“Tag this book for Amazon search.”

It’s a way of telling Amazon, “When people search for a certain phrase, this book should come up in the results.”

So–just to pick a random example–suppose you feel that people who read Harry Potter might also enjoy reading The Government Manual for New Wizards. Yet you know that hundreds of millions of people read the former who have never heard of the latter. Night after night, you lie awake, worrying about the millions of poor lost souls who will never know the simple joy of buying one of my books.

Now that The Government Manual for New Pirates is shipping, I have a few requests for my friends. (And by “friends,” I mean “anybody who is willing to help me sell books.” If Mahmoud Ahmandinejad gives me a good review on Amazon.com, then by God, he counts as well.)

1. If you’ve read New PIrates and enjoyed it, write up a little review of it at its webpage on Amazon and/or the online retailer of your choice. This doesn’t have to be long or detailed–just a few sentences so that anybody browsing the page will know that other folks have read and enjoyed the book.

I just got my author’s copies of The Government Manual for New Pirates. This means that you should be able to get your hooks on a copy yourself, any day now.

I’m pleased to see that Amazon.com now has the newly designed cover in its listing for The Government Manual for New Pirates. Our publishers’ design team outdid themselves this time. Of the three books Matthew and I have written, Pirates has our favorite cover.

The inside of the book looks great, too, but for now, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Matthew and I will be on the radio tonight at 6:10PM EST talking about one of our books. Probably The Government Manual for New Wizards, but possibly The Government Manual for New Pirates.
Residents of Uniontown, PA, can hear us by tuning their AM dial to 590. Everybody else can listen in online.

So what have I been up to lately?

Well, for one thing:

Aye, landlubber, you guessed aright. No longer will wizards and superheroes be the only hard-working professionals who can refer to official Government Manuals, because The Government Manual for New Pirates will be hitting the shelves in April 2007. Covering such vital topics as rum, eyepatches, rum, wenches, rum, wenches serving rum, and rum bottles with labels featuring eyepatch-wearing wenches serving rum, The Government Manual for New Pirates is a must-have for every swashbuckling ne’er-do-well.

I’ve uploaded two of my short films to revver.com:

• You’re A Good Man, Charlie Kane”–a standalone excerpt from my mock-documentary about a musical version of Citizen Kane.
• Joe’s First Day In Boston, which may be the most thrilling short film ever made about a guy waiting for a traffic light to change.

Why Revver, you might ask, rather than Google video or Youtube? Because Revver actually shares their revenues with content creators. Every time somebody watches my films all the way through and clicks on the ad at the end, I get a little money. My films have only been up for 24 hours, and already I’ve made 30 cents. At this rate, I’ll make enough to bankroll a feature-length film in… let’s see here… 456 years. Sundance, here I come!

A friend reports getting the following e-mail from Amazon:

We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased The Government Manual for New Superheroes by Matthew David Brozik also purchased books by Christopher Behrens. For this reason, you might like to know that Christopher Behrens’s Penis Pokey is now available . You can order your copy by following the link below.

Penis Pokey
Christopher Behrens
Price: $9.95
(June 1, 2006)

The Bureau of Superheroics ad is now up at YouTube. Please view it and vote for it. Heck, vote for it without viewing it. We won’t mind.