Proper writing, Lev. Not scribbling.

I suppose I'd better buy one then!

Yeah, I was wondering about that the other day.

If you're doing a signing in a shop, the amount of work you are letting yourself in for is just the numbers of hours you're booked to sit there.

But what when signed books are sold online? Are these limited offers, so you won't have to spend the next month signing books ... or, if that many were ordered, would you be so pleased at having sold so many that you'd be perfectly happy to spend a month signing?

These were pre-ordered from one specific online outlet, so the effort required from me was minimal: unpack, sign, repack. About half an hour, all told. SIgnings where you just sit there in the shop for an afternoon are, I think, less frequent these days (it depends on the profile of the author). I’ll be doing talks/interviews in a number of bookshops – more often than not this is just a way of raising the book’s visibility, plus a few sales to the people who come to the event.