Or… Hello, South Sandwich.

Some wonderful things have happened to me over the last few years.

I’ve earnt lots of money (if it all goes belly-up I will still be able to order the a la carte menu in my retirement home). I’ve met many people whose work I admire. I’ve been able to write a collection of poetry instead of Christopher Goes to University. And I’ve received a small library of letters, many of which have moved me almost to tears (and few from people who really ought to be under police surveillance).

And then there’s the publicity.

Here’s the paradox. If you sell 500 books only the local paper wants to talk to you, and you do it with gratitude. If you sell 500,000, everyone wants to talk to you and sooner or later, if you are to save your sanity, maintain a happy relationship with your family and get anything else written you have to learn the difficult art of the polite refusal. Indeed, it has often occurred to me that those writers who are infamously bad-tempered and reclusive might be wiser than we think, and are sitting at their desks writing their next novel while I’m talking to the man from Dogs Today. [1]

I must have done six hundred interviews, articles and readings post-Curious. Nearly everyone I met was kind and enthusiastic and welcoming. But after a while the glamour began to wear off.

A sizeable chunk slid off during the brief American paperback tour.

Because I have a profound fear of flying (of which, more later) my very considerate publicist had arranged that I should fly to North Carolina with British Airways (you can say what you like about BA, but I have spent a great deal of time being fed tea, biscuits and reassurance in the galley of an Airbus). There was a flaw in the plan, however. The second leg of the journey, from JFK on, was operated, on behalf of BA, by Sudden Death Travel (or something like that; I forget the actual name). There were thirty seats in the plane. I like my aircraft to feel like an expensive hotel lobby. Spacious, quiet, immobile. This was like being 30,000 feet up on a large tandem. I told the flight attendant that I’d been on three Fear of Flying courses. She said, ‘Don’t say that or you’ll get me started,’ then walked away. I took another 10mg of Valium and gripped the armrests very tightly.

Because of my fear of flying my very considerate publicist had also arranged that once in the States I would travel between cities by train. There was a flaw in this plan, too. On my second night I woke at 2:30 am and was driven into Raleigh Durham for the Washington departure at 4 a.m.. We arrived early and I assured the driver I didn’t mind waiting in the dark. The station master arrived a little later, juggling his keys and saying, wearily, ‘Four hours late’. I asked when the next train was. There was one a day. I sat on a plastic bucket seat and failed to sleep.

The train was five and a half hours late. It made the average Virgin train look like the Royal Yacht Brittania, though the Royal Yacht Brittania probably moved faster. I think the driver may have been pedaling. [2]

If you were in a sleeping compartment (which I was) you had a toilet to yourself. But it was next to the bed. Which was a little disconcerting. Whichever you were using.

I got into Washington late and missed all but one of my events. I did a reading at city centre bookshop, failed to get through to Sos, my wife, on the phone and thought how long it was till I would be at home again, and how getting there would involve risking death, for a second time, in an inferno of twisted steel and burning aviation fuel somewhere over Novia Scotia and it began to dawn on me that this was not my favourite way of spending my time.

Selling books is only one of the reasons for doing publicity. Most authors do it because it’s flattering to be asked and because it seems ungrateful to turn down requests from the people who send you cheques. Some doubtless do it because they want to put off working on their next book. And there are some, I’m sure, who relish time away from their families.

I once asked a film producer why writers did publicity and she answered, without batting an eyelid, ‘I thought it was the opportunity to have sex with strangers’. Which is not really my cup of tea, to be honest. Nor do you get many offers if you write a sensitive crossover novel (or maybe age has taken too heavy a toll). The nearest thing I ever had to an offer was two young women who came to the head the queue after a reading in New York. One of them handed me a copy of Curious Incident and said, coquettishly, ‘My friend wanted you to sign something else’.

Perhaps this is the moment in the film of The Thrilling Life of the Novelist when you add your mobile number to your signature. Or rotate your hotel key fob so that the room number is easily readable. Maybe Irvine Welsh would know. [3]

And here’s the second paradox. The most efficient publicity is done with the least effort. If you talk about your book on television for two minutes, you reach a million people. Do an interview in a national newspaper and a hundred thousand readers hear what you have to say. Visit a bookshop in Cardiff and fifty people come to listen, most of whom have already read the book you’re talking about.

Which is why I’m sitting here with a mug of tea and a bowl of Grape Nuts, and why you’re in an internet café in Oregon, or the Antarctic Survey Unit in the Sandwich Islands, or skiving work in Mumbai.

It’s why I’ll be back again tomorrow morning, and why, in between the two, I’ll have written some of my next book.

[1] I kid you not.
[2] In defence of the American transport network… the following day I took the train between Washington and New York. Because it is aimed at rich people who might otherwise be tempted to fly, the service was sleek, clean and fast.
[3] For legal reasons, I should point out that I know absolutely nothing about the personal life of Irvine Welsh (except, bizarrely, that he has run the London Marathon) and have no solid grounds for believing that he lives anything other than a life of monk-like continence.