Richard Butchins's Blog: Angels stand corrected... - Posts Tagged "fame"

Once upon a time I met Pete Townshend from the Who. He played an acoustic gig at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford to launch a exhibition by a friend of his. There were about 50 people present and he played some of his famous songs. It was an amazing event to be present at. After he finished the show a friend and I walked him and his girlfriend to his car because he couldn't remember exactly where he had parked it - we located the car - a fabulous Jaguar sports car.

He opened the doors to the car which had only tiny little seats in the back. I went to put his guitar in the back and he stopped me and told his girlfriend to get in the back because he wanted to strap the guitar in the front passenger seat. She had to climb into the back - the guitar took the passenger seat. In they clambered and drove away. I was left thinking that it was pointed that the guitar got the front seat and the person was put in the cramped back seat.

Presumably they drove all the way to London like that. I was not impressed. To tell the truth I have never been impressed by the famous and the great when I have met them (and I have met a lot of them) they always let you down - it's the human condition I suppose.

So, I have a book and I am not a celebrity. This is a problem, according to my publisher, you can't get an audience in this inattentive and noisy internet age unless you have celebrity status of some kind - or at least celebrity endorsements.

"Go and get some celebrities to read the book and say nice things about it."

"Er, I don't really know any celebrities. I mean I am on nodding terms with some and acquainted with some people that work for celebrities from time to time. But to ask them to read a 200 page book is pushing it some."

"Hmmm, well you know ------- ask him to read it he's a very well known author."

"He will be busy authoring and not have time to read books by people he is related to, let alone weirdo's like me."

Nevertheless I sent famous author a copy. It's probably still on a table with 1278 other books for his attention. It's not that I think he won't want to read it, but that he can't, there's not enough hours in his lifetime to get to it.

So, what to do? I believe that I have written a book that deals with some important and difficult issues. It is a very different take on the subject and the voice is unique. Well, of course I think that....I nearly died in order to write it, what else would I think?

Anyway, the celeb route isn't really working out. Funny because I am currently co-writing a celebrity biography for a large publishing house in London. Turns out there are lots of types of celeb and all these are the wrong type for my work. I need to try and create an audience so I am going to publish extracts from the book on this blog - and keep doing so until you all pay attention or I run out of book, whichever comes first. I will not publish the extracts in order and I'll keep the really good bits back.

I'll do another giveaway (I don't know how Goodreads selects the winners of these?) and I'll also offer review copies to people for free after I have published a few extracts, if anyone expresses an interest - I think that's allowed by the site but I'm not entirely sure.

So that's it. My answer to not being a celebrity.... Not much but well, it'll have to do for now.

Oh, I'm on twitter at @PavementNovel