On the Woadshow

When The Prestige was published in hardback in 1995, I was invited to join a “roadshow” by the publishers, Simon & Schuster. This involved a small group of writers (about four of us), and a host of publicists, sales people, marketing people, and so on, flying from one provincial city to another to promote S&S’s autumn releases. I dimly remember Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester — perhaps there were other places too. The whole thing finished in London. At each venue, the sales team made a promotional pitch to people who worked at the local bookstores, using posters, slideshows, verbal presentations.

Copies of the books were everywhere on hand, the food and wine were plentiful, we were treated well. It was what I recognized as a fairly typical book-trade jaunt: it sounded better beforehand than the reality turned out to be, with the nervy, slightly self-mocking speeches, the faintly embarrassed attempts at bravado-selling, the repeated jokes, the polite applause from the bookshop buyers who had been tempted out for the evening, and their doubtful glances between themselves afterwards. I saw precious first-edition copies of The Prestige being handed out freely (and in some cases quietly left behind afterwards), and although it was impossible to have a bad time while this sort of thing was going on, I couldn’t help feeling my long and rather sombre novel was a bit out of place amongst the celebrity memoirs, the chick-lit, the stories of humorous travels.

The roadshow ended in London, where Simon & Schuster had taken over for the evening a large restaurant close to Trafalgar Square. The launch was well attended – most of S&S’s London staff turned out, and of course the multiple bookstores in London had sent along their buying staff. The place was crowded, the mood was good. S&S had even booked a television celebrity to launch the event: Jonathan Ross. Excitement and anticipation were palpable.

Mr Ross was late turning up. The drinks went round a second time. The canapes started to run out. The sales executives were looking worried, then a bit frantic. Someone went off and made a phonecall. Drinks went round again. The carefully created atmosphere of bookish amiability began to feel slightly frayed. The sales executives were sweaty. Then someone said a message had been received: Mr Ross was on his way!

Ten minutes later, Mr Ross arrived. He burst sensationally through the main door of the restaurant, ran through the waiting crowd and leapt on top of a table. He started shouting. He was sorry he was late, but hey, something funny had happened that day! He told the story, which was funny about someone else and didn’t involve Simon & Schuster’s books, or their writers, or their autumn list. Everyone laughed politely. Getting into his stride, Mr Ross told more jokes: about his wife (who had written a book based on The X-Files for S&S), about his television programme, about his own lamentable lack of time for reading. Most of his fun was made at other people’s expense. He barely paused for breath. His voice filled the room. He went on for ages.

He came over as someone who was clearly sharp-witted and intelligent, but his manner was sleazy, tacky, uninterested in anyone but himself. His interest in books in general was token, and seemed to exist only as an opportunity to make more jokes.

Even while I was writing this recollection I heard that in an almost unprecedented display of good taste, Mr Ross has withdrawn from the worldcon Hugo ceremony, which was of course what all this was about. Good. Nothing more to add.