Having a book launch at a bookshop is very common and tends to follow a familiar script: a crowd assembles, hemmed in by mountains of printed titles at every corner. Then it’s a case of musical chairs – there are never enough of them, so you have to factor in the probability of standing up for the duration of the one-hour-plus event.
Sometimes there are nibbles – cheese and wine, biscuits and cupcakes – but otherwise the rundown is the same: a host poised to interview the chuffed but slightly stressed writer, a scattering of questions from the audience and everyone clapping politely before exiting with their signed copy.
