ONCE upon a time, you knew where you were with a book signing. There would be a table, a chair, an author, and with luck, a queue. No-one would feel shortchanged if that was all there was.
No longer. Next Saturday, don't even dream of turning up a
t the first signing of The Mighty Book of Boosh at Zaavi in Glasgow's Buchanan Street unless you've got your ticket.
And it's not as though you're just going to get Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt smiling politely and scribbling their monikers behind the desk. Oh no. There'll be Naboo, Bollo and Bob Fossil too. There'll be live musicians, "Boosh Babies" spreading the word in a "Booshed-up" camper van, and fans dressed up as their favourite Boosh characters. And not just in one bookshop, but in 80, the length and breadth of this glorious nation, all gleefully signing copies of the book that Canongate confidently expect will be a bestseller by Christmas.
SIGNING WITH STRANGERS
THEN again, consider what Christopher Brookmyre is up to on Tuesday in Edinburgh. Again it's a book signing, but not as we know it. Again, it's ticketed – £6 each, which seems a bit steep in these credit-crunched times to pay for the privilege of seeing the famous satirist and St Mirren fan smile politely and sign his name on a copy of his new book, A Snowball in Hell, especially as you'll already have paid £16.99 to buy it.
But wait. There's more. For your £6 at The Liquid Room (Victoria Street, 7:30pm) you also get the chance to see singer-songwriter Billy Franks, playing a live set in Scotland for the first time in 20 years.
Billy who? Exactly. He's admired by Oasis and Peter Gabriel. Bono's hailed him as an influence on his songwriting. In the mid-1980s, his band, the Faith Brothers, opened for U2, and shared the bill with REM. Mainstream success, has, however, eluded him – although Brookmyre's books quote liberally from his lyrics, and two Faith Brothers' tracks have provided him with titles (Country of the Blind and – with a slight twist – The Sacred Art of Stealing).
... BUT STRANGER STILL
SIGNING can, however, be a bloodsport. At one legendary booksigning in Seattle, Stephen King's fingers began to crack and bleed. At which point, the fans decided it would be altogether more interesting if he gave up using ink and signed in his own blood. He did too. Even without tickets.
The full article contains 417 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
