I'm not sure when the vogue for authors signing their books in bookshops and at literary festivals began, or when it accelerated into orthodoxy. Sometime in the 1980s perhaps? I have few memories before then of seeing authors hunched at a table in the back of a bookshop, signing books.
When I first saw a writer doing this, I was immediately seized by an unsettling combination of desire, envy and cynicism. What was the point of such a fatuous exercise? Of course authors can sign their own names! And – by the way – can I have three copies inscribed to myself, my wife, and my daughter?
But this relatively modest request masked the genesis of my feeling: it was just dandy having a few signed books, but what I really wanted was to be the author behind the desk, besieged by admirers. I had by this time published a book on Joseph Conrad, but even Blackwell's, that great bastion of the unreadable academic treatise, didn't invite me to a signing session.
No: to do a signing session you have to write something that people want to buy, and thus provide an incentive to the bookshop to lend you a chair and a table, and to provide coffee and a pen. My next book did the trick perfectly, and provided the only occasion on which I have been (or ever will be) No 1 on a Waterstones bestseller list. Woo hoo? Sort of. I was only No 1 in two shops, Leamington Spa and Coventry, reflecting the parochial interest in a book on Coventry City Football Club. But Staying Up was a big hit locally, and I sat and signed hundreds of copies at the two shops. It was an unmitigated pleasure, and I never even used the "Yours truly" salutation you often get – or give – in such situations. No, I had "Play Up Sky Blues!" or better yet, "Sky Blues Shooting to Win!" The latter sounds pathologically unrealistic for a Coventry supporter, but it is a line from our 1987 FA Cup final song (do teams still have these?) and, after all, we did win.
It was only with my next couple of books that I began to see that a signing life is not necessarily a happy one, and that for every few pleasant experiences, there is also likely to be a humiliating one. These humiliations – I have resisted a weaker word – are of various sorts. The worst, probably, is when you perform for an audience at a literary festival, retire afterwards to the signing area, and no one comes. There is plenty of space in front of you for an orderly queue, the same as those for the other authors sprinkled about, signing away. Only no one fills it. You sit there for a time, more in hope than expectation. Check your emails on your iPhone, look at your watch, cruise the internet, look at your watch again. Drink your glass of water. Request a refill. By this time, if they have any human feeling whatsoever, the bookshop manager for the festival will have turned up with a few copies for you to sign for their stock. With pathetic gratitude you sign them with a flourish, announce limply "must get on", and slink away. The other authors, bent on signing, affect not to notice that you have left.
It can be just as bad when people, however few, do turn up. At first I had the usual problems: do you inscribe "To" or "For" the recipient? What do you actually say? "Best wishes" stinks. I often use, instead, "Here at the [for instance] Hay festival," with a date. That will satisfy most of the requests.
What is hideously embarrassing, though, is when you recognise the person who has asked for a signature, but cannot remember their name. They remember yours! You may have been at university together, or taught them 20 years ago, or perhaps been a neighbour four houses back. No doubt encountered each other on thousands of occasions. They know I am Rick Gekoski: that's easy, it says so on the tin. But who the hell are they? I recognise the face, and the assumed familiarity, but my arm is paralysed in its signing muscles.
Questions follow. How are the kids? Have I seen Steve, or Annie, or Little Mavis? How's business? I answer slowly, assuming that the name will come, but the harder I try the more recalcitrant the moniker becomes. I give up.
"How would you like it signed?" I ask, opening the page, and lifting my pen.
"Oh, just to me."
"Remind me how to spell your name, will you?"
"It's Tom!"
"Of course! But I seem to remember it was Thom, with an "h" as in Thom Gunn … "
Curiously, though mildly bemused by this, he will take it as a sign of stupidity or senility, but not as non-recognition. How could you not remember him?
But you can't employ this trick with a Sam, or Bob, or Sue. So then, playing your last desperate card, you compound the problem and ask if they want a full name inscription, hoping they will spell out a long Polish surname.
"That'd be great!"
You now have a choice between staging a fake epileptic seizure, or making a confession.
"For good old Tom with happy memories from Rick!" I hand it over, and look immediately for the next person in the queue. Tom, who probably always thought I was a plonker, is now sure of it.
Anyway, there may not be a next person. I might have had the awful luck to be seated next to some damn luminary or other, who sucks up signees like a black hole. I once was co-speaker at an Oldie magazine literary lunch, at Simpsons on the Strand, with (damn!) Alexander McCall Smith. I like his books, and until then I liked him. The amiable Sandy (as he is known) gave an enjoyable talk, and the lunch audience of 200 deployed themselves in our respective queues. I got six people, and Sandy's queue snaked out of the restaurant, down the stairs and into the Strand, twice round Trafalgar Square, where it was joined by a pair of Bulgarian wrestlers and three supporters of Mitt Romney, all under the impression they were going to get free prime ribs.
I sat behind my table, and interviewed each of my supplicants – at least four of whom were either being charitable or couldn't face the wait for McCall Smith – with regard to their names, children, origins, political opinions, and favourite recipes. I was garrulous, charming if a little desperate, intensely personal. I volunteered information on my family history, how I came to live in England, and why I still (inexplicably) stayed here. Eventually, reluctantly, I signed.
Next to me, McCall Smith, with practised geniality, was working his queue adroitly, never seeming in a rush, happy to be told how much his lady detective of traditional build had captivated his reader, but (I timed him) making his way at about 30 seconds per signature. If I could only get my figure up to 10 minutes, we might come out even. I considered an epileptic attack, to gain time, and sympathy.
But what was really humbling was not the number of my co-signer's fans, but his demeanour in meeting them. Unlike me, slumped behind my table, Sandy stood in front of his. Each person requesting a signature was thus greeted with a handshake, looked directly in the eye, made to feel welcome. It was a wonderful display of thoughtfulness and courtesy, and I resolved, next time I had a signing session, to do it too.
It was in Auckland, and there was a long queue. I stood up manfully, but after a short time, though the queue remained, my book had sold out. They hadn't bought enough copies to service the unexpected multitude. After all, who was I? Alexander McCall Smith?