ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SOLD

Here's another myth / misconception about being published: Publication Day. Well, no, the day isn't a myth. But that idea that it's all glittery is.

Today, for example, is the Publication Day for Wasted. Do you hear any trumpets? Did I receive flowers and champagne? Am I either relaxing in splendid luxury or tearing round the country signing books for my adoring fans? Both of them.

No. (Well, I don't think so, but I am writing this in advance and you never know...)

I am spending the morning presenting prizes at the Pushkin Awards - a creative writing competition for Scottish and Russian schools. I was one of the judges, and I was incredibly impressed by the standard of entries. Then I'm hopping on a train to London at lunch-time, in order to be there on Tuesday morning to make tea for the persons from Pickfords who will be moving our furniture into our new London flat. (The persons from Pickfords are a little like the person from Porlock: they stop writers from writing.)

But on the train I must be writing, because the last few weeks have been shockingly useless for that. Not only have we been up to our eyes in Pickfords people (having moved house four weeks ago, as Stage One), but I've been evicted from my study by my daughter who has been staying with us, which is obviously lovely, but the new Edinburgh flat doesn't have enough rooms for all four of us so I have had to work at the kitchen table, which rather often seems to have tomato pips on it. Plus, there've been eleventymillion workmen of all sorts trying to fix problems.

What is my point and why the title about glittery things? My first point is that there are moments in a writer's life which should have trumpets and glitter but don't. And there are moments of pleasure which come when you least expect them. Like any life, really?

My moments of pleasure in the last couple of weeks have come from the quite exceptional response to Wasted from all those who have made a public comment about it, including on Amazon (unless something negative has gone up since I last looked!) I have never had such reactions before and I am beginning to dare to hope that this might be a word of mouth success. My publishers say there's a real buzz and they are daring to be excited too. A happy state for an author, let me tell you. Our careers are very fragile and we really need our publishers to believe in us and our books. One day, probably soon, I will blog in more detail about the fragility of author-publisher relationships.

Wasted is the sort of book which cannot really be marketed or thrust at its very savvy target marget. It's a book which stands or falls by one thing: reader reaction. You can't have publishers going round saying a book is brilliant and expect clever people to believe it. But when readers of all sorts and all ages start to talk and recommend a book, that's where the power lies.

Vanessa Robertson, the owner of the Edinburgh Bookshop and The Children's Bookshop, said on Twitter that if Wasted didn't win awards and sell in quantities, there was no justice. That's a lovely thought. Thing is - and this is my second point - in writing as in life, justice is often a scarce commodity.

After all, if there was any justice, I'd be drinking champagne and being pampered today. Not on a train trying to get some writing done before welcoming Mr Pickford for the fourth time in a month...

You know it yourselves: books that should sell and do well often don't. And vice-versa. Many of you are good enough to be published, and yet you haven't been - yet, and I'm trying to help you.

If you want to know more about Wasted and follow its progress while seeing some of the behind-the-scenes facts, do hop over to the Wasted blog, where we are discussing everything from quantum physics and philosophy, to risk, luck and cats.

Now, I have a big request for you. Pretty please. If you read Wasted, and if you like it, would you tell people about it? I will be so grateful for anything you can do, however small. I really need this book to work, and there is more riding on this than you can imagine. Wasted is a risky book; it could have bombed; it still could. I put myself on the line to write the book I believed in with as much faith as I could find, and now I'm asking for help.

Your help.

Because if this book does well, the champagne's on me.

Not literally.

Off to buy biscuits for Mr Pickford.