Souey & Me!

IT’s not every day that you’re in competition with a Liverpool, Rangers and Scotland footballing legend but briefly that was the case for me at WHSmith Gyle Books last Saturday!

Things had been going well for #TheStirlingScribbler in Edinburgh and I was up at 50 book sales when the GM, Craig, happened to mention I was second behind the immortal Graeme Souness for sales in the shop’s winter signings and for a moment I felt a brief flush of pride!

The tough-tackling former midfielder and shoot-from-the-lip Sky Sports pundit, Craig informed me, had notched 90 sales a couple of weeks back to hit the top of the charts and as I pushed on into  50 plus territory I harboured a brief hope I might overtake him.

But I was brought back to reality when I was informed that the reason the great Graeme had only managed 90 was that WHSmith had run out of books, with the shop still queued out of the door!

Well that put matters firmly in context and I slung my hook shamefacedly on a not too shabby 56 sale return!

Obviously as an unknown crime author it’s all about ‘the patter’ with me, although as I’ve been touring with WHSmith for a couple of years now it’s nice to start seeing people who have read my books coming along in response to the poster the popular High Street chain always put in their windows advertising their signings.

In fact I had a very interesting conversation with a very nice senorita from Catalonia called Nuria, who cleared up one of life’s great mysteries for me.

It has long puzzled me why in Spanish gracies is sometimes spelt ‘gracies’ and on other occasions ‘gracias’ but Nuria helpfully explained that with an ‘a’ is the Spanish way and with an ‘e’ the Catalan way….now not a lot of people know that!

Anyway what was really pleasing about my trip to Edinburgh was how well the free two chapter taster booklet of my next book ‘The Shadow of Fear’ went down with the capital’s book reading public and if I can do half as well in Paisley tomorrow I will be very happy.

One of the great things about touring with WHSmith is how friendly the staff are.

I usually try and come up with an idea for a silly pic at the end of the signing, if it’s gone well, and Dee, the GM in Paisley, is always up for a laugh, so you never know what we might come up with on Saturday!

Anyway, if you are in Paisley between 11am and 3pmish on Saturday please drop in to WHSmith, where your humble hack will be doing his level best to make sure his ‘unique’ brand of books, banter and baloney, will send you away with a smile on your face!!