The Independent's Rebecca Pearson looks at the ever-increasing clamor for authors scrawling their signature in people's books, and the weird stories that come with the territory. Take Scottish crime writer Christopher Brookymre's strange tale from one time at the Edinburgh Book Festival: I think some of the members of the audience who had come along were a little more staid and polite in their appetites. There was a discussion during the debate where I was being taken to task for the language in my book by this guy. Anyway, after the event, we were in the signing tent and this little octagenarian - if she was a day - lady came up clutching a copy of my book, Boiling a Frog, and she said, in the most terrific clipped tones, 'Would you mind awfully signing this fucking book for me?'"

But as Pearson points out - rather obviously - the signings that attract the most attention are the celebrities (A list and downward) or the big-name authors a la Paulo Coehlo. The rest get scraps - if that, as Little, Brown publicity director Tamsin Barrack explains. "A few years ago, with a science fiction author, I had an audience consist of the bookseller's brother - who rubbed salt in the wound by announcing he wasn't really a fan, so wouldn't buy the book. There's not much you can do in that situation, other than sign all stock in sight and take the author to the nearest pub."