Diary
Michael Winner on picking out a Birthday present for Andrew Lloyd-Webber
Other than illicitly recording phone conversations with government officials and others, I’ve been out flogging my book, Michael Winner’s Fat Pig Diet. This is a diet like no other. You can eat chocolate cake, ice-cream, anything, only eat less. I’ve lost three and a half stone and kept it off. Being not so much an A-list celebrity, more a Z-list celebrity, turning up for book signings is a hit-and-miss affair. Some are massively attended. Some not. The dopiest was when I was sent to Brent Cross shopping centre on a Friday evening. This is the time that Jewish people, who largely inhabit that area, start their sabbath with a special dinner and prayers. So we only sold 20 books in an hour. I desperately tried to encourage giggling girls, Asian families, anyone, to buy. The bookstore manager said, ‘You know, Mr Winner, the most successful signing we ever had, we didn’t sell one single book while the author was here.’ ‘How could that be a success?’ I asked. ‘The author signed 250 copies of stock and they all went in the following two weeks,’ was the reply. There’s a saying in the book trade, ‘A book signed is a book sold.’ Since hearing that I’ve been rushing round signing anything, Jeffrey Archer, Enid Blyton, Proust. Wha’do I care!
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