Like many authors, I include an email address at the end of my books so readers can get in touch to say how much they enjoyed them. That’s the idea, anyway. In fact, the vast majority of reader emails I get are requests for career advice. Take the following, which I received a couple of weeks ago: ‘I recently decided to embark on a little adventure and have moved across the pond to London. I know it is a dreadful time to be looking around for journalism work anywhere, but I was hoping that you might have some suggestions for me on navigating through journalism jobs here in London. I have been on a few interviews so far, but I was thinking that perhaps you might have some tips or ideas for me?’
Asking me questions like that is particularly bizarre given that the titles of my books are How to Lose Friends & Alienate People and the The Sound of No Hands Clapping. The first deals with my failure to make it in New York, the second with my equally disastrous career in Hollywood. I am the Eddie the Eagle of the modern media. You might as well ask Mick Jagger for some ‘tips’ on love and marriage.
The sad truth is that most readers regard authors as a source of free public information who have nothing better to do than respond to queries all day. This, at any rate, is the theory of Laurence Leamer, author of Sons of Camelot: The Fate of an American Dynasty. ‘I’ve written a trilogy on the Kennedys and I’ve become Mr Answer Man,’ he says. ‘There’s the assumption that I am this low-level public servant who sits there responding to all kinds of requests.’
The requests I get aren’t always for ‘ideas’. Some of my correspondents have a very clear sense of what they require from me to advance their careers. ‘I’ve got a cheeky request,’ began one recent email. ‘I’m trying to pitch a restaurant review but have no idea who to contact at the Times, Telegraph or Independent — can you offer any tips?’
Another service authors are expected to provide for free is coming up with blurbs. I can see that it’s slightly churlish to complain about this — the blurbs wouldn’t be worth much if they were paid for — but it’s quite a chore nevertheless. If you’re being conscientious about it, you really have to read the book from cover to cover and some of these tomes are easily several hundred thousand words. It’s hard enough for a literary editor to persuade a writer to read a book he’s being paid to review, but to do it for love? Where do they think we find the time?
In fact, we nearly always do. There’s no great mystery behind why members of the public think authors are happy to give up their time to help them with their fledgling careers — it’s because we are. I don’t think I’ve ever been emailed a question I haven’t responded to. This isn’t because I’m a particularly nice person or feel obliged to ‘give something back’. Rather, it’s an excuse to stop working. Writers are always trying to devise ingenious ways of avoiding putting pen to paper and responding to these queries is just a convenient form of procrastination.
‘I always answer,’ says Laurence Leamer. ‘Every author I have ever known answers the phone the same way — on the first ring. We’re all so desperate for anything to intrude on our solitude and to take us away from that blank screen. Emails do the same thing, and I’m embarrassed to say how quickly I read them.’
Perhaps it’s an exaggeration to claim that all authors are happy to help out budding young wordsmiths. Aged 17, I found myself standing next to Clive James on a motor launch heading to Venice airport. I had just read Unreliable Memoirs which I adored and began peppering him with questions — ‘How do I get an agent?’ — which he did his best to answer. We parted company in the departure lounge, but as I boarded the plane I noticed him sitting in economy with a large pile of books on his lap and an empty seat beside him. I made a beeline for him, but just as I was about to sit down he took the books off his lap and dumped them in the spare seat. The message was clear: Do Not Disturb.
Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.
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