Those were simpler, low key times for authors. Back then, in the 1990s and the early half of the new millennium, a book release was nothing to write home about, literally. Publishers – it was a number we could count on one hand, would send out a mandatory mail days before the event, or if they could afford it, in a newsletter that would reach your ‘postal’ address (god knows who uses that service any more) and, if they were media-savvy, you’d be informed about it in an e-mailer a month in advance. That was all.

No releases in bookstores – how many could afford the flashy shindig? More far-fetched would be to hire the services of a PR agency, to create a buzz. It would almost always be a cozy gathering among close family and friends, and if you had many ‘intellectual’ types in the crowd, a reading of a favourite extract would go down nicely as the perfect end to one of the most important days in the writer’s life. Laughter, good wishes and quiet moments of glory did it.