There is a rule in fiction publishing. Publishers should never encourage their authors to meet each other. It can only end in unionisation, jealousy, and collegiate authorial carping. We broke the rule last night at the Savile Club (although we were in a slightly less palatial room than this one).

The event was a Society of Bookmen (yes, bookmen not bookpersons) dinner where the guest speaker was Brian Martin, the author of North. He spoke about the problems of finding a publisher when your work might not fit into a currently popular genre. He was one of the first (if not the first) authors in the Macmillan New Writing series, a project for which we received a significant roasting from established literary commentators.

The project was, of course, a risk but not as risky as having five of its authors at the same dinner. Somehow we survived.

A little while ago I reprinted an interview from the excellent journal for publishers, vendors and librarians, Against the Grain. I've just received the printed copy and it looks great but more importantly the issue is full of fasinating and entertaining articles. Here is just one example - an alphabetical fable about Article and Book (aka Ant and Bee) meeting Google written by Margaret Landesman of the Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

My route to work this morning took me past one of the great bookshops of the world, Hatchards, which has managed to retain (and enhance) its identity in spite of ownership changes and varying corporate philosophies. Hooray.

I was surprised to be told by a reader yesterday that one of the Google ads which appeared here was for a product to fight insomnia. I'd have thought that the blog itself would suffice.

And the Otto Preminger story the other day reminded an old friend of the wonderful Dorothy Parker line:

"The two best words in the English language:Check Enclosed".