I'm not doing too many public events this year and <a href="http://fearthenextpage.blogspot.com/2010/03/meeting-david-hewson.html" target="_blank">when I read things like this</a> I almost feel glad. It's an account of the final event <a href="http://www.anncleeves.com/" target="_blank">Ann Cleeves</a> and I did in the north east last month, the seventh in three days, during which we met hundreds of people, all of whom I found very charming I must say.

The real reason I'm cutting down on events this year is because I want to focus more on writing. Going out and meeting the public is time-consuming, expensive and, let's be frank, probably doesn't shift as many books as we’d like to think. I do it primarily because it's fun and often enlightening for me, particularly in the company of someone like Ann.

Obviously it wasn't for this chap much, or at least that’s how I read it. I thought we did some quite entertaining events, particularly the one that this refers to (if I got it right). But this chap thought I was 'dry, downbeat and a bit crusty... and very ill at ease.' That's not how I remember it, and given I've already been invited back by the library in question I suspect it's not the way they do either.

But leaving me aside let me make one important point for authors out there who brave the public at events.

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In the old days these were personal, almost private matters. You could tell a slightly risque story or anecdote without fear that it would go any further. You could be frank and forthright in a way you wouldn't in an interview on the BBC.

Not any more. We now have the Internet. Every word you utter may be written down, perhaps misreported then put online for anyone who's interested to see and pass on. People will record you, even video you then publish the results without ever asking permission. I was once alarmed to see a blogger make references to an author he'd seen having dinner with an attractive young lady -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Don't suppose it mattered to the blogger concerned in the slightest that the chap happened to be married, and for all I know was just doing that -- having dinner with someone.

I've always loved the anonymity of being an author, the fact that even the biggest names in the business can walk down the street and never be recognised. We're losing that. No point in arguing. But there are lessons to be learnt here, and one is you have to watch your lip in public, however small the event, because any slip may well come back to haunt you on the web somewhere. It's a great shame really but thanks to the web that intimacy we once had at events has gone. Or you enjoy it at your peril.

As for the author of this odd post I can only say... sorry I disappointed you. My work is my writing, not legging it up to the north east to talk to public gatherings, pleasant as that is. I'm not a salesman, a marketeer, or a public relations man and I make no apologies for any of that. &nbsp;And I'm equally sorry that, among the hundreds of books I signed up there, I didn't spot the obscure humour in the message you asked me to write or have time, at a very busy public meeting, to discuss a comic about a chimp.&nbsp;

Very remiss of me.