new and stimulating authors (a point Winterson conspicuously dodged when questioned on it at Hay), it becomes ever more important to seek out the books of interest not the people behind them who may or may not be scintillating raconteurs or pin-up models.

Equally we should not find ourselves caught up in the character-assassination of authors' past and the devaluation of their works based on spurious accusations about their private thoughts or behaviour - Orwell and Wodehouse becomes obvious examples, attracting respective allegations of Communist snitching and Nazi collaboration. In each case, if you look more deeply the real truth becomes evident, but the inaccurate but interesting lie replaces the mundane truth every time. Even if the allegations were wholly true, then what these two men might have done does not diminish the quality of their works. It may alter our perception of them as people, but their books stand alone to be judged. There was Eric Arthur Blair the man, and there was George Orwell the writer. They were not always the same people.

Knowing what people are 'really' like is often a disappointment. By reading a number of books by an author, we build up a relationship with them. We construct an image of this person, of how they might react to situations or people, and what they might truly believe beneath the artifices of fiction. Then we read that interview with them, and our illusion is bent out of shape. Our personal relationship nurtured through all those pages is compromised. We should be happy or unhappy with all the George Orwells on their literary merits, and let all the Eric Arthur Blairs get on with their lives.

A famous name can be a disadvantage in another way: there is always a camp waiting gleefully for that big name to stumble, to fall past their peak, to commit the ultimate literary crime of writing a book 'not as good as their last one'. This is just as misguided as disproportionate lionisation or a hatchet-job approach. Of course reputations have to be constantly reassessed, but sometimes it might at least be polite to let those concerned die first before writing them off on the strength of one book. If you think I'm exaggerating, just look what happened to Thomas Hardy after Jude the Obscure: he was so stung by criticism of the book that he never wrote fiction again.

Perhaps all Hardy needed was a better agent or publicist. Perhaps he would have been forgiven for Jude if he could have landed an interview in GQ or Marie Claire with a nice photo-spread. Soon thought, not even this sort of thing is going to be enough to keep an author's head above the fame parapet. As the currency of celebrity (the 'U-Know' perhaps) is constantly devalued by the hyper-inflation of fame that gave us Maureen from Driving School and Hear'Say [those from outside the UK, you don't know these people, but that's probably for the best anyway - Ed.], canny publicists are going to have to get more from their authors than the occasional book signing if they want to see the maximum returns. There is nothing inherently interesting about the process of writing: writers just sit in their garrets (or nicely decorated studies) tapping away at a computer screen. It just isn't show-biz enough. They will have to be given new pursuits: daytime quiz shows, or a Playboy centrefold perhaps?

It is not so quietly whispered in the publishing world that what gets you published these days is looks. That is not to say that talent doesn't count, but faced with two approximately equal talents, the pretty one has it all in their favour. But even looks aside, it is about selling the author. Publishers do not publish books; they invest in authors that they hope will become nicely fattened cash cows (while sustaining their good looks, of course). That is why you can't move in Waterstones for copies of White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Not because it is 1000% better than the other books there, but because simple maths tells publisher they can make more money out of over-marketing ten authors than equally marketing a hundred. And White Teeth is widely regarded as a quality novel. Put crudely, a lot of the other supermarket stack is second-rate shtick dressed in the shiny clothes of fashion or hand-me-down fame.

To return to that red carpet, Cannes followed quickly by Hay did lay out a strange irony: of the principle players in the process of making a movie, the writer is often treated as the least important one. Certainly, he is the least famous. The movie system has obscene amounts of fame built into its very nature, but it is as if there just isn't enough to go all the way around. The consolation is the money. The average first advance for a literary novel is around five thousand pounds. If a writer takes his fairly standard two