Yesterday I took part in a panel discussion at the London Book Fair.

It was for a masterclass entitled How to Get Published and my fellow panellists were the literary agent Carol Blake, Hodder publisher Mark Booth and award-winning novelists Lionel Shriver and Meg Rosoff.

Several hundred people came, and it ended up being a very sparky and interesting two hours.

It had been a couple of years since I’d taken part in an event of that size so I was pretty nervous as I arrived at Earl’s Court.

Although four of my books have been published by mainstream publishers (including Hodder) I knew I had been invited to talk about the rise of self-publishing and my decision to self publish my last two books and as such would be somewhat of an outsider on the panel. I also knew that this would mean a fair amount of verbal sparring between myself and some of my fellow panellists.

What I hadn’t bargained for however, was that I would almost be banned from entering the book fair because of my footwear!

Picture the scene (here’s a photo to help you)…

London Book Fair Sandal Scandal

I’m walking up to Earl’s Court thinking, holy crap I’m about to talk in front of 500 people in there, when suddenly a steward came running over to me shouting, ‘Are you here for the book fair?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

She pointed at my shoes with her walkie talkie. ‘Well I’m sorry, you can’t go in wearing those.’

I looked down at my sandals in shock. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ I asked, baffled. Was London Book Fair so exclusive that they even employed their very own literary fashion police? Should I have worn some black buckled affair a la Will Shakespeare?

‘No open-toed shoes allowed,’ she explained.

‘But it’s sunny,’ was all I could think of in reply. ‘And I have to go in – I’m one of the guest speakers.

She looked at me and frowned. Then got on her walkie talke. Then came off her walkie talkie and asked to see my paperwork.

At this point I started looking around for the candid camera. Surely this had to be some kind of wind-up? But apparently not.

My mind started going into over-drive. How was I going to explain to the organisers that the reason for my no-show was that I like wearing sandals when it gets warm?!

‘I don’t have any paperwork,’ I replied. ‘I was asked to come and take part in the panel discussion at 11am.’

Some builders who were having a smoking break on an adjacent wall started staring at my offending sandals and chuckling – just what you need when you’re trying to remain calm and confident.

I took a deep breath. ‘Why can’t I wear open-toed shoes to the book fair?’ I asked her.

‘Because it’s a building site,’ came her somewhat baffling reply.

Right. So I had been asked to take part in a literary discussion in a building site. Could the morning really get any more surreal?!

‘But I’m taking part in a talk,’ I bleated.

She frowned. ‘Oh hang on a minute. You must be in the conference centre,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Oh that’s fine. Go ahead.’

‘What?’

‘Go ahead. Follow the building round to the left.’

‘Yes I know. That’s where I was going before you came over!’

‘Good-o,’ she said, walking away.

‘Thanks!’ I replied.

It all worked out fine in the end.

I got into the building. I held my own in the discussion. And I was intrigued to witness the negativity and arrogance coming from certain quarters.

But most importantly, I came away more convinced than ever that the advances in self-publishing and internet marketing are the best things to have happened to writers. If yesterday’s discussion is anything to go by I’d say the cliquey and closed shop traditional publishing world is a rapidly dying beast.