After worrying that a bad review would hurt his U.S. sales, author Alain de Botton has mounted an historic publicity campaign: spending this week as London’s Heathrow Airport’s writer-in-residence.
According to the NY Times, the author will write and interview passengers during his short stay at the airport this week, and his typed words will appear on a screen behind him. He will also write “A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary” about his experiences, a brief book coming out in September. Earlier this year, the author author left an angry message in the comments section of Caleb Crain’s blog after a harsh review in the NY Times Book Review last week. The author argued that the review would wreck The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work‘s U.S. sales (read more here).
Check it out: “[The author] will stray from his desk to interview passengers, baggage handlers, airline executives and more. Afterward, he will return home to turn his airport reporting into a short book, ‘A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary,’ to be published by the British publisher Profile Books in September.”