Alison Flood must be ruing the day she decided to take this week, of all weeks, as holiday – for if ever there was a press release with her name on it, then this is it. "Could you find your face on Stephen King's new book?" asks the missive from Hodder. "To celebrate the publication of The Wind Through the Keyhole, the hotly anticipated new episode in Stephen King's fantasy series The Dark Tower, we're inviting you to help make literary history; lucky entrants will have their faces featured on the back of the jacket artwork!!!" (my exclamation marks).
Would it be wrong to send in a photo of Stephen's biggest fan in her absence? Either way, should you number yourself among his many admirers, here's your heads-up – all you have to do, apparently, is "upload your photo via this facebook app". Hodder can't, it confesses, guarantee that everyone's photo will make it onto the cover, but they promise to "contact you when the jacket is ready so you can see if your face is featured, and if you've been lucky, you can share your pixels of fame with friends and family!" (their exclamation mark).
I am not, myself, a King-ophile (a too-early encounter with Carrie scared me straight) but wouldn't say no to seeing my face (or at least a tiny, ideally blurry version of it) on the cover of, for example, Alice Munro's new collection of short stories, or indeed the sainted Jilly Cooper's next doorstopper. So if you're reading, either of you, hello! here I am, clutching my passport pic. And if you don't fancy me on the cover, no matter: just stick me in the acknowledgments; I'm not fussy.
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