Thursday afternoon sees me in Waterstones in Bradford, a cathedral of books slumbering beneath the vaulted ceiling that echoes with the industrial ghosts of the city's past. Or some such nonsense.

"Don't panic," says Jane from Waterstones. I hadn't intended panicking at all, but looking around at the distinct lack of copies of my new book I do begin to feel my anxiety levels rising somewhat.

I am due in Waterstones tomorrow, Saturday September 13, where I will be behaving in an authorly fashion, reading from and talking about my new book, Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon, which is freshly-minted. There will be cake and coffee (in fact, cake, coffee and a copy of the book for the knock-down price of a tenner, which given the book costs £7.99 is about the fairest deal you'll get in Bradford this weekend). It promises to be all rather splendid.

The splendidness could be railroaded, however, by the distinct lack of books. Jane explains the shipment has not arrived today as expected but the wholesalers have promised that crates of lovely books will be available at Waterstones before the event.

"Are you sure?" I ask Jane. "I was going to write about it in my column, but might we have to cancel..?"

"It will go ahead," promises Jane. "The books will be here."

The event starts at 5.30pm on Saturday (tomorrow if you're reading this in the paper, two weeks ago if you've only just stumbled across this column on the internet) and you should probably come along, if rip-roaring adventure with dinosaurs, airships and steam-powered cyborgs is your thing.

If for some reason you can't - though I can't imagine what would be a better use of an hour on Saturday afternoon, I promise you'll be home in time for Doctor Who - I'll be talking about the book and doing readings at the new City Library in the City Park the following Saturday, September 20. That's at 2pm, so you'll definitely get home for Doctor Who. You'll be able to come along and see some footy in the afternoon, too.

The books will definitely be there for the Library event, which is free. Well, the privilege of seeing me yakking on is free, they'll probably charge you for a book. I'll even deface it for you with my signature and a note proclaiming you to be my best pal ever, if you like.

I did a book signing at Waterstones some years ago, which was slightly embarrassing as I'd been left with a pile of stock to put my signature on and a security guard accosted me and thought I was defacing random books.

I didn't try the "don't you know who I am?" routine on him, because he wouldn't have. Fortunately, one of the staff came over in time to stop me being thrown out.

That hopefully won't happen on Saturday - well, it definitely won't happen if there are no books. But Jane, and I, am confident there will be. Even if there aren't, please do come along anyway... they'll have plenty of stocks of coffee and cake.