Well, just ask PR guru Mark Borkowski, who appears at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this afternoon to promote his book, The Fame Formula: How Hollywood's Fixers, Fakers and Star Makers Created the Celebrity Industry.

But be warned – there is a dark side that comes with public adoration. Just ask Jade Goody.

As head of Borkowski PR, the publicist knows more than most about the fame game. And so he should, he comes with an impressive pedigree having looked after everyone from Eddie Izzard to Noel Edmonds, Van Morrison to Joan Rivers and Macaulay Culkin to Sir Cliff Richard. His other clients have included The Bolshoi Ballet, Cirque du Soleil, the Three Tenors, and a trio of Michaels – Jackson, Flatley and Moore.

He has even represented former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev and football legend Diego Maradona.

"I've become more inter-ested in fame since working in this industry, although I'm more interested in the legacy of publicists rather than fame itself," he admits.

"As people have become more and more obsessed with understanding fame, I wanted to plot the path that publicists have played in creating celebrities, and in plotting that path I discovered a number of people who had done some interesting stuff."

The Fame Formula documents the bizarre and often amusing stories of the people behind the greatest stars of the last 100 years or so. People who, like Pygmalian's Henry Higgins or X Factor's Simon Cowell, take the rough clay of wanabee stars and turn them into box office gods.

Fame, of course, has become the currency of the 21st century and in his book Borkowski explores the historic roots of this modern phenomenon to reveal how early publicists moulded stars like the sex-mad Clark Gable and the exquisitely troubled Marilyn Monroe into the pop culture icons they have become today.

"One thing I discovered," reveals Borkowski, "is how repetitive the business has been. We think that it is all new and fresh, that the idolatry of icons is the a new thing because of reality TV. Clearly it is not."

Those early ground-breakers not only gave birth to cinematic legends but created Hollywood, and The Fame Formula charts the trials and triumphs, successes and bitter failures of the people who lingered on edges of fame from the beginning of the silver screen.

People like Harry Reichenbach, the first person to spot the potential of Mickey Mouse and to push the images of stars such as Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

And people like Maynard Nottage, who was the first person to fake the disappearances of stars to whip up attention and news coverage.

"What surprised me was the ingenuity and creative ability of these publicists to use the media of the day. Many of the things that we hold up as being ground-breaking and innovative today, certainly existed from their time five generations ago," says Borkowski.

The downside, of course, was that their work also helped create the excesses of ego that lead to Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's trial for rape, William Desmond Taylor's murder and Barbara La Marr's rampant drug addiction gave birth to what is now known as celebrity culture.

"There was much more corruption back then, police and legal officials were paid off. There was huge amount of money around. If someone had Joan Crawford's pornographic film, for example, the publicist might pay the equivalent of $7.5m to by it up. Or if a star has been involved in a hit and run they would pay the person off not to press charges – money talks," says Borkowski.

Other less sinister examples cited in the book include publicist Harry Brand of 20th Century Fox who, eager to deflect attention from Marilyn Monroe's early nude photo-shoot, insisted that this was a woman who would even look good in a potato sack and created a photo shoot with Monroe to prove it. And Warren Cowan, who even took his biggest client, Danny Kaye, on honeymoon with him.

While many of the tricks may be the same, society now is far more cynical and the media less easy to control, as Borkowski acknowledges.
"The media changes and the interesting thing now is how the publicist interacts in trying to control a media that is becoming almost impossible to control. There was naivety in the media and the public of the 1940s, now there is a deep-rooted cynicism as a reaction to that manipulation.

"Today the publicist's job is about striking a position and making people understand what that position is . . . John Leslie is the classic example of somebody who let the media dictate the story instead of interjecting at a certain point. He said in the Guardian fairly recently that he made mistakes not protecting the brand 'moi'.

"In a day when Posh Spice says she is more famous than Persil Automatic we have moved to a point where celebrities see themselves as brands."
So is The Fame Formula merely a case of branding yourself as a product?

No. Borkowski has worked out a mathematical equation for the promotion of fame, but to find out what it is, you will have to buy the book.
However, so confident of the formula's success is the author that one lucky reader of the book will also win the chance to be promoted by Borkowski PR for a year, following the guidelines in the book.
Will they see their star rise above the horizon and stay permanently fixed in the heavenly pantheon?

"What has surprised me is the type of people that have put themselves forward – I was beginning to dread it, thinking that they would all be Big Brother-type wannabes. In fact, some of the people have been very interesting. Charity workers, sportsmen, authors – people who are pretty sellable."

The Fame Formula: How Hollywood's Fixers, Fakers and Star Makers Created the Celebrity Industry is published by Sidgwick & Jackson in hardback, priced £16.99

And the way to find success is . .

The business of making and keeping fame is a tricky one. You need to have talent, even if it is merely a talent for getting noticed. But talent in and of itself is not enough. You need to get that talent noticed. So Mark Borkowski's top eight ways of making yourself famous are:
1) Believe in yourself and in what you do; if you don't believe in yourself, who else is going to?
2) Surround yourself with good people who believe in you, to help with the day to day work. A good publicist, a good lawyer, a good accountant – all these will help you maintain fame.
3) Maintain a strong work ethic – the more you do to help yourself the better.
4) Work out and always remain aware of, your point of difference – what separates you from the crowds of other people who want to be famous.
5) Acquaint yourself with the web – make sure you understand and can use Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and whatever else comes along. Social net-working is an essential tool.
6) Remain true to yourself and keep close to your roots. Never let celebrity eat away at your real life.
7) Be aware of what you do – skeletons in the closet are almost always going to be discovered.
8) Develop a thick skin – you're going to need it.