I was looking up the details of a book for older children on amazon, which is handy for all the facts and figures, and I then trawled down to the reviews of said book. I don`t rate all amazon reviews by any means and I think they need to keep a more careful check on them but they can be helpful.. I have more often been put on by an enthusiastic review from a reader on there than I have been put off by a bad one.

The reviews for this book are all bad, so all-bad that I think it really must be the book not the one-sided reviewers. But I came upon one  which I copy below, and which makes me despair about the paranoia of some would-be but so far unsuccessful writers. We have all heard that it isn`t what you write it is who you know, who you`re married to, de blah de blah which will get your book to the attention of/taken on by an agent/publisher. It`s always rubbish and we are all saying so constantly but the belief that you can only get published if you have 'contacts' will never go away.

This one though was pretty laughable. Read it carefully, you aspiring writers in order to understand that what you have to do to get published by a smart firm is, ahem,  know  PERSONALLY one of their retired employees. So cultivate those men in the packing room at HarperCollins, buy that Random House receptionist lunch, give a lift to that chef in the canteen at Canongate, so that the nano-second they retire you can hand them your so-far failed manuscript and Bob will be your uncle.

If it were not so depressing it would be hilarious. It`s probably both.