Half price TV legends brought to book

I write books. So far I've 21 to my name - on a variety of subjects. I say this not to boast but as a precursor to what I am about to write so you will understand and hopefully forgive my bitterness.

I was in my local Smiths a summer or two back when I overheard a man say to his wife, "I wish I was a writer. They must make so much money." I didn't disillusion him. My first book was published when I was 24 and my most recent appeared in 2010. My advances have ranged from three figures to low five figures (very low).

It irks me therefore to see publishers splashing out huge advances on celebrity autobiographies when one, the celebrities don't actually write the books and two, the publishers can never hope to recoup their outlay. I popped into my local Waterstones about two hours ago and there on the shelves are books "by" Lee Evans, Rob Brydon, James Corden, Jason Manford, Peter Kay, Steve Coogan, Simon Mayo, Noel Fielding and a good number more. These books all had one thing in common - each and everyone bore a sticker that read "Half Price".

About three months ago, Smiths had a delivery of a palletload of books about the talentless boyband One Direction. There are two piles of the books, next to the sports section, and each pile is about four feet high. Three months ago, the pile was four feet high. This morning the pile was four feet high.

In the Winter 2012 edition of The Author, the magazine of The Society of Authors the biographer Roger Lewis bemoans the lack of critical faculties in the media and publishing. He points out that he was hired as a television critic for a national newspaper only for the editor to emasculate his work.

Some celebrities can write - Paul O'Grady for one but most take the money, hire a ghost and run. I'm still struck by the memory of Sharon Osbourne going to Leicester, I think, to sign copies of "her" novel and getting caught in a traffic jam. She apologised to the crowd for being late and proceeded to sign her name in a book that she hadn't written.

There is, of course, nothing new in this. Jordan doesn't write her books and if the stories are to be believed doesn't read them either. Naomi Campbell neither wrote nor read Swan yet her name appeared on the cover. Don't these celebrities have any shame? Do they not feel at least a little embarrassed signing a book that they had very little to do with, apart from putting their name on the cover. We know Coco Chanel didn't actually mix the perfumes herself but she did draw the designs for her LBDs, which is more than Victoria Beckham, another "author", does for "her" overpriced frocks.

So what is to be done? Well, publishers will continue to churn out celebrity pap but at least cut the advances so that proper authors can get a slice of the cake. How many real books could have been published, marketed and sold with the money wasted on the books bearing the names of Lee Evans, Rob Brydon, James Corden, Peter Kay, Steve Coogan, James Manford, Simon Mayo and Noel Fielding? It's not even as if they need the money...