There is loads of advice “out there” about how to write a bestselling book. There are even articles and books that tell you how to write a book even if you can’t write or don’t want to.

For example, you could hire someone through a freelancers website to carry out the research for your chosen topic, and then pay them (or someone else) to write it for you. Thus you could “write” a dozen books in the space of a few weeks without having to type a single word.

Alternatively, you could decide to act responsibly towards potential buyers and readers, and produce the best work you can. Hopefully, it will still make you some money, though possibly more slowly. If not, perhaps it will enhance your reputation and work prospects. Even if neither of those happy outcomes materialise, you will at least have the satisfaction of having been true to yourself.

I was thinking about authorial responsibility recently when I chanced upon a book on my bookshelf. It’s a book of spiritual advice and guidance, in which each chapter discusses a passage from the Bible and relates it to modern life.

Now, this book was published nearly 60 years ago. I bought it over 30 years ago. The author has been dead for 20 years. Yet I still found the book interesting, and potentially useful.

Had he been alive today, I daresay the author could have outsourced the research for the Bible passages, and then written — or paid someone to write — some accompanying words.

But I doubt whether anyone in 6 months’ time, let alone 60 years’ time, would bother to read it.

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