"My friend, Molly, who lives up Old Church Street, tells me Bloomsbury is preoccupied with it's best selling, money behemoth, Harry Potter, and couldn't care less about its other authors," writes Mrs. M.

Molly, also a Bloomsbury author, says they are no longer interested in promoting authors except Rowling, whose Potter books have sold 400,000,000 copies world wide. The management team at the publishing house want to satisfy the City and shareholders with the on-going success of Potter, which has spawned a £7 billion industry. 'They intend to milk this one until the last drop.' Bloomsbury has had its head turned and is now seeking out other big ticket, non literary, celebrity books, like Take That singer Gary Barlow’s autobiography, for which it paid £1,000,000 advance.

I for one have heard enough about Harry Potter and JK Rowling to last several lifetimes. Here's another story of art being dominated by the boardroom. If Bloomsbury had operated that way in 1997, they never would have taken a chance on Rowlings' book in the first place, and probably would still be a small, relatively unknown publisher.

Bah Humbug!