Given the success of books based on blogs – most notably the Belle de Jour series of autobiographies – it seems unsurprising that publishers should look to the latest ‘micro-blogging’ phenomenon, Twitter, as a source of new material. Twitter allows its users to ‘tweet’ up to 140 characters in one burst; it is the perfect medium for the witty bon mot, but it also encourages people to share the most banal details (‘just opening a jar of marmalade’, etc).

Popular with celebrities (particularly those with low impulse-control such as Lily Allen, Jim Carrey and Demi Moore’s husband Ashton Kutcher), it also allows nonentities to build up enormous followings. One of these nonentities is Justin Halpern, who has been rewarded for gaining a million followers with a book