To write for money is surely a purer motive than writing for praise, prizes or therapy: who but a blockhead could think otherwise? Celia Brayfield, the editor who reputedly suggested the notorious goldfish scene in Shirley Conan’s first blockbuster, has written four doorstoppers, of which Pearl has sold over a million. Bestseller comes a year after her magisterial trashing review of How to Write a Blockbuster in The Author, and is written, therefore, with authority.

This is not, it must be said, the work of a modest writer: ‘My agent remembers what the publisher said when she got the outline [of Pearls|: “This is the best synopsis I’ve ever read – Celia is a genius.” Chunks of Bestseller are preoccupied with reminding us what this genius wrote, but, sad to relate, every extract from her own fiction looks thuddingly uninspired. However, the rest is witty, shrewd and sufficiently well organised to make Bestseller worth having. It is written with gusto, focusing particularly on snotty intellectuals who believe novels should be preoccupied exclusively with language. At several points, indeed, you may want to punch the air and shout, ‘Good on yer, Celia!’, for who is not now thoroughly incensed by authors who do not bother to construct a plot or do so with contemptuous inadequacy?

Brayfield’s examples range from Empire of the Sun to Scruples, and are deployed with a good grasp of detail, covering everything from characters’ names to writing a selling outline. She claims that storytelling is a way of explaining the world emotionally rather than analytically, which seems disputable – surely stories are above all analogical? – and explores the deep structure of plot in a manner that owes much to Joseph Campbell and Robert McKee. Some of the best chapters in Bestseller concern the heroic journey, internal or external, made by the central character; although this is a template to be used with caution, there are few authors, popular or literary, who would not benefit from being reminded of it.

There are two particularly engaging facets to Bestseller. One is that Brayfield emphasises the need for writers to respect their readers (when have you ever heard a Booker winner thank those invisible thousands who kept the wolf from the door?). The other is Brayfield’s awareness of the fact that most people who write fiction are not only deeply selfish and unpleasant but mad. This cannot be said too often and Brayfield has salutary words for those who believe the world to be in conspiracy against them, even before their novels are reviewed.

What this book does not and cannot address are the bestsellers to which one returns despite their difficult styles, clotted plots or unattractive covers, with deepening understanding and gratitude. We all love well-written stories when ill, tired or on holiday. But the great bestsellers do not comfort, they cauterise. They will continue to sell by the million when all that Brayfield writes of is pulp, and they are, I’m afraid, invariably written by blockheads.