Books by committee

Working Partners, a company that uses teams of editors and writers to create series fiction for children, is moving into the grown-ups market, reports Brandon Robshaw in The Independent.

Like it or not, this appears to be the future of commercial fiction. It's linked with the growing professionalism of writing, a trend that has seen degree courses in creative writing mushrooming in universities all over the country, with the Open University joining in last year.What is wrong with giving the reading public what it wants? Working Partners isn't perverting or corrupting public taste, but providing well-crafted, popular commercial fiction.