This week's question: Is there a place on the bookshelf for celebrity novels?

AL Kennedy, Martine McCutcheon and John Sutherland debate whether the current spate of publications from the nation's celebrities is a good or bad thing for publishing

AL Kennedy, Martine McCutcheon and John Sutherland
The Observer, Sunday 28 February 2010

Katie Price at the launch of her book Angel Uncovered. Photograph: Zak Hussein/PA

Sharon Osbourne's debut novel, Revenge, hits the shelves this week, while other unlikely personalities lining up to publish works of fiction in 2010 include Ross Kemp, Coleen Nolan and Fern Britton, who is writing a story based on her "30 years of experience in television". Is this spate of scribbling by the nation's celebrities a good or bad thing for the publishing industry? And do the books they produce have any literary merit?

AL Kennedy
I'm a writer, I'm on the side of writers – of all kinds. And I'd be hypocritical not to admit that I play the game (as far as I can stand to) in trying to keep my own profile at the height which will mean my publisher actually notices it. But in a time when good books are finding it increasingly hard to reach publication, it's irritating that someone momentarily famous for having a high-profile job, or making an arse of themselves on a reality show, or for having an especially distressing private life, is then encouraged to heave out a novel. Maybe they do have a book in them, – but it's very unlikely they'll flourish under those circumstances.

Martine McCutcheon
But to not have your novel published because you're a celebrity would be unfair. I want to read novels that inspire me. Whether they are by actors, butchers or doctors is irrelevant.

John Sutherland
Celebrity fiction is a fact of literary life. The sharp-eyed (and sharper-tongued) David Sexton noted, last Booker season, that Katie Price had sold more copies than all the shortlisted titles combined. She also, he said, made no secret of the fact that "they" (a regiment of ghostwriters, presumably) confected the things for her.

AL Kennedy
I'm unhappy about someone being named as an author when they may not even have read "their" book, simply to sucker in readers. Who wouldn't be? It's fibbing, surely.

Martine McCutcheon
I wrote my book. I sent a synopsis of a TV show to an executive, and I was asked if I would like to write it as a novel first. They liked my tone and style. I dreaded my first meeting as I thought they might demean me and say my book might need to be written by someone else. I had never written fiction before and had no confidence at all. Thankfully the ghostwriter option wasn't brought up at any time. Even I was shocked. It went on to be one of the most rewarding things I have ever done, and The Mistress has sold over 120,000 copies in a few months.

AL Kennedy
Folk like me could become bitter and twisted over that. But then publishing is a bitter and twisted place and encourages that kind of thinking... Those sales are extraordinary for what was basically a first book from an untried author.

John Sutherland
A standard defence of celebrity fiction is that it generates a lot of money for the book trade. Given the cross-subsidies of bestselling and minority taste books, the inflow of revenue means publishers can chance their arm. And bookstores, knowing that at least some of their wares are going like hotcakes, can stock slow-moving items..

The rest at The Observer.