OK, I don't know whether to be impressed or horrified at this particular story: according to the Guardian, 31 year old Phil McArthur has decided that, instead of going the traditional route of publishing, he's going to do something particularly different: publishing a collaborative thriller via eBay. The novel is being written one page at a time, one writer to a page. As each installment is finished, the chance to create the next is offered for auction on eBay. So far, 17 pages have been completed, with 234 to go.

How'd he get the idea? "I'd had extensive chemotherapy and I had a lot of time on my hands to recover," he says. "I found I was reading a lot more, and that inspired me to think maybe I could write something myself." But after getting started he realized it would be more fun - or maybe more lucrative - to get other "budding novelists" involved. "The fact that it's an auction means that if people are really keen to write the next page they have a good chance of getting it," he says.

As for the quality of the book-in-progress, well, judge for yourself. Or as the Guardian puts it, "the quality of the writing might charitably be described as variable..."