And then there’s the sheer incompetence. There are countless examples: one high-profile author, whose memoirs had just been published, asked, at a meeting for the publicity for her book, whom to get in touch with at the Guardian Media pages. There was a long silence. “I’ll get back to you on that”, said the publicist, whose job it was to know such things ­— another way of saying “search me”.

At another meeting it was announced that a “brilliant” website was going up in January. It didn’t appear until the end of March. A successful author, whose book had won a Whitbread prize, was horrified to find, when the paperback edition was published, that the words “Winner of the …” did not appear on the cover, nor anywhere inside the book. The publishers promised to make up for this gaffe by putting a sticker on the cover. They did — but only for shops in London.

A book reviewer, who had written a favourable review of a hardback published by a certain company, subsequently received six or seven packages of paperbacks from that company over the course of the following month, in the hope, presumably, that he would somehow manage to review some or all of them (he had never reviewed paperbacks). This adds up to about £670-worth of books, plus about £90 spent on postage. No-one from the publisher called or wrote to ask the reviewer’s opinion or explain the purpose of this extravagance.

One factor which contributes to all this carelessness and inattention is the well-established ritual of the publishers’ lunch. It’s true that in these days of the New Labour Austerity Lunch Hour, such meals (or most of them) are no longer two-bottles-of-wine affairs — but they can still last until 4.30 or even later. A two-hour lunch on top of endless management meetings, cover meetings, marketing meetings and meetings about meetings explain, at least in part, why it’s so difficult to find an editor or a PR person at their desks, especially in the afternoon.

When do these people read? Perhaps on Fridays, when you’ll hardly ever reach a publisher, especially if he or she is on “summer hours”. “Summer hours” allow publishers to have Friday afternoons off. In exchange they’re supposed to put in a bit more office time during the rest of the week — or that’s the idea. It could be argued that more was achieved in the old two-bottle-lunch days.

Devil May Care, the new James Bond novel written by Sebastian Faulks, sold nearly 45,000 copies in the first four days it was on sale. No luck needed there. Indeed, many publishers have stopped trying to make their luck. They no longer lead the market, they are being led by it. The publishing world has lost its confidence and its cultural significance. It’ll be lucky to get it back. But then, it has always been lucky — so far.