For others – the quote is taken out of context, where her actual point is that everyone always feels they could have done better, but that's no reason to discount your own achievements. Read the rest of her post; she's a surprising teen.

At the rate I'm going, maybe I'll have a shot at being the oldest writer published.

Steph is one of the most professional writers I know, with a wonderfully mature and sensible attitude – of course there are pitfalls of entering the publishing world at 15, and she's aware of them. I can also guarantee you that neither her parents or anyone else has pressured her to do this – her parents are not writers or devout readers and seem delightfully low-key (last I heard, her mother hadn't even read the book) and a bit surprised by all the fuss. Her gran reads her blog and chats with her on the phone about it. That's it.

She's a writer – she's a teen. Of course she's sometimes filled with self-doubt and is occasionally self-deprecating, albeit often tongue-in-cheek. Guarantee you every writer feels this way at times.

Steph loves to write; she started an engaging blog; she wrote a book; she asked for beta-readers. I asked if she was interested in considering US agents, and she ran with it. I offered some long-distance email advice along the way, as a few other internet writer friends did, but her success is self-made, self-motivated, and well deserved.

And I can't wait to read her next book.

Is this girls book really that good that it deserves publishing or is an o-kay book that a publisher sees a money making opportunity in by using her young age as a tool to maximise publicity?

I hope it is a good book and I hope this young girl goes on to write many great books, because the more genuinely good books that reach the public the better the industry will be.
However if this is a case of publishing an author before she is ready, then it will be another case of the industry shooting itself in the foot.

Every publisher and agent has a responsibility to the long term good of the industry and not just to the short term cash-flow to their own pocket. Any book published, especially one by a very young author or aimed a young audience will have a number of readers for whom this will be their first independent venture into book reading. If the book is not of a quality that fully captivates, and exposes the joy of reading, then it may well be that reader will invest future leisure time and money in game-boy rather that a book.

If the first book you read was a bad book, would you ever have read another book?