The Confusing World of Publishing

I met a man the other day who was carrying a piece of cardboard with an address scribbled on it.
"Do you know this lady?" he asked. "I knocked at her door, but there's no-one there."
As it happened, I did know her, but I have no idea of her movements from day to day.
"She's a published author, and I need her help," he explained. He's written a book, though he didn't tell me what it was about - but he had "written to London three times, and had no reply".
What he wanted was for someone to retype the first third of it, and edit the rest.
I couldn't really see Betty being too keen on that idea.
Then he asked about Book Clubs - would they do it for him?
I didn't think so. "I don't think they'd work on anyone else's book - they'd be more likely to write their own stuff and bring it along to read bits out." (It occured to me later that I was really describing Writer's Clubs, but it did seem to be the kind of thing he was thinking of). "What you really need is a typist, to start with," I suggested, not terribly helpfully.
It can be a very difficult thing to get a book into print - there are an awful lot of authors out there, and only a limited number of books by first time authors published each year. He might have written something really good, but he didn't seem to have much idea about how to progress from the point where he was - although he seemed to want to self-publish from his own computer once he'd got the typing and editing sorted out.