OK, let's ignore the negative crap and get to something more useful.

Obviously you can perform effectively using a book. Lots of people do it all the time. So, HOW do you use a book effectively?

* Sightreading a text off the page is a lot harder. Don't try that to start with - get the basics of what the song is about, what rhetorical strategies it's using, and obviously know the tune.

* Don't let the book get between you and the audience. You should be able to take in at least a couple of lines at a time, usually a whole stanza, so glance down and then out at the room.

* Don't be coy about the book. It's a prop. Performance poets (who nearly always use books, even though they're reading their own work) typically brandish them like stage swords. (Cathal McConnell is worth watching in action when he's using a book, he can make it look like a wizard's magic staff radiating en-fun-ment spells). You can move a book a lot more than a guitar, so it has more dramatic potential. Trying to use a book AND a guitar at the same time will usually reduce you to a performing statue, but then guitars have that effect on most amateur self-accompanied singers anyway.

* If your eyesight is any way problematic at arm's length, print out a copy in a typeface you can read fluently. Comic Sans is a good choice for most people.

* If you are expecting accompaniment by yourself or somebody else, or use a pitchpipe/moothie for pitch, write down the key you use at the start.

* Don't use abbreviations or cues written in your own private code. You will forget what they mean. Write the song out in full.

* Never shuffle paper. You should always know what you're going to sing well before you start (or have a couple of alternatives if something intervenes) and you should know where to find it INSTANTLY.

* No crappy apologies in advance like "I haven't sung this for years". The point of your book is precisely to make sure that that doesn't matter. Just go for it with no explanations.

More?