Honestly, if I hear one more time that the end is nigh, I might kill myself.I'm serious. I don't know about you lot, but this writer can't move for articles by literary authors or broadsheet columnists ( often both ) declaring that the publishing industry is in the final stages of terminal decline.
Books, they weep, have had their day. Boo Hoo.
I was doing an interview on Monday for a fairly commercial radio station, when this came up. Now how these things usually go, is that sandwiched between the traffic news and Chain Reaction by Dianna Ross, I'm asked, by a DJ who hasn't read any of my books, a. where I get my ideas from and b. is Lilly Valentine based on me.
Everyone knows where they are with this stuff.
But no. On Monday I was asked, in tones last reserved for the death of Princess Di, whether book discounting would ultimately lead to end of creativity as publishers focussed more and more on the big sellers.
Look, I know where he was going. Of course the current tiny profit margins on books mean vast quantities have to be shifted and some of the more serious books are never going to have that broad appeal...but come on, dude, do the lovely listeners care on their way to the office?
What they know is that they can get books cheaply and who am I to deny them that.
When I was a kid I had about twenty paperbacks on a shelf in my bedroom. This was about nineteen more than most of my mates. Books were bloody expensive. A luxury. Is it really for me to suggest we go back to that? Not on bloody national radio it's not.
Then there's the e-reader. Apparently this isn't a smart new gadget, but the destroyer of fiction as we know it.
Writers all over the internet are clutching a copy of their favourite novel to their bosom and declaring their undying love for the very paper it's printed on.
I often wonder if at the advent of the stone tablet some travelling minstrel was telling anyone that would listen that writing stories down was the spawn of the devil. That humankind would no longer need or want stories in this new fangled way.
Now I too, wonder if I'll ever get along with a Kindle, but I'm sharp enough to know that this is because of my AGE. My kids will no doubt embrace it like all the other technology I can't quite get to grips with.
Like most other ten year olds, my children are hardwired to love stories. They read voraciously, everything from Harry Potter to Alex Rider. They insist I read to them every night.
The other day I told them about e-readers and their reaction was simply 'cool'. Loads of books at your finger tips. Good one.
Now I don't want to come across as some sort of Pollyanna. I'm as aware as anyone that times are hard and that the publishing industry is having a tough time. We writers are on the cusp of some big changes.
I guess I just don't see it as necessarily a bad thing.
Humans have spun yarns since the dawn of time and I'm convinced that will continue.
How it will happen, I don't yet know, but I'll be buggered if I'm going to waste energy worrying about it.
