The growing popularity of e-readers could threaten the future of English literature because up-and-coming writers will not be paid enough to make ends meet, a prize-winning author has claimed.
E-books threaten livelihoods Photo: Getty Images
Graham Swift, who won the Booker Prize in 1996 for his novel Last Orders, said new writers face earning lower royalties for their work as e-books than for traditional hard- and paperbacks.
If aspiring authors see that they are unable to make a living from their work, it may cause them to give up and leave potentially great stories unwritten, he said.
Mr Swift told BBC Radio Four’s World at One programme: “I wouldn't envy a young aspiring writer now.
“The e-book does seem at the moment to threaten the livelihood of writers, because the way in which writers are paid for their work in the form of e-books is very much up in the air.
“I think the tendency will be that writers will get even less than they get now for their work and sadly that could mean that some potential writers will see that they can't make a living, they will give up and the world would be poorer for the books they might have written, so in that way it is quite a serious prospect.”
Describing the arrival of e-books as the greatest change for authors since the mid-19th century and mass production, Mr Swift accused e-book sellers of using digitalisation as an excuse to pay writers less.
He said: “When anything goes digital, let alone something as immaterial as a book, there is a tendency to see it as just in the air to be taken, and to lose the sense that somebody once made it.
“I think the purveyors of e-books are only too happy for this atmosphere of ‘everything belongs to everybody’ to increase because it means they don’t have to think so much about the original maker of the thing, or they can get away with paying them less.
“Unfortunately writers take a very small part of the profit on their books, and I think in the e-book world there is a real danger they will take even less, unless they are vigilant and robust about protecting their own interests.”
Full story at The Telegraph.
Describing the arrival of e-books as the greatest change for authors since the mid-19th century and mass production, Mr Swift accused e-book sellers of using digitalisation as an excuse to pay writers less.
He said: “When anything goes digital, let alone something as immaterial as a book, there is a tendency to see it as just in the air to be taken, and to lose the sense that somebody once made it.
“I think the purveyors of e-books are only too happy for this atmosphere of ‘everything belongs to everybody’ to increase because it means they don’t have to think so much about the original maker of the thing, or they can get away with paying them less.
“Unfortunately writers take a very small part of the profit on their books, and I think in the e-book world there is a real danger they will take even less, unless they are vigilant and robust about protecting their own interests.”
Full story at The Telegraph.
