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Too many books? Far too few, more like

This article is more than 13 years old
Publishers' reluctance to invest in writers threatens to reduce their incentive to write

Step back in time to the 70s, as it has become fashionable to do, and what do we find? In books, a dark age in which the writer was the publisher's hostage and the bookseller a second cousin to Ebenezer Scrooge.

After the three-day week, the manager of the biggest bookshop in Hampstead used to tour his shop on winter afternoons, turning off the lights to save money. Punk rock was many things, but it was also a howl of protest against a repressive, arteriosclerotic society ripe for renovation.

As the depressing gloom of the 70s began to disperse, the book trade pulled itself together. Booksellers were aware that they were – shall we say? – somehow missing out on sales. No surprise there: many shops were small, cluttered and dingy, and highly unappealing.

So the trade commissioned a "lost book" survey to find out where the problem lay. Customers going into a number of selected shops were asked what they intended to buy and, when they came out, what they had actually bought. Answer: virtually no correlation between consumer intention and consumer choice. The minute they started browsing, their priorities changed.

Say what you like about austerity Britain today but book lovers can generally buy the book they want without much hassle. Serendipity still prevails in bookshops but it doesn't usually spring from frustration at the available choices, rather the opposite.

There are, however, some other "lost books" in prospect today. In some ways the situation is worse now, because literary self-expression is being swamped in a perfect storm of IT revolution and publishing recession. In the past few weeks I've had a number of conversations with writers who, for one reason or another, are pessimistic about the future of their work-in-progress.

Consider Mr B. He's a journalist, the author of a very well-received memoir of his extraordinary career in the world's trouble spots for which, before the credit crunch, he was well paid upfront by a well-known Anglo-American conglomerate. Mr B has been having discussions with his agent about what he should do next and has come to the reluctant conclusion that, for the likely terms he'll be offered in the current climate, it's not worth his while to write anything, especially after tax, agent's commission, etc.

That's one lost book. Here's another, possibly more troubling. Ms H, young writer of my acquaintance, completed a remarkable collection of short stories last year, found a good and enthusiastic agent and was all set to advance her career with a first contract. OK, short stories are always a tough sell, but she is highly gifted and deserves publication. The negative responses she has received are baffling, but typical. No one even wants to encourage her. Why? In a demoralised market dominated by Nigella, "first fiction" has become the hardest genre to launch, a lottery. Ten years ago, Ms H would have appeared in hard covers by now, in a tiny edition of perhaps 3,000 copies.

It gets worse. My friend, Mrs F, whose work has usually found a reliable market among the readers of middle England, is also negotiating a new contract. The terms? Just 25% of her last advance, paid in several instalments. Mrs F is seriously considering, like Mr B, if she can afford to write the book.

The irony is that, technically, it has never been easier or cheaper to get a book into print, somewhere. So, of course, the robust answer to these tales of woe must be: deal with it. Books have always been written in adversity, and have never paid well. No writer in their right mind should expect either an easy ride or a free lunch. Besides, the dedicated author writes out of an inner compulsion, not for the money.

But if these voices fall silent and these books are not written or published (and there must be hundreds in the same boat), then something has been lost. It is conventional to complain that British publishers produce "too many" books. Better that than the strangled silence of a society in the grip of another repression that takes us back to the bad old days of the 70s.

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