The news yesterday was that Britain is now officially in a “double dip” recession. We all knew times were bad. Isn’t it comforting, though, to know it is now official…..
      The news for a long time now is that people are buying fewer books, especially fiction (don’t even ask about poetry). All of us in this industry have been up to all sorts of shenanigans to remedy the situation. The Book Depository, for example, has just offered an extra 10% discount to their usual big discounts for all sorts of books, including my own and others published by Ward Wood — and this includes free international postage. 
      Earlier this week, I wrote here about Fiona Robyn giving her new ebook, The Most Beautiful Thing, away for free.
      Every day seems to bring another deal and I’m not sure how I feel about it. My first instinct was deflation. I actually felt as if I was some ancient balloon slowly losing all of its air. It made me heartsick to realise that books were no longer important to most people, and to me that meant that people weren’t reading, weren’t thinking, weren’t imagining. 
      But then I started to think about it another way. Fiona reported that something like 20,000 books were “bought” on Amazon when she offered it for free. 20,000! And The Book Depository surely finds a way to make money when it offers its books for such huge discounts, otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing it. So maybe thought and imagination aren’t dying. Maybe people do want to keep reading, they’re just too damn broke not to think twice or three times before spending their money. That’s bad news, too, but of a different sort. 

Fiona did write a blog about the frustration of her journey into the world of giving-it-away here, which I suggest you read — after finishing reading the rest of this blog, of course 🙂   And I’m now back to thinking that anything that will get a book into the hands or onto the screen of a potential reader is a good thing, even if it means huge discounts or giving it, on occasion, away for free.  I’m taking the long view. There are arguments to be made about the exploitation of the writer, and it is true that the writer is often the last to be paid. But without readers, there’s no hope of payment for anyone. And more importantly, without people out there daring to think and imagine (and yes, I am assuming that reading is key to those activities), then we’ve got even bigger longterm problems than today’s struggling economy. And if you don’t believe that, take a look at Cambodia….



So, I now might as well help you all take advantage of all this and say, yes, please do take a look at this great sale at The Book Depository and snatch up those deals. You just need to put in the code APMA12 when you go to the site here.
      And I’ll try to stop worrying about the downfall of civilisation.