A rather large magazine was hunting for an author to express an opinion about ebooks the other day. I was asked, perhaps because I spent a long time as a professional journalist. To be perfectly frank I think my hacking days are done. It’s a great and important job but it’s one I’m happy to leave to someone else now.

Also there was the slight problem of content. The magazine in question was looking for an author who was ‘unequivocally’ in favour of ebooks. No hesitation, no reservations. Just someone who thought, ‘’Yeah, bring it on.’

And that’s not me for several reasons. Let’s count them.

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First, there’s the simple matter of ignorance. Ebooks may be all people seem to talk about on the other side of the Atlantic – though paper books still outsell them by a good margin overall. In the UK all we have are a handful of ereaders mainly aimed at the brave early adopter. Kindle won’t be here till the end of the month (and yes, mine is ordered because I am a part of this business and I want to know what they’re like).

But really we’ve scarcely begun in the UK. How many people have you seen using an ereader on a train or plane? Not many compared to the numbers sitting there with a book in their hands. To leap up in the air now and shout ‘Ebooks are the greatest’ seems downright odd to me. Not least because…

What is an ebook anyway? Kindle? Sony? iPad? Epub or some other format? Plain text or one of these fancy multimedia singing and dancing books some people seem to think are the future (and probably are, but only for a certain kind of title)? As far as a simpleton like me can see we are now entering a standards/supplier/distributor war that makes VHS vs Betamax look like a minor argument down the pub. I have my own opinions about how that might turn out, but opinions are all they are. No one <em>knows </em>and being unequivocal about the unknown is not a smart thing to do<em>.</em>

Thirdly, there’s the question of industry fallout. I’m a professional writer. Let me put that more plainly: I pay my bills through the small amount of money that trickles back to me eventually from the proceeds of a sale of a book I’ve written. Authors are extraordinarily sensitive to shifts in the ecosystem of publishing, and ebooks threaten to be the biggest shift any of us will see in our lifetimes.

In the UK book prices are falling. They're actually substantially less than they were ten years ago. The routes to market for authors are dwindling. In the UK independent book stores are already an endangered species. The dominance of mass distribution channels seems to grow each year, and with it a shrinking of the already-thin margins that find their way back to authors. Add to that the plain fact that digital media will always lead to increased book theft (sorry, I won’t call it piracy, nor will I accept the odd belief that the ripping off of books is somehow good for sales) and you can see that this is a pretty tricky situation for those of us living off the words we write.

Are there opportunities? You bet. Are people somehow turning away from popular fiction? I don’t think so, and it’s possible that ebooks will generate more sales than they will cost in other media and through digital theft.

But I don’t know. So I can be unequivocal about only two things: this is one hell of a leap into the dark. And given the choice between a little plastic screen and paper I’d still prefer a real book any day thank you.