Paper talk

The rainforests must be jumping for joy these days. Which is ironic, as they’ve largely got Amazon to thank for it. As the e-book continues its rise, there’ll be less and less demand from publishers for that horrible, immoral, eco-balance-wrecking stuff called ‘paper’. But before the trees get too complacent, they should remember that there’s one group of people who are still curiously insistent that our leafy friends make the ultimate sacrifice: writers. When it comes to one particular stage of the book-writing process, paper remains the only acceptable tool.

It’s perfectly possible these days for a book to be conceived, written, edited, published and promoted without a single word of it ever existing on paper. Laptops and e-readers are all we need. My partner really feels the benefit of this. She produces readings for Radio 4, so is constantly being sent books by publishers keen to enter their horses into the race well before publication.