The book evolves and yet we stay the same

As a novelist I face two distinct questions on an almost daily basis: are authors still trapped in the hands of publishers and publicity and can technology do anything to help them here?

Having been through the eBook revolution and seen its problems at first hand I will be quick to say that a book is not an eBook. Of course it shouldn't be that way. A book is a book whether you write it on paper or use chisels and marble tablets, the medium should have no impact on the delivery but that is the theory and has nothing to do with the reality.

The reality is that we have been with books in their current format for a long time and the only way we are going to give paper up and whole-heartedly embrace a digital format in a way that will create an iPod-like revolution in books is when (and only when) the digital experience is so seamless that, like in the iPod (or an MP3), we do not keep being reminded of the medium.

As yet there has never really been an eBook best-seller and yet, theoretically, there should be. There are over 350 million with computers who can make purchasing decisions and should just 10% of them reach out, click, and spend a few dollars downloading and enjoying an eBook we will have made internet and publishing history.

It has not happened because while books evolve in terms of what form and format they can be offered in, we stay the same in our expectations of experience and familiarity. When we read fiction we expect a level of comfort and ease of access that is firmly wrapped around our fondness for books and reading. Screens and flywheels do not yet engender the same feeling.