Paperback Writer

I love books. From an early age, many of us associated that simple object in our hands with the adventure it took us on. Happy memories, deep emotional ties. And yet we sit on the brink of a massive change in how we read. I embrace that change but the book as an artifact is long from dead. It may seem ironic to many that I see the future of Dreamwords in paper. Over the decades, publishers and printers have used technology to make this marvellous thing called the book into a highly efficient vector for transferring an author’s thoughts to her readers’. As the publishing model evolves and everyone looks to the world of ‘e’ I think it is a mistake to ignore the fact that paper still reigns supreme and is likely to for years to come. For this reason, as others race to electrons, I am keen to grasp the power of the traditional book - the sense of value in its heft, the legacy of its impact on our lives - to form the backbone of my plan for Dreamwords.
I hope the message is a powerful one. Tom Corven was the world’s first novel written for podcasting but its ultimate fate was always going to be tied to the plain and simple, powerful and efficient, book.