First, people don't read novels off screens, and they don't have a tendency to shell out real money for books when they don't retain anything physically for their money.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I started earning money from screen-writing, for a long time my only indulgences were books.
I know I'm old-fashioned, but there's just something about the act of looking at books versus taking in information on a screen, which is so one-dimensional. There's a sense of ownership that you have with books, a physical connection.
Unfortunately writers take a very small part of the profit on their books, and I think in the e-book world there is a real danger they will take even less, unless they are vigilant and robust about protecting their own interests.
Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies.
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
There are these boutique writers out there who think if they are not writing their novels sitting at a bistro with their laptops, then they're not real writers. That's ridiculous.
And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.
If the books are selling, the money will follow.
I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.
My experience is that books take on a life of their own and create their own energy. I've represented books that have been sold for very little money and gone on to great glory, and I've seen books sold for an enormous amount of money published to very little response.