Philip Pullman: Pay us for library e-books or writing will not be 'commercially viable' | Mail Online

Libraries should pay authors a fair sum each time they lend out an e-book or writers will go bust, a leading novelist claimed today.

Philip Pullman, best-selling writer of the His Dark Materials children's fantasy trilogy, says authors could lose up to two-thirds of their income and even be forced to give up writing altogether if hard copies of books in libraries are replaced by e-books.

A new reporty by the Society of Authors, of which Mr Pullman is President-elect, warns: 'There is a risk that e-books have the potential to undermine the perceived value of books generally to a point below which [writing] ceases to be commercially valuable.