Should we care what happens to our books?

Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fish-and-chip wrapper

Today, I destroyed a fellow creator’s work. Without a shed of conscience, but with some curiosity.

I needed to frame a print, and spotted a suitable old frame complete with picture in a thrift shop. After upcycling the frame, glass and mount, I was left with a pleasing but unremarkable landscape executed in pastels on stiff paper, depicting heathery moors under a greyish sky, complete with Norman castle in the distance.

Into the bin it went.

I wondered if the artist, one Mary S, had enjoyed an afternoon’s excursion with her art group, each member tackling the same view in their own style. Or was she the kind of artist who takes photographs on long walks and decides later which views to paint? How many years did she spend learning her craft?

According to the sticker on the back, the picture cost £55 in 1990, a fair sum back then, and one which showed that the artist believed in the value of her work. Good for her. Creative talent deserves reward.

However, back in the days when I wrote for a newspaper, it was a fact of life that any journalist’s words, however carefully crafted, would end up pasted across cracks in the walls, or wrapped round a takeaway fish and chip supper. (Nostalgia now sees fish and chips presented in fake newspaper cones).

In contrast, each of my novels took a year out of my life. Should I worry if, in 30 years time, someone throws an old paperback on the bonfire, or uses it to stabilise wonky furniture?

No. Writers deserve to be paid, and fairly paid. We own our words, and copyright can be defended in law. Authors with deep enough pockets can sue plagiarists and digital pirates. However, time moves on, and once our work is out in the world, we have no control over what happens to its physical form. Neither do artists.