An open letter from the MobyLives Australia correspondent to the apprehensive, openhearted writers of tomorrow, some of who are a little nervous that their aspirations for being in print are going to miss the last boat:

If you’re a publisher at the moment, you’re having a pretty good time of it. Creatively, you’re stretching your mind and your imagination like you’ve just got out of the car after a 30-hour drive across the centre of Australia. You’re young, fit, good looking, and that twenty dollar note in your wallet has partaaay written all over it. Things are definitely looking up. Sure, you’re almost broke, and you don’t know where you’re going to sleep tonight, but adventure is in the air and, boy, are you ready to chase it.

But what of you, aspiring writer? Fresh to the page, and your head in a paperback, early twentieth century classic? Your chance to take the stage between those silken, type-filled sheets, those graceful arcs of the Garamond serif, nuzzling your prose in a nest of accredited, sustainable forest-sourced stock, forty-eight grams per square inch of dreams!

Dust and micro chips. For now you are going to have to prepare yourself for something altogether different to the romantic vision you once held, of you, Writer. The matte-laminated book you once envisaged, the photographs of you and the book on the table by the window with the wine, you may need to make a few alterations to that image. And consider that it is, and forever more will be, the idea foremost, and the execution secondary.

The digital publishing dream is a wet one, for many publishers. Like kids in an old (very old) fashioned lolly shop, we’re surrounded by possibilities. Sure, it’s a little scary, as all good adventures should be. The lure of science fiction dangles enticingly in front of us and the learning curve beckons us onward and upward. We are athletes on the Tour de France. Some of us are in better shape than others. It hurts, the pain in our chests, the threat of defeat, the seemingly unattainable summit where Apple trees flourish and welcome us with open arms. We think we can, we think we can, and we can of course we can; this is nothing short of a revolution. A global coup in the analogue to digital migration. If ever the world was an oyster, then surely it is now.

And it is, dear publisher. It is ours. And for you, precious writers, we will always treat you with reverence and admiration. There is nothing more revolutionary than a series of words stuck together in the right order in the right way, and if you can pull it off, then we will publish you any time, anywhere, to the absolute perfection of our editorial ability, to an audience that has never been so large, or so ravenous.

Next week, tune in as we explore the creative possibilities for independent booksellers and answer their questions of “Yeah, well, what about the booksellers?” with, ˜You tell us buddy!”