The Independent‘s perceptive books editor, Boyd Tonkin, posts a surprising complaint in his newest column: Books are getting too cheap.

As he puts it:

By historical standards, books are cheap in Britain. They are getting cheaper, especially in electronic form. Ultra-competitive downward pressure on consumer prices began in earnest when the price-fixing Net Book Agreement collapsed in 1997.

When supermarkets muscled into the bestseller business, this dash for the bargain basement quickened. Our only remaining specialist chain has become best-known for its permanent “three-for-two” offers. Now, with the fast-accelerating e-book boom – new figures show that 6.5 million British adults own an electronic reader – Amazon would very much like the hot new novel that you download to a Kindle to cost less than the coffee that you drink with it.

The problem? “[L]iving, breathing authors, unlike those six-feet-under scribes that Amazon and Google find so much more tractable, need food, warmth and shelter ….”

As he continues,

This feels like a tough case to defend. We all want cheaper entertainment and enlightenment. But look at tasteless supermarket fare. Ruthlessly enforced economies can kill diversity. Rather, they favour uniformity and predictability. Contra the pub wisdom you often hear, e-books do have significant production costs even if they don’t need trucks and sheds. Those costs include keeping professional authors alive.

Dirt-cheap e-books benefit the very rich – and the very dead. They might also help new authors to find a foothold and win an audience – although, on that logic, newcomers should think about showcasing their work for nothing. Many do. But the almost-free digital novel hammers another nail into the coffin of a long-term literary career. Who cares? Readers should, if they cherish full-time authors who craft not safe genre pieces but distinctive book after distinctive book that build into a unique body of work.