Book Festivals versus Social Justice

Here's hoping book festivals have a secret plan B.

Over the last few decades book festivals have become a vital cornerstone of the publishing industry. Selling books is hard, and these gatherings have meant that rarest of creatures, the book-buyer, gather in the most enthusiastic of gathery ways to buy books, discuss books, and listen to the writers of books talk about books. Books books books. Heaven. Only heaven is not free. At least, it’s not put on for nothing.

It has long been part of the writers’ job to sell books, too. Long gone are the days when a writer writes a book, sends it off to their editor and then sits in the garden waiting for the crew from the South Bank Show to turn up. We’re all in it now. Up to our ears.

So, the controversy that has risen over writers putting pressure on some of the biggest book festivals in the U.K. to part company with their core sponsors (for now, this seems to involve mainly investment firm Baillie Gifford) is not just a political one, but is a controversy that goes right to the heart of what it is to be a writer in the modern industry of books.