To print or not to print

A reader of the moment gleaned from a closed Internet network, tells me he really likes Les Années-rebours. He borrowed it from the library. He would have liked to have bought it, in real life, in this paper that is beginning to fail us, among writers.

As he is not fond of electronics, this reader does not want, and cannot buy an ePub copy. I no longer have copies of this book. I don’t even have a personal copy of L’Effet Casimir... However, there are now services, such as PrintBookbaby, that would allow me to obtain one hundred copies for eight hundred dollars. It is a small investment, indeed, which would bring me practically nothing, but which risks nothing has nothing? And the idea here is not to make money, but to keep a book alive.

On the one hand, there is this transitional world where literature no longer knows which support to rest. On the other hand, this reality forces us to make very personal and sometimes illogical choices. I have a lot of expenses right now because I’m renovating my apartment. However, I am tempted to satisfy this reader, who tells me he wants to say to friends about it.

I don’t know if I insist too much. I will be told to forget these texts, which are now relegated to the Greek calendars of the archives, and to continue writing in the present. But those who say this do not write or are too successful in distracting themselves with the past. Having re-read them, I know that these texts are beautiful, that they still have a stunning effect on me and that they are appreciated.

Ah ! this major procrastination of a minor writer...