As we lock down this year, more and more of us are turning to books in their most hygienic form.

When Amazon (rightly) decided to prioritize deliveries of food and medical goods, the book industry was rather peeved. Authors who have released paperbacks this month worried that their readers wouldn’t be getting their books in a timely fashion, and that it would affect their sales.

But there’s more to worry about than just timing. Given that we now know that the Coronavirus can live on paper for up to five days, and that the molecule is so tiny it can get inside just about any porous surface, it suddenly doesn’t seem so sanitary to buy books online, let alone second-hand ones.

For example, even with the highest safety standards in place, Amazon will typically have 20 – 35 people touch your object before you do, according to this Amazon warehouse worker, and considering that we can’t be sure that all of those people, many students and younger people who have less to fear from the virus killing them, will have used sanitary hand gel or clean gloves since they wiped their nose on the back of their hand, how can we trust reading any book packed for us in a warehouse? Already, three Amazon workers have been diagnosed with Coronavirus (one in Seattle and two in Italy) and with next-day delivery the uppermost way we like to get books from Amazon, well, that’s just not waiting six days before we are in bed breathing in and out between the pages.

Other suppliers are just as dangerous. Authors selling books from home cannot be guaranteed to be virus-free. Professor Hugh Montgomery has told us that one asymptomatic person can spread the virus to up to 59,000 more. Are we trusting every author’s standards of care at home, even though we never even met? How about a small distributor, where the office has not been in lockdown? Then you can start torturing yourself with where the envelopes are kept, usually by a bin…where the dirty tissues go… the delivery guy…seriously, we can drive ourselves nuts.

eBooks

eBooks, such as Kindle, on the other hand, are cheap, delivered instantly, and have no risk of infection. We don’t even have to think about it. So why are publishers and authors dragging their heels on publishing eBooks at the same time as the hardback? If we all want to keep reading alive, boost the publishing industry, and keep writers in tea and cats, we need to start publishing eBooks at the same time as the physical copy. This isn’t a time to worry about getting more money. In fact, fewer people are going to buy physical books as they take more care, so as an author, it’s actually good business sense to offer the e-version right now.

It’s a time to spread the joy of reading, curled up in front of a fire, or on a sunny balcony. And above all else, to savour the joy of knowing you’re completely and utterly safe.

If you haven’t made your eBook version yet, why not do it now? Try our eBook conversion service.

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