All writers would love to see their works in print, but what does that involve? Ink, printing presses that don’t work or air free of charge, paper which, if recycled, comes from a factory, and to save costs, some publishers have foreign printers produce their books, thus entailing the carbon footprint of transport. Not that all publishers are necessarily wasteful, and one is willing to bet that most are as ecology-conscious and responsible as possible.
Yet recently the French book industry admitted that it was forced to ‘waste’ a redoubtable tonnage of paper each year in destroying the books it has published which have not been bought. That kind of info from English language publishers is not easily forthcoming, but one has only to see how many books sadly end up remaindered because that is the only way of waiting to discover if they will take off belatedly. Another ploy is the special offer of the High Street retailer: three for the price of two and suchlike, to try and promote sales. Not a bad thing: one would rather be sold at a cut price than not at all. Hopefully all this is ecological.
EBooks do not entail this kind of waste, for waste it eventually becomes. Buying EBooks does not indirectly abet the production of something that may end up being wasted. Producing EBooks is also more ecological and takes up less space.