Get real, writers

With regard to the letter in The Scotsman of 4 December, Scotland’s authors appear to have succumbed to entitlement indulgence.

I am an avid reader, I purchase 30-50 books each year, mainly from my local bookshopin mel rose. ye ti have read works from fewer than 10 per cent of the signatories to the pleading letter and have never heard of the vast majority. The idea that reduced funding will trigger cultural carnage, as argued by Ruth Wishart, is complete nonsense. Like everyone else, authors need to write something for which there’s a market.

Looking backwards, none of Walter Scott, Adam Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson or many other totemic writers relied on the levels of funding support currently being shovelled out by Creative Scotland et al.

Authors need to look back on the past two decades as the golden era of taxpayer support and adjust to fiscal realities like the rest of us. There shouldn’t be any free meal tickets. ROBERT MILLER-BAKEWELL

Whiterigg, Near Melrose