If you spend any amount of time online–and trust me, I do–it's easy to believe that books are on the endangered species list. There seem to be several camps. The Firebrands who give rousing sermons about the ebook revolution. The Luddites who shout "Paper books or death!" The Mediators who want to find a sweet spot where print books and ebooks can peacefully coexist. And then, there are the readers, who just want the next story, please.

It's a topic of much debate and for a lot of authors like me its a confusing and exciting time. But I'm not here to pretend I know what the future holds for story-telling mediums. I just want to talk about the little issue that keeps getting ignored in all this.

The World's Real Oldest Profession

"Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money."

–Virginia Woolf

Here's the truth: Stories existed long before Guttenberg's printing press or you fired up your first Commodore 64. And for as long as stories have existed, imaginative humans have figured out how to get paid for telling them. That's not going to change. The medium might look different, the marketing strategies might change, but our species' craving for a good story will never be sated.

I try to remind myself of this when I start angsting about my future as an author. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the hype, the hyperbole of the book revolution. People are passionate about the topic because they are passionate about books. That's a good thing. But is the book industry as a whole focusing too much on delivery methods and not enough on the content inside those bytes or pages? Maybe.

We're all so desperate to protect our incomes that we've lost site of the reason we're all waving flags and issuing battle cries: STORY. If you're an author and you're more famous for your guerilla marketing tactics than for the quality of your writing, that's a problem. If you're spending more time trying to trick readers into buying your books and less time actually writing them, that's a problem. If you're so distracted by the doomsayers that you can't write a word, that's a big fucking problem.

Obviously, I'm not saying writers shouldn't worry about money. If anyone should it's us. After all, if most people know what we make an hour, they'd pity us. The truth is anyone who gets into the story slinging business to make money is delusional. Almost every writer I know has either a day job or a very patient spouse with a steady income and benefits.

So if writing for money isn't why we do this, what is?

We write because we love stories. We write because stories help us answer two questions: Who am I? and Who are we (the human race)?

Luckily for us, those two questions can never be fully answered. The quest to understand is never ending. We write because life is messy and hard and sometimes we just want to escape. We write because we crave connection. We write because if we don't we become faded versions of ourselves.

And you know what? Those are the exact same reasons people read. Therefore, if the quest to understand is never ending, so too is the need for stories. Your stories. My stories.

I write because I love stories. Before I wrote, I told stories around tables with my friends and family. After that, I wrote before I made any money doing it. I will continue to do it even if I can't make another dime. I love entertaining people. The fact I get to do that for a living is a blessing I try not to take for granted. Eventually, the checks might stop coming, and if that happens I will still share my stories. Because it's what I do. I can't not do it.

One day, my beloved print books might be dusty exhibits for museums. One day, stories might be beamed directly to your brain via lasers. One day, storytellers might gather again in town squares to weave a yarn for tips. I don't know how they'll be shared. I don't know how writers will make money. I don't know if I'll be living in a van down by the river or in a villa in Tuscany. All I know is …

I want to tell you a story.