One of Britain’s top poets has warned that the growing popularity of ebooks is threatening to put writers out of business. Simon Armitage told a book festival in India that making books available in digital form means authors could find their works being shared for free.

Armitage said that the growing use of iPad and Kindle devices meant that “an author could have worked for three years on his book, have someone buy it for their Kindle for £6.99 and then see it shared with everyone in the world for free. How does that add up to a living?”

Armitage added that he hoped many serious readers would still like to own a physical copy of books, and despite his sense of foreboding about the financial implications of digital publishing, said he was “ludicrously optimistic” about the future of poetry as an art form.

He said that poets would always be needed to combat the “overinformation” he says people suffer from these days. He also claimed that poetry is an act of dissent that would never enter the mainstream: “You've never got on a bus and found everyone reading poetry.” Armitage added that poets were “the awkward squad” of society. “If poetry was a frontline art form and everyone was doing it, I wouldn't be.”