Decatur author Marc E. Hopkins, whose e-book, “What Killed Jonathon Harnish?” is available since June through Amazon and Barnes and Noble, has arrived in the publishing game just in time to witness the eventual demise of printed pages in a world bereft of backpacks.

Hopkins, a protege of Dr. Michael Collins at Southwestern Michigan College, is working on his second novel, which will be a major departure in a female voice.

“Everything I write is about small towns,” he said. “Decatur. Glenwood. Cassopolis. Dowagiac. In the first book, the biggest city the main character went to was Kalamazoo, and he drove to Kentucky. Jonathon goes to school at SMC. Andrews University is in the second book. I use these small towns because I like them.”

Hopkins, who attended culinary school to become a chef, thrives on variety, having at various times also been engaged in everything from professional wrestling and work as an EMT to being a caretaker for the Edward Lowe Foundation.

“I love talking about books,” Hopkins told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889. “I started out about 10 years ago writing poetry and short stories. I love poetry. If the world paid me to sit home and make up rhymes, I’d be all for that. I never shared them with a lot of people, I just kept writing. I lost my job in ’08 and went back to college. I’m a huge SMC fan. I met Dr. Collins and took one of his classes. After about two hours, he asked me if I’d ever thought about writing a book and said I should. Six years earlier I started putting ideas in a notebook, so I went home, dug it out and typed up a 39-page document for him.”

Hopkins’ unvarnished format alone might have startled Collins.

“Not one indentation for a paragraph,” Hopkins confided. “I don’t believe in punctuation. I’m a storyteller. I do not like any other part of it. I wrote the book in about a month and we spent six months editing it. It took that long. I write extremely fast. I’ve got a friend who is happy if he writes 300 words a month. He’s on his second book. It kind of snowballed after that. We shot a movie in Dowagiac in July 2010. It’s a four-minute book trailer” starring eight students and his cousin’s son filmed by a hired crew.

It’s had 61 views since Hopkins uploaded it to YouTube on June 25.

Collins excerpted a passage in the Southwestern Michigan Review.

“It’s very graphic,” Hopkins said of his literary debut. “It’s first-person and half of the book is what’s going on in the head of a serial killer. It’s shocking and violent. The second half of the book is about the boy who’s trying to find him to prove to his dad he’s a man by tracking down a killer. They’re two completely separate voices. Other than that I can’t tell a whole lot without giving away the ending.”

Hopkins said he’s halfway through a profanity-free suspense mystery — Annette Magyar is one of his “pre-readers” — that “people love because there’s no murder. They don’t think I wrote it. I don’t know where I came up with the idea I could write like an 8-year-old girl. Characters in my head are just there. Two hundred years ago they’d say I’m demented, but it works for me.” With the video clip completed, Hopkins devoted three months to revisions because when he pitched his project to agents, “We’re just not believing Jonathon’s character. So I sat down and went through the entire book.”

Hopkins kept careful track so can be certain when he says he’s pitched the book 225 times.

“I documented all of it so I could see who said what and where I needed to change the book,” he said. “They give you a little bit of feedback. If you’re lucky enough to get feedback from an agent or a publisher and you’re dumb enough not to take it, your failure is your own. Every ounce of information they give you is something you can use, so I did. I rewrote the last 150 pages, sent it to one agent and waited. And I don’t like waiting because an agent may take up to six months to reply.

“She wrote back and said it absolutely captures the mindset of an 18-year-old boy, but the problem was they couldn’t sell it in a bookstore because you’re so in his head they’re uncomfortable. Walmart won’t sell books with profanity. Walden Books wouldn’t touch this graphic genre and put it on a shelf. She said that would be my biggest problem. Had I thought about putting it on the Internet?

“Amazon had a site where you could post books and stories and it swept the world. Last year, hardcover book sales went down 23 percent, paperback books lost sales by 18 percent and e-books went up 160 percent. One blog I found online that tracks book trends said in 30 years kids won’t know what a book is. They’ll read by iPhones, smart phones and devices we haven’t created yet. You won’t need to carry a backpack to school because it will be in the palm of your hand. That’s where it’s heading.

“I was offered 1,000 copies worldwide, which I do on the Internet with an endless supply. I still have an agent representing the book, but not me, in Ireland. Once or twice a month I get replies about this book. One agent told me the worst thing I could do would be to start a second book, so I put it down. I didn’t know any better. Then I got really irritated and thought I’d start one and not tell them. I like the advice agents give, but at the same time they’re in it to make money.