On November 19, 2007, Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, personally introduced the Kindle e-reader at a gala event in New York City. Despite its bulky appearance, the device was heralded as a disruptive technology that could wipe out the need for old-fashioned printed books, both hardcover and paperback. It came with 90,000 titles already available, and the initial inventory sold out in six hours. A few years later, Amazon launched Android and iOS versions.

Today, Amazon has sold about 500 million Kindle devices and has a reported 3 million Kindle Unlimited subscribers. In 2020, consumers spent over $400 million on e-books. By any measure, the Kindle and other e-readers have become ubiquitous in the marketplace and American homes and offices.

Readers Are Buying More Print Books Than Ever

You might think that the Kindle would have wiped out physical printed books, the way the word processor wiped out the typewriter. But this has not happened. According to Statista, sales of print books have held steady and have even grown in the past decade. In 2008 they reached a peak of 778 million units, and then (predictably, perhaps) declined until 2012, reaching a low point of 591 units. But then something interesting happened. Like vinyl records, print books came surging back, and in 2021 hit a peak of 843.1 million units sold! The dominant form was the good ol’ trade paperback, which accounted for 60 percent of all sales.

Take a Walk on the Beach and You’ll See Why

I’m fortunate to live in Gloucester, Massachusetts, within walking distance of several beautiful public beaches. This summer, during my usual ramblings, I saw many people, whether lying on their towels or sitting on folding chairs, reading books. These were invariably printed paperback or even hardcover books, both fiction and non-fiction. Of course, this made perfect sense. You can throw a paperback book in your beach bag without worrying about whether it’s sufficiently charged. You can read it in the brightest sunlight. You can toss it on the sand and then just shake it off. If it gets wet, just let it dry in the sun.

Printed books have other advantages. You can flip through the pages easily. You can write in it. You can take a paperback and fold it to cram it in your pocket or bag. Back in 1939, the aptly named Pocket Books – now owned by Simon & Schuster – produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States, and revolutionized the publishing industry.

And there’s one other important feature of printed books: They feel good in your hand. They deliver a pleasurable visual and tactile experience. They have heft and a physical presence that seems to connect you with the story.

So if we didn’t have the humble but noble paperback book – the bringer of dreams and stories, the door to new worlds and magical experiences – we’d surely have to invent it!