Ebooks have been popular for decades and audiobooks are increasingly so. But physical books are still the decided favourite: a survey of Australian publishers after last Christmas reported print books made up a comfortable majority of sales (ebooks were 4–18% and audiobooks 5–15%). This is despite regular warnings about the death of the book.
Some critics of print books have even changed their tune. “We need to get over books,” wrote journalist Jeff Jarvis in a 2009 book calling for them to be digitised. “I recant,” he wrote in the Atlantic nearly 15 years later, in 2023.
Some readers like a print book’s sensory qualities: its feel and smell. For others, there is satisfaction in assembling a book collection. Like vinyl records, sales of which are also healthy, print books can be collected as valued objects to be cherished. Collections, and individual special books, can be admired, shared and displayed, in homes and on social media.
