By BookBaby author Steven Spatz

There’s an old axiom that sums up America’s enduring love affair with the Printed book: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Readers remain stubbornly loyal to ink-and-paper editions of their favorite books. When BookBaby first published this infographic, “100 Books Will Be Gone Before You Know It,” it included this key statistic:

In 2015, 66 percent of Americans preferred printed books over the relatively new technology of digital books.

We wanted to update the graphic to reflect today’s publishing marketplace, so we reran the numbers. The results recall French writer Jean-Baptiste Karr’s expression listed above. Despite the advent of TikTok, streaming services, and dozens of other attention-stealing technology changes in the past eight years, the score remains the same.

In 2022, 66 percent of Americans choose physical books over the now-established eBook format.

So, what’s behind our stubborn passion for paper books? Here are a few theories:

• With a record 826 million printed books sold in the US in 2021, sales peak in late Autumn and early Winter, hinting that Americans are buying lots of physical books as gifts for the holiday season.
• Pre-digital generations still prefer a low-tech or no-tech approach to their recreation time. There’s nothing as simple as picking up a paper book and turning to page one.
• Many people prefer printed books because they enjoy having a physical, tangible thing to hold when it comes to what they buy. We’re seeing a focus on older, established forms of media making a market comeback in other industries too, such as the vinyl LP and Compact Disc (CD) resurgence we see in the music world.
• Printed books need no preparation for reading on the go, with no headphones or charging required. It’s as simple as popping one in your bag to read on the bus, train, or plane.
• In a nod to the digital age, printed books remain infinitely more shareable. Interesting cover art, vintage editions, iconic author names and titles… this is great material to garner responses on social media sites such as TikTok and Instagram.
• Finally, print books are arguably more social, easily loaned or passed along to friends and family. When a book is purchased digitally, it can only be read by the one login account on whatever platform it’s been bought on. Ink-and-paper books have endless potential to circulate.

Now the only question that remains for authors: How many books do you need to print to meet the steady high demand for our favorite book format? Here’s how we propose you out 100 printed books to use.

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This BookBaby blog article How To Use 100 Printed Books To Promote Your Self-published Title appeared first on and was stolen from BookBaby Blog .