Print Books vs. Digital Books

      While the first print books came from Johann Gutenberg in 1448, the first automated readers would not come until 1949, when Angela Ruiz Robles attempted the first one. Her work would go unpatented and largely unnoticed until the internet was invented and ebooks became more than just a concept. In 1971, Michael Hart got unprecedented access to early computers and decided that it would be beneficial to digitize some important writing such as the Declaration of Independence, the Bible, and the Constitution and make them available for people to download. It would take ebooks quite a while to catch on, not really hitting their stride until 1999, but once they found a niche in the market, they have settled in to stay.

     While ebooks were once predicted to entirely take over the book market, as this history of ebooks points out, people rarely buy ebooks as gifts the way they do physical books. For me personally, I prefer physical books because my eyes get tired from looking at screens and I feel that I process reading a paper book more effectively (though this has not been proven scientifically).

      Ebooks had a significant rise in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic because of fears about the virus spreading around stores, but those levels have equaled back out to around pre-pandemic levels. The lesson to be learned here, I believe, is to choose which form you market a book most strongly in by its subject matter. Books that a person would buy for themself are better marketed as ebooks, while things people might buy as gifts for loved ones are better marketed as print copies. For instance, a book on marketing, self help, or plumbing could be very effectively marketed primarily as an ebook, whereas a novel or an art book would make the most profit as a physical book. Of course there will be overlap between the two however, and sometimes you can make profit in unexpected places. Both forms will always have their place in the market.