Even with the rising popularity of digital books (like Amazon Kindle) and mobile eReading apps, many readers still prefer physical print books. Though many people prefer the tactile feel of traditional printed media, eBooks have some distinct benefits and offer versatility that prints cannot. At the same time, print books aren’t going away anytime soon. However, no matter what, ebooks are still not a threat to printed books. It is because there is something that ebooks just lack. In this article, we will talk about how printed books are better than ebooks.
1. Paper books are cheaper:
Printed books are cheaper than ebooks. When you have to read an eBook, you don’t just have to buy an ebook but also a device to read it on. Although it is a one-time purchase, it is still quite expensive. The most popular device for reading digital books is a kindle. It costs around $100- $300. Once you buy a Kindle, you have to buy every book separately. It is only a few dollars cheaper than the original physical copy.
Unless you buy upwards of 25 books a year at a brand-new print price, this slight discount won’t cover the cost of a Kindle.
2. Retention of information:
When reading a physical book, readers retain more information. While reading, turning pages creates an ‘index’ in the brain. It connects information in a book to a specific page. So when you remember it afterward, the page placement helps you remember what was written. Our brains can retain more of what we read by mapping the information in this way.
You can also retain more information by note taking. One thing that decreases the demand of digital book is that taking notes on them is harder. When you are reading a story, there are some parts that you just want to annotate. You must use the “note” function in a Kindle book to make a note. The Kindle, for the record, is an e-ink reader with a refresh rate slower than congress passing a bill. It’s nearly impossible to type on display with that slow refresh rate, and it’s not worth the effort.
Physical books don’t have that problem. You can pop open your highlighter and highlight what you want and write in the margins, on sticky notes, or entire sheets of paper. You fold between the pages if you wish.
And when you want to review your notes, it’s easy to crack open your physical book to get a feel for the annotations you made. You can use your highlighter to draw attention to what you want. If you wish to, write in the margins, on sticky notes, or on whole sheets of paper folded between the pages.
When you want to go over your notes again, it’s simple to open your physical book and look at the annotations you made.
3. Loaning the books is easier:
The process of lending books via Kindle is inconvenient. You’ll need the loanee’s Amazon email address first. Then, using your desktop browser, go to Amazon and look for their well-hidden “loan” button for ebook content. After that, you enter their email address. This sends an email link to your loanee, who must click it to receive the loaned book for thirty days.
Of course, if the ebook is available for loan. Many publishers limit this option, making it difficult to lend your ebook even if you wanted to.
On the other hand, physical books are far more straightforward to lend. You take the book and hand it over to them. Tada! The book has been loaned.
4. You are the legal owner of the book:
You become the legal owner of a physical book when you buy it.
However, when you buy an ebook, you’re just buying a license for that ebook. That ebook belongs to Amazon, and you’ve purchased a one-time use license to use it.
This is why you cannot sell ebooks. This is also why publishers have the final say on whether or not you can loan ebooks.
This also means that Amazon retains the right to revoke your ebook access at any time.
Books, although they do not cost a lot, are a good source to sell and make money. Especially, first-copy hardcovers are more worth it.
In the vast majority of cases, we will never look at a book again after finishing it. This is the way it should be; books are meant to hold information, and once you have it in your head, you don’t need the book anymore.
You can recoup some of the cost of a physical copy of a book by selling it back to the used bookstore where you purchased it. The money raised can be used to buy more books!
However, when you buy an ebook, it stays on your Kindle account indefinitely.
5. Research better:
Ebooks are difficult to read on tablets, phones, and traditional computer screens. Ebooks do not cause the same type of eye strain as conventional books. Some E-Readers have “low light” and “no glare” screens. That’s great, but these are difficult to read even in direct sunlight. With regular books, this isn’t an issue.
If you’re working on a research paper and need to have five different books open simultaneously, physical books allow you to do so. Your E-Reader or phone, on the other hand, does not. You can keep separate “tabs” for different books on a tablet or computer screen, as long as they are all on different websites. However, the more tabs you have open, the slower your computer will run and the greater the chance of a crash. Because physical books don’t have a hard drive, you can “tab” as many locations as you want) without them crashing.
Conclusion:
Digital books are great. They are convenient and easy to carry. You don’t have to save space from hoarding your book. However, there are a few benefits most book lovers want that ebooks simply do not have. Due to the lack of these benefits, these books can never threaten the OG paper books.
Well, let’s admit it, one of the greatest pleasures a book reader has is, storing them. Once we finish the book, we like to put it on the shelf among the rest as a trophy. Apart from that, a certain pleasure comes from feeling the texture, thickness, and weight of the book.
With the book’s physicality, there is more interactivity than with an E-Reader. Many people prefer the “feel” of books to ebooks because they are more satisfying and nostalgic. A thin E-
Reader feels like a toy compared to the substantial tactile experience of readers.
You can feel the pages with paper books and hold them in your hands. That is not possible with ebooks. You can’t borrow an ebook, which is a great way to encourage people to read more (and outside of their homes). Because your ebook isn’t printed, you won’t be able to sell or donate it when you’re done with it. So if you are a writer reading this blog, you should opt for both physical and digital books, but give more importance to Physical books. For more marketing tips, visit the seo valley.
