Print book sales are up across nearly all formats and age groups. In some cases, the percent of increase is double digits. While juvenile non-fiction sales increased the most (can you say, “home schooling?”), juvenile fiction, YA and adult fiction and non-fiction book sales have also gone up by substantial amounts.
While there is a consistent reporting system for the sale of print books, there isn’t one for e-books. But it stands to reason sales for those are up as well. Usage of the e-book platform my library offers has increased steadily every month since March, and the demand for new e-books is so great that many titles have months-long waiting lists.
The increase in overall book sales makes sense. Deprived of many other kinds of entertainment and recreation, we turn to the old-fashioned pleasure of reading. We can’t travel, but we can go to new places in books. We can’t socialize normally but we can spend time in the heads of our characters and share their experiences. We are trapped in our homes, but we can find freedom in books.
As people’s lives are upended, it seems obvious why they would turn to the old-fashioned pleasure of reading. But I find it interesting that print sales have increased so much. It’s much easier to access an e-book. A few clicks and it’s downloaded. No need to risk going out to a bookstore. No having to wait patiently for books to be delivered to your home.
So why are people turning to the quaint, unsophisticated experience of reading physical books? Perhaps we are reassured by such a traditional activity. The world around us is changing so much and so rapidly, it makes sense that people would return to familiar “comforts”.
When we read a print book, we are grounded by the heft of the book in our hands. The tactile satisfaction of turning the pages. Transported by the smell of paper and ink, the vague perfume of old books and libraries. Perhaps reading print books reminds of the delight we felt as a child, turning the pages of a favorite picture book as an adult reads to us. The guilty pleasure we felt as a teenager, finishing a few more pages of an exciting story when we were supposed to be doing something else. The intimate coziness of curling up with a print book on a cold, stormy day.
Print books take us back to a simpler, less threatening time in our lives. The physicality of them helps bridge the gap between the real world we’re forced to live in, and the fantasy realm found between the pages, the one we oftentimes wish was real.
E-books are like all kinds of digital entertainment and information; they allow us to pretend we don’t have bodies; that we are just eyes and a brain that registers and interprets what we see. Print books are different. They connect us with the past and remind us of all the things that led up to books: cave art and runes, stone tablets and vellum manuscripts. We cradle books in our hands like the first precious tools that, for good or bad, brought our species to the place we are now.
Print books connect us directly to the author, scribbling their story on paper, typing away on an old-fashioned typewriter or high-tech keyboard. Their physical act of creation is paralleled by our physical act of holding the book, turning the pages, scanning print that is made up of crisp lines of ink rather than pixels grouped together to create the illusion of letters. I didn’t think my most recent published book was going to be available in print; it was a delightful surprise when I received author copies in the mail. Now my book was real, I thought. Now it truly exists.
You may say that in my praise of print, I’m showing my age. I’m sure that’s true. Yet, in my experience, young people often value print books even more than older readers do. They appreciate the connection to the past, and they yearn for the novelty of something real, in a world that is increasingly virtual. The old-fashioned quaintness of print makes it special and meaningful.
Someday, the pandemic’s impact on our lives will fade away and we will return to a more normal reality. Our lives will get hectic and fast-paced once again, and maybe e-books will regain their ascendancy. When leisure time is short, the convenience of the digital format often outweighs the satisfactions of print. But maybe, having lived through this challenging time period, we will retain our affection for a format that has been around for centuries.