Are paper books facing extinction? In 1258, the Mongols turned Baghdad’s Tigris River black with ink after throwing thousands of original manuscripts into its waters. The incident — which wiped out centuries of knowledge in science, literature, and philosophy — was one of the greatest cultural losses the Arab world has ever seen. With the decline of physical books and rise of electronic alternatives, a loss on this scale seems unlikely to occur again. But with digitization forging ahead, could we lose physical books entirely?

Our guess is… no. Books have survived every technological shift thrown at them — from scrolls in ancient Egypt to the 15th century Gutenberg press to modern printing. With the advent of radio, TV, and the internet, people have time and time again foretold the downfall of reading — but here we are, still turning pages.

However, it’s hard to ignore that e-books have changed the game. Platforms like Kindle and apps like Audible have made it easier for readers to carry huge numbers of titles with them at any given time. The market is also on the up, with stats showing that the global e-book market is expected to hit USD 14.61 bn in 2024, with the MENA region set to reach revenues of over USD 302 mn by 2029.

The emergence of digital publishing has also changed how the industry works. One key shift has been the rise of self-publishing, with platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) offering writers 35-70% royalties on their books published through the tool — a big leg up compared to traditional publishing houses’ 16-25%, writes Forbes. Some authors have found considerable success with this approach, despite questions over the credibility of self-published books and hand-wringing over an overwhelming deluge of new content.

In the Arab world — especially in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and UAE — e-books and audiobooks are on the rise. Amazon Kindle introduced Arabic text support in 2018, opening up its bestselling e-book device to a greater number of regional readers. Homegrown publishers and distributors are also gaining ground, with Amman-born Abjjad offering over 28k titles for a subscription fee, Dubai-based Rufoof offering over 25k Arabic titles for a subscription fee, and Beirut-based Neelwafurat offering over 15k e-books that can be read through the iKitab app. Digital versions of English-language books also offer readers and distributors alike cheaper access to expensive-to-import titles from abroad.

Despite e-books’ growing popularity, physical books continue to dominate the market — especially in the MENA region. While e-books made up about 30% of book sales globally in 2023, e-book sales in the Arab world garnered only around 10% — a starkly lower figure. While the appeal of physical books is certainly tied to our cultural attachments to written texts, publishers in the Arab world also lack a distribution infrastructure and regulatory environment conducive to publishing e-books.

For one, selling books digitally is tough in economies where cash-on-delivery is the preferred payment choice, Rufoof founder Shadi Al Hassan told Arab Lit Quarterly. Some companies have attempted to address this problem by finding government or other sponsors that allow them to provide books to readers with no charge, or by collecting sums of cash from peoples’ homes and converting it into digital store credits that can be used to purchase e-books.

Piracy is also a major concern, with publishers pointing out that digitizing books offers more opportunities for people to copy and transmit books — leading to significantly lower return on investment for digitally produced titles. “Most publishers shy away from ebooks as they fear the duplication of content. While this is a worldwide issue, regulations are yet to be in place within Arabic online publishing,” Rufoof executive Doha Alrefae told TechX. While measures like watermarking could help stem piracy concerns, a wider cultural shift in how people think about e-books is also needed for the industry to take off. “For digital content, unfortunately many take it for granted that it should be free,” Al Hassan notes.

For our environmentally minded friends, it's also not clear which medium wins out on the sustainability front. While e-books might seem to be the more environmentally friendly option, it’s not clear that they’re the greener alternative. The production of an e-reader has a carbon footprint of 168 kg of CO2 — compared to a single print book’s average carbon footprint of 7.5 kg of CO2. Moreover, e-readers require significant amounts of rare minerals and water to be produced, alongside continued electricity to keep them charged — raising their carbon footprint.

At the end of the day, print books still win our hearts. From one reader to another, the smell of a book’s pages and its weight in our hands will always be a sensory experience no screen can replace. Physical books are better for focus, don’t need charging, and remain popular for fiction and children’s stories. While e-books are making their impact, our bet is that print is here to stay.