These are people who haven't gotten the hang of eBooks. - eBooks are searchable. - eBooks are quotable. - eBooks are portable. I sync mine across three devices. - eBooks are loanable (if you are willing to kick Amazon's DRM in the head) - eBooks are adjustable in size, adjustable in aspect ratio, adjustable in font and adjustable in readability in other ways. - eBooks (again, cracked of DRM) can read to you (albeit through a robot that isn't particularly convincing - I've been an Audible Platinum subscriber for six years now so I'm not exactly new to audiobooks). - eBooks allow you to see passages that others have highlighted (which to me usually outlines how stupid the rest of the world is but there you go). Importantly, eBooks can be updated. Typo in the initial run? Re-upload the file and every subsequent purchaser gets a better experience. eBooks allow authors to experiment with sales - I know a guy who puts a few of his books up under different covers every week to see what happens to sales. Finally eBooks don't need publishers. There need be no gatekeeper saying "we will make at least $50k on your writing, therefore it is worth spending $25k killing trees so that we can pay you a $5k advance for that novel you've been working on for three years." eBooks allow authors to directly interact with their audience and make as much (or as little) money as the title is worth. Gentle reminder: 50 Shades of Gray was Twilight fan-fic. It was exposed to peers, who encouraged its continuation and marketing, causing it to pop up on Amazon as a self-published eBook. It has since sold 65 million copies and is the fastest-selling paperback in history. Universal bid over $3m for the film rights and Brett Easton Ellis is in negotiations to write the screenplay. For fanfic. Again - I own some bitchin' books. I spent two hours last night trying to locate the 12-volume set of *A Study of History* and have had The Golden Bough on my watch list for ages. But that's 'cuz books are cool. If I'm actually using them, I'll take digital every time.
As much as I love the physical book (for a lot of reasons, not least being that my father is a book artist), my favorite feature of the eBook is the searchability. It is incredibly frustrating trying to find that old quote from a hard copy when you're writing. eBooks therefore reduce the need to take notes, which is very desirable. I hate note taking while I'm reading. I don't find that it helps me remember more. I find it disruptive to my concentration.
Or selecting a word to define. Moby Dick had so much trade-specific terminology that it was actually frustrating to have to reference a dictionary or my laptop every time I came across a word I was not familiar with. Often times I'd just skip it and move on (Hey, I know it's a part of a ship. Good enough, right?). One evening I was on my couch and wanted to pick it up again but couldn't remember where I had left it. Instead of getting up to look for it, I just downloaded it to my iPad for free. Picked up where I left off and found that reading on the tablet was immeasurably more enjoyable than in paperback. It removed so much frustration. There are many books that are are served best by a corporeal form, but for me, I'd like most of them to be digital.