With the rise of BookTok and premium print, books are finding new relevance a digital world
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“So, Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.” –Roald Dahl, Matilda
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” –Stephen King
I am a bookworm…and I am biased toward the printed book so much so that the Kindle bought as a birthday gift 13 years ago has remained untouched. Its current whereabouts are unknown. I would rather pack two or three 400-page books when travelling and sacrifice a layer or two.
I am not alone. There are plenty of readers who find new and inventive ways to share their love of books—BookTok, that cultural phenomenon, is a good example. Books are vessels of imagination, stories, knowledge, and power. Reading books empowers, enriches, and fuels critical thinking. That is why dictators and authoritarian regimes dislike them so much and try to limit access to titles that they deem too dangerous, deviant, or challenging to their power.
And yet, in an increasingly digital world, printed books and long-form reading are facing huge challenges.
The UK government has declared 2026 the National Year of Reading. The data suggests reading needs all the public relations it can get. Surveys indicate fewer than a third of schoolchildren say they read for pleasure, while up to half of adults have not read a single book in the past year. Across Europe, 47% of adults are classified as non-readers.
The recent Shaping the Future with Books conference, organised by Intergraf, shone an equally gloomy light on the state of the European book publishing industry and reading habits of its citizens. OECD PISA findings show declining literacy skills with one in four young Europeans lacking basic competencies. In Germany alone, 20% of adults were reported to have low reading proficiency.
Books may still account for more than 80% of publishers’ revenues, but unit sales are softening and literacy indicators are flashing amber.
Printed books demand time and attention. They require sustained focus, something increasingly challenged by the pervasive immediacy of digital scroll and “skim and scan” habits. Social media, short-form content, and even AI-generated digests encourage speed over depth. And this is having a detrimental impact on the younger generation’s ability to retain information.
In her talk, Marte Pupe Støyva from the University of Stavanger presented research on reading practices in higher education, arguing sustained attention is now “so valuable, and so fragile.” She highlighted research that showed students are incapable of focusing more than five minutes at a time thanks to their digital and short-form reading tendencies. She pointed out reading is not only a mental activity, but also a physical one. Students engage their bodies while reading printed books through highlighting, underlining, taking notes, and turning pages. This physical interaction helps them to engage more deeply with the content, pause and reflect, as well as drives imagination and critical thinking.
Reading on paper appears to support deeper comprehension and critical thinking
in ways screens struggle to replicate.
The rationale is not anti-digital. It is evidence-based. Nordic countries like Sweden are backtracking after years of prioritizing tablets and online learning in classrooms. The decline in literacy scores and educational attainment has prompted a policy reversal, with governments committed to reinvesting in printed textbooks and the allocation of substantial funding to accelerate their return to schools. Similar shifts are taking place in Denmark and Finland.
At the same time, digital culture is not the enemy of print. In fact, it has come to be an ally of sorts.
Swedish book influencer Jasmine Darban described BookTok as a “large digital book club” and a powerful phenomenon, with the hashtag #BookTok already accumulating over 73 million posts. Durban emphasized BookTok had created a new era in publishing marked by influencer marketing, BookTok tables in bookstores, bidding wars for trending titles, and the rise of new publishing imprints tailored to viral genres like “romantasy.”
Social media has created visibility, community, debate, and cultural energy around physical books. And other cultural forms are aiding literature. We’ve seen notable book-to-screen adaptations, especially recent film adaptations of Wuthering Heights and Hamlet, with some cinemas selling copies of the novels alongside film screenings. As Darban remarked, social media is no longer necessarily the death of literature.
Jasmine Darban explains how BookTok is reshaping reading culture and inspiring
new audiences.
Moreover, publishers and printers are responding. If screens dominate speed and convenience, print is leaning into experience and value. Creating premium is a clear growth area for books. Decorated edges, sprayed patterns, foil blocking, textured covers, and special collectors editions allow publishers to extract greater value from content. Consumers are paying more for beautifully designed physical books positioned as keepsakes and “coffee table” artefacts rather than commodities.
In parallel, advances in digital printing and print on demand models are transforming the supply chain. Digital now accounts for a growing share of production value and enables shorter runs, reduced waste, as well as perpetual availability of backlist titles (good for those BookTok recommendations). Fewer unsold copies mean economic and environmental gains.
In other words, the industry is not standing still. It is recalibrating.
The debate, then, is not print versus digital. It is about balance. As Intergraf’s president Ulrich Setter noted, a book has both a cultural and a technical dimension. Without technical excellence, there is no physical object. Without cultural value, there is no purpose in printing it.
If we want to reverse reading decline, the answer will not lie in nostalgia alone. It will require:
The future of reading won’t ever be like the past, but the printed book is proving remarkably resilient. And for those of us still willing to sacrifice backpack space for a stack of paperbacks, that feels like solid reassurance.
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