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There's nothing quite like walking into a bookshop, library or someones house and seeing a copy of your book.

You can see from the well thumbed edges that it's been read. It's been around for 10 years and it will be around for another 30 or 40 (modern bindings notwithstanding) - and some copies will probably outlive you.

The same cannot be said for the "Internet" - although I think what Brewster Kahle has done with The Internet Archive is amazing - much of which remains ephemeral.

Once books were the preserve of "elites". Now I think the tables are turned. Some marginal voices get traction only through traditional publication forms because they live in repressive technological regimes or outside the walled gardens of the so-called "town square". It is not the egalitarian utopia once promised.

Here's an excerpt from Digital Vegan

  "With opportunities to fix our digital world from /within/ the
  system vanishing, book publishing remains a bastion of open
  intelligence. What you hold in your hands (or have as a non-DRM
  file) may soon be one of the few remaining means to circulate
  critical opinions that would quickly be censored online."