Mark Mapstone, [@markpastone on ] kindly responded to our challenge. He did so in a comment...but it deserves its own post...

I'm up for a challenge: 10 wonderful reasons to embrace digital books.

1: Less materialism

Embracing any digital formats will either consciously or subconsciously change the way we think about, show and share material possessions. Many people know about 'less is more' and often want a minimal lifestyle, but can't actually introduce the changes required to do so. Digital print, whilst initially is a shock to the system, gradually starts this change to an ultimately 'lighter' way of living. Those people that value, showing off their reading achievements by displaying a vast library of books, will still want this understandably, and this 'need' in a digital format, will push forword application development which takes the library from an e-reader to a tv/projector/display, pulling book covers and spine imagery from online locations and presents them accordingly to reflect a traditional bookshelf of bound manuscripts.

2: Portability

Have you ever tried moving home or traveling with a big (or small) book collection? Then you'll know about the importance of utilising a portable format. As a remote employee, I value being able to travel with my documents, be they online, or on a hard drive, and the more crowded and expensive the world becomes, remote working and / or greater distance traveling will most certainly increase. Instead of taking a long train or plane flight and being stuck with the 1 book you brought, you'll be able to switch between titles in your collection as you wish, much like how people carry 100s of hours of music on their mp3 player despite the fact that they may only have a short journey ahead of them. The biggest benefit to being portable with any of our possessions will be the ease of mobility - the lighter we live, the easier we are able to adapt to any situation life throws at us.

3: Format control

Never will you have to suffer reading a badly formatted book. 'Digital' allows complete control to change the spacing and font size - in future there will be many more advanced formating controls to suit your needs.

4: Translatable

You may only speak and read one language, but writers and publishers want to reach a wider audience with printing in multiple languages, and there's a clear production cost which prevents new and existing authors and publishers in doing so. Digital removes a large headache in doing this.

5: More reading less marketing

If more people are sharing and downloading digital formats, there's less need for high budgets in marketing and PR to publish, this will mean more titles come to market faster and more reading choices for you. hoo-ray!

6: Introduction to classics

Google introduced half a million free ebooks to its online library, and many of them are classics. What better way to get aquainted with the masters than for free?

7: Read what you need - not just novels

We currently read a lot more than just printed books; newspapers, rss feeds, emails, docs and exam papers. E-readers aren't just for 500page novels, they are for anything and everything you want to read.

8: Forces technology change

How long do you think it will take for laptops, mobile phones and other digital devices to introduce an 'e-book' mode to their displays once we're all converted to digital formats? Not long I'm guessing. I'm surprised that the public have suffered for so long with difficult to read monitors and displays. Its time to embrace this chance for change.

9: It saves an entire industry

Print magazines and newspapers may be struggling, but layout design for e-readers will still be required. This means a whole industry currently at risk from the popularity of websites, can now be saved by the humble e-reader - layout designers will still be needed, even if the printing presses slow to a crawl.

10: Forces insurance changes

Currently there are no insurance policies for digital media. One reason for this is because digital music 'ripping' is still seen as a young persons lifestyle choice. Once digital books become mainstream and hit the traditional print purchaser, they will surely want their collections insured.