Why Indie Publish a Paperback?

 Is there any point in going to the trouble and expense of publishing an e-book as a paperback?
 I decided that I wanted my mainstream historicals, Barbara's War and Hannah's War, to be available to readers in both formats. I've also put them on all the various e-book outlets even though I know Amazon is the main seller.
I've only sold a handful of physical books, at this rate I will recover the costs involved for years. So why am I going to publish the second part of Barbara's War as an e-book and a paperback?
Is it vanity? If I'm honest, probably that has something to do with it – but the main reason I'm prepared to make any financial loss on the paperback is because I want physical copies to give to my friends and family. I also want one on my bookshelf.

I haven't been able to promote my books into indie bookshops or the libraries because at the moment Create Space, with whom I publish, only produce author copies in America and the postage is prohibitive. It's actually cheaper for me to buy from Amazon.UK than to send for author copies. I'm hoping that sometime soon I shall be able to buy personal copies for resale to bookshops and at events will be available here.

I am selling hundreds of copies every month of each title as e-books; it only took one month to recoup what I spent on producing the paperback. I'd much rather spend my royalties on writing related things than give it to the taxman.

I would be interested to hear what other indie writers, and indeed readers, think about this. Do we still need to have a physical copy of our book in order to feel we are "real authors"?