Eco-Libris is collaborating with BookSwim on a special holiday gift card program

Eco-Libris is happy to announce on a new collaboration, this time with BookSwim, the premier online book rental service.

BookSwim launched yesterday a Holiday Gift Card Program to sponsor the planting of holiday evergreen trees with the help of Eco-Libris. For every online gift card purchased at BookSwim.com during the 2007 holiday gift season, BookSwim promises the planting of a new Holiday evergreen tree with Eco-Libris.

BookSwim, established June 2006, is the first full-service online paperback and hardcover book rental library club allowing subscribers to rent books shipped directly to their door with no late fees and free shipping.

The company is based in Monroe, NJ but offers book rental service nationwide ranging from hardcover new release novels to classics, nonfiction bestsellers to children's books.

Book club subscription plans range from under $15 to $36 per month and allow up to 11 books borrowed out at a time and returned in a pre-paid bag, but members are also given the option to buy.

George Burke, chief marketing officer, explains the idea behind the gift card: "book rental gift cards make great last minute gifts for parents, for seniors who may not be able to make it to the bookstore or library, kids who need a constant supply of fresh books, and of course friends and coworkers. And now, the Holiday gift giver can be proud of the dual nature of the honorable gifts of both reading and replenishing nature."

You are welcome to check it out at BookSwim's website.

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

A special green offer for readers of Oprah's Book Club new selection

I read yesterday on USA TODAY on Oprah Winfrey's book club new selection - The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. This is a great book and a great choice!

Eco-Libris believes that this 973-pages book should not be only a celebration of a great book and the joy of reading, but also an opportunity to discuss the urgent need in sustainable reading, which does not harm the environment. I read in the article that New American Library has printed 612,000 new "deluxe" Oprah editions. That's a lot of paper and a lot of trees that are cut down for this special edition.

Eco-Libris aims to raise the awareness to the environmental impacts of using paper for the production of books and for the need in printing books in an eco-friendly manner.

Therefore, we are having a special offer for all the eco-conscious readers out there that want to buy the new edition of the book:

If you buy the book and you want to help the environment, please send us an email to info@ecolibris.net with your address and the first sentence of Chapter 4 (just to show us you bought the book..). Eco-Libris will balance out the book for the first 50 people who email us with the right sentence.

It means that one tree will be planted by our planting partners to balance out the paper used for the book. And we will send you our sticker made of recycled paper saying “One tree planted for this book” you can later proudly display on the book's sleeve showing your commitment to the environment. And yes, we'll send it in an envelope made of recycled paper.

We truly hope to see Oprah's book club assist in promoting sustainable reading in the same way it helped with a great success to promote reading.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!