Earth Day 2011 - 41 Reasons to Plant a Tree for Your Book: Reason no. 4

We continue with our Earth Day Campaign - 41 Reasons to Plant a Tree for Your Book, where we share with you 41 reasons provided by readers to celebrate the upcoming 41st anniversary of Earth Day.

With more than 180,000 trees planted so far on behalf of readers, authors and publishers working with Eco-Libris, it's no surprise that we think planting trees to green up books is a great idea.. But we also want to hear what readers think about it and why they believe planting trees for their books is a good idea.

So for 41 days until Earth Day, we will publish the 41 best answers we receive on the blog, one reply a day. All replies will be gathered and presented on the campaign's page.

Reason no. 4:

I want to plant a tree for my book so that my children will always have a nice quiet spot to read as they grow older! They'll also be able to see how their favorite books were once trees as well! - Cassie

Thank you Cassie for sharing with us your thoughts on planting trees for your book!

Cassie, just like all the other readers whose replies we'll publish, is winning one of the great 41 prizes we give away on this campaign, courtesy of our partners. Winners can choose their prize from a great list of gifts including a $25 gift card for Strand Bookstore, audiobooks from Simon & Schuster Audio (such as The Half Life by Jennifer Weiner, American Assassin by Vince Flynn and Essence of Happiness by the Dalai Lama) and great books, like Planet Home by Jeffrey Hollender, books from the Little Green Books series, Menu Dating by Tristan Coopersmith and The Healthy Home by Dave Wentz and Dr. Myron Wentz. You can see the full list of the prizes on the campaign's page.

If you want to participate in the campaign, we still have some spots available so please send us your reply, either by adding a comment here or sending it to info@ecolibris.net. We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

A novel about the urban farming and sustainability movement looks for funding on Kickstarter

Nick Esposito, an urban agriculturalist and writer from West Philadelphia who is also the founder of PhillyRooted, have spent the last six months working on a novel about the urban farming and sustainability movement. He will be releasing the novel on April 29th and have set up a Kickstarter page to help raise the funds for printing it.

His goal is to raise $2,500 until April 8 and so far he raised $1,065. If you'd like to support the project or learn more about it, please visit Nick's Kickstarter page. Remember that the goal should be met by April 8, or otherwise the project won't get funded (which, in this situation, all the people who did contributed money to the project will receive it back).

Here's the video clip on his upcoming book:

Here's some more information on the project from the Kickstarter page:

For the past six years of my life, I've been cultivating my experiences, my ideals and my energy into writing my novel, Seeds of Discent. As you read this, you may point out the typo on the word, Discent. Well, it's not a typo. It's all explained at the end of the book. But in order to find this out, I'll need to get the book published. So for now, a little background on how this idea came about. When I first graduated college, I went out in the world to become a writer. But somewhere along the way, I just couldn't deny my natural passion for social justice and activism. So these ideals took me on a long journey into the world of urban farming. In a sense, this book tells the story of that journey. But this is not an autobiography. I hope that the characters of this book and their story captures this vibrant movement in a more encompassing way. I feel that the sustainability movement will be for our generation what the civil rights movement or the enlightenment movement was to past generations. And I hope this book will be a part of helping bring this movement into the mainstream.

I feel that the crux of any movement is in the artistic interpretation of it. So for the past six months I have finally taken the chance to sit down and compile this story. I am in the final revision process with my amazing editor and designer and we are ready to send it off to the printer at the end of April. Because yes, I am self publishing. Five years ago, people would pity a writer for taking this route. But today, with the help of social media and some really talented friends, I couldn't think of a better way. I've been fortunate enough to create a team of my great friends at Carpe Diem Construction Design Company to put together a book that will not only be professionally executed, but also immensely unique in its creativity and scope. I also have a lot of help with publicity from the Philadelphia artist, agriculture and media communities to promote this work.

The money I hope to raise will cover all of my printing costs for my first run of the book, and also to compensate my very talented friends who could probably have made much more money on other projects, but who are willing to work with me because they believe in this project. These funds will be the first investment into other runs that I hope will result in larger distribution and ultimately the broader success of this book.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!