This week's 10 recommended green ebooks: A Taste for Green Tangerines and 9 other great green ebooks!

We're back again with our weekly ten recommendations on green ebooks!

Just a reminder - Each week we present you here with list of 10 recommended e-books on a variety of green issues - from climate change and conservation to sustainable living and green marketing. Most of these green ebooks are new and were either released in the last month or two or about to be released (but already available as ebooks).

The links of these ebooks are to Amazon.com and I apologize in advance to all the Nook, iPad, Kobo and Sony Reader owners. I hope you can easily find an ebook you'll like on other ebookstores. This is also the place to disclose that we're taking part in Amazon's affiliate program and therefore will receive a small percentage of every purchase made using these links. We hope you don't mind! You can find all the lists published so far on our recommended green ebooks webpage.

Without further ado, here's this week's list of 10 recommended green e-books:

1. A Taste for Green Tangerines by Barbara Bisco - Black Lotus Publishing Ltd. (April 25, 2011)

2. Tree Talk by Ana Salote - Speaking Tree (April 14, 2011)

3. Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist by Patrick Moore - Beatty Street Publishing Inc. (April 17, 2011)

4. eco+waza by Reina Otsuka - Ecotwaza Co., Ltd. (April 3, 2011)

5. China's Green Revolution: Energy, Environment and the 12th Five-Year Plan by Tan Copsey (Author), Olivia Boyd (Author), Hu Angang (Author), Liu Jianqiang (Author), Yang Fuqiang (Author), Feng Jie (Author), Shin Wei Ng (Author), Linden Ellis (Author), Sam Geall (Author), Isabel Hilton (Editor) - chinadialogue (April 14, 2011)

6. Redesign by 2048: Sustainable Ways to Save Energy, Water, and Money for Existing Homes. by César Arizmendi - Amazon Digital Services (April 26, 2011)

7. Sustainable Highways, Pavements and Materials by Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan - Transdependenz LLC; First Edition edition (April 25, 2011)

8. Green Bugs by David Nivala - David Nivala (April 13, 2011)

9. Hot Air: Meeting Canada's Climate Change Challenge by Jeffrey Simpson - Emblem Editions; Reprint edition (April 13, 2011)

10. Confronting Climate Change by Constance Lever-Tracy - T & F Books UK (April 6, 2011)

See you next week!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

SHI & Eco-Libris: Launching Culantro Rojo Organics

I'm happy to update you on a new article of Eylon Israely of Eco-Libris that was published on the spring newsletter of our planting partner, SHI.

Eylon wrote a great article that is focused on Culantro Rojo Organics, Panama’s first organic C.S.A. supplied chiefly by SHI’s farmers, which he established after relocating to Panama in 2008. I see Culantro Rojo Organics not only as an innovative social venture, but also a green initiative that has developed from Eco-Libris and the relationship we established over the years with SHI. I hope we'll see more of such green initiatives incubated in Eco-Libris in the upcoming years!

You can read the article at http://sustainableharvest.org/news-articles/articles/newsletter-articles/partnerships-in-action (The second one from the top).

To learn more on Culantro Rojo visit http://www.culantrorojo.com/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Would you pay $5-$10 for author events at bookstores?

GalleyCat reported yesterday that starting in May, Boulder Book Store will begin charging fees for author events and attendees can expect to pay $5 to $10 for admission. At the same time, each ticket will be accompanied by a $5 coupon towards the cost of the book or any purchase the day of the event.

Why? "Owner David Bolduc emailed customers to explain: “Publishers place certain expectations on us when we host events, and so in order to continually attract authors, we must fulfill these expectations. Oftentimes, in return for sending an author to a bookstore, publishers expect us to attract a certain number of people and sell a certain number of books.”"

I tried to understand the logic behind this decision and frankly I don't get it. I can see why a coupon provided to customers attending these events can generate more sales, but I wonder how charging people $5-$10 for an event they were used to attend for no charge would get more people to these events.

My feeling is that if the event is hosting a popular author people would be more willing to pay a fee for the event, but in most cases they won't and the result would be that these events will have less attendance and will generate less sales.

Author events are one of the great added values bookstores provide to their customers. At the same time it makes sense that bookstores would like to make the most out of these events and use them to increase both traffic and sales in the store. Unfortunately I don't think charging for these events is the most effective way to reach these goals.

Wouldn't it make more sense to give a $5 coupon to people who attend these authors events, which can be used within one week only at the store?

What do you think? Would you pay $5-$10 for author events? Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts with us.

You can find more resources on the future of bookstores on our website at www.ecolibris.net/bookstores_future.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!