Want to celebrate Earth Day? Just say No to Amazon.com!

There are many ways to celebrate Earth Day and the merrier the better. We are celebrating it this year in a collaboration with Lulu in a special Earth Day contest, and we also participate in the Earth Day Network's A Billion of Acts of Green! campaign. But today we wanted to share with you another action which we believe is valuable, effective, important and appropriate for Earth Day:

Say NO to Amazon.com. In other words, don't buy there anything today.

You're probably asking yourself why avoiding Amazon.com is a demonstration of a commitment to mother earth? The short answer is that while Amazon, one of the most successful companies in the world, had all the potential to become a force of good and a leader in the transition movement to a low-carbon economy, it has became just the opposite. Amazon has become an example for a company that only cares about the bottom line. Amazon doesn't seem to care too much about the environment nor to take into consideration stakeholders' environmental concerns.

Here are 5 examples that will show you what we exactly talk about:

1. Amazon got the worst grades on Greenpeace’s latest report How Clean is Your Cloud on the resources of energy it uses for its data centers. It received "F" for transparencey - "AWS [Amazon Web Services] has seen tremendous growth over the past year, but fails to disclose information on its environmental footprint at either a company-wide or facility level" and "F" for Renewable Energy Investment - Despite its significant size and resources, AWS does not appear to have made any purchases or investments in renewable electricity for its facilities. AWS is currently falling out of step with other major cloud companies who are putting in place a long-term business strategy that accounts for impacts the company will face due to climate change."

2. Amazon, unlike 70% of the S&P 500 companies, does not respond to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questionnaire, asking corporations to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risks.

3. Amazon opposed last year a shareholder resolution calling the company to prepare a report that will assess the impact of climate change on Amazon and make it public.

4. Amazon doesn't reply to any inquires from stakeholders like media or research groups about the carbon footprint of its no. 1 product -the Kindle.

5. Amazon is aggressively competing with small local businesses using its price comparison app ("evil app"), which was promoted last year with discounts for anyone who goes to brick and mortar retailers, but chooses to buy at Amazon.

If we can learn something from Amazon's behavior (see the example of “frustration-free packaging”), it is that Amazon only cares about something when its customers care about it. So I think there's no better day than Earth Day to start showing Amazon we care about the environment and society and prefer to use online retailers that also care about these issues and aren't ignoring them.

If Amazon will listen, and again, unfortunately it seems this is the only way to get Amazon to listen, it can still take the lead and become a driving force in the transition to a low-carbon economy. But to get there, we, the consumers, need to act first and make sure Amazon knows mother earth should be taken into consideration 365 days a year.

Happy Earth Day,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

The Hunger Games and green reading

"The Hunger Games" had a record box office opening, taking in $155 million in U.S. ticket sales over the last weekend and setting up what promises to be one of the biggest film franchises of this decade. The movie is based on the book The Hunger Games, the first novel in the Hunger Games trilogy written by Susan Collins.

The success of the movie helps boost the sales of the trilogy and Scholastic, the publisher of the Hunger Games Trilogy announced on Wednesday that there were 36.5 million copies of the bestselling trilogy in print, a 55 percent jump from the 23.5 million copies in print at the start of 2012.

Why I'm telling you all of this? Because I believe The Hunger Games phenomenon provides some important and valuable lessons for everyone who is interested in making books greener.

Let's start with a fact: According to Lisa Serra, Director of Paper Procurement at Scholastic, the hardcover copies of the three books in the series (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) are printed on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody-certified text stock containing 20 percent post-consumer fiber (source: Joshua Martin, Environmental Paper Network Director).

Now, let's move on to three assumptions:

1. If you are interested in reading one of the Hunger Games, most chances are that you don't find it too important what paper it is printed on - you won't look for another book if you will find out the trilogy is printed on 100 percent virgin paper, just like you won't buy it only because it's printed on 20 percent FSC-certified paper or even if it's 100 percent recycled paper. In other words: The sustainability level of the paper will not be a factor in your decision. Most chances are that you probably won't even think about it.

2. Those readers who will be concerned with the issue of the paper might consider reading the Hunger Games electronic version - the e-book costs just like the paperback ($5) and no paper is used at all. Couldn't it get any greener than that?

3. Scholastic probably knows that the fact it is using 20 percent FSC-certified paper doesn't really make a difference for the majority of readers. Most of them probably are not even aware to the fact that Scholastic is making this effort, or to the fact that after making significant progress toward its original targets for 2012, Scholastic decided to increase its 2012 goal from 30% FSC-certified paper to 35%.

As we already know a book is a unique product - it's not like toothpaste or a cleaning product where customers can switch to a competing product that is more sustainable and provide them a better value. If they want a certain book, they will just get it and there's no better example right now than the Hunger Games. Just think about yourself - would you avoid purchasing the Hunger Games just because it's printed on 80 percent virgin paper? Probably not.

You might be considering reading it on an e-reader or even going to the library to get a copy or e-copy of the book, but you certainly won't give it up for 'green' reasons per se.

So what lessons can we learn from the example of the Hunger Games and what actions can we take to apply them?

1. Readers will not be the drivers of change when it comes to printing books on a more sustainable paper (i.e. FSC-certified or recycled paper). Nevertheless, it is important to keep educating them about the impacts of paper, so even if it won't be a substantial factor in their decision making, they will still be aware of it.

2. Readers are moving to e-reading and many of them believe it is also a greener alternative since no paper is involved. It is important to make sure readers will know it's not always the case and be aware that e-reading also has its own footprint. It's also important to encourage readers to demand companies like Amazon to disclose the environmental impacts of the e-readers they sell.

3. Although readers might not be a major driver for change, publishers should make efforts to inform them on their efforts to green up their operations, especially when there is what to report on. Scholastic, for example, should try to make sure every reader of the Hunger Games in its paper version would know that the book is printed using 20 percent FSC-certified paper.

4. Publishers should think of their efforts to make their books more sustainable in terms of stakeholder engagement. Right now it looks like their best shot to generate both tangible and intangible rewards out of these efforts. Just think about the RAN campaign against publishers printing on linked to Indonesian rainforest destruction (Scholastic by the way was among RAN's recommended publishers) or the trouble Gibson Guitars got into when they were accused in violating the Lacey Act, and you can see how stakeholder engagement provide a great monetary incentive to shift to FSC-certified any recycled paper.

5. We still don't have the best answers to the question how to make reading more sustainable - technology provides hope and stakeholder engagement provide incentives, but it's still not enough to drive a change fast enough. Trees are still been cut in an unsustainable way and we know it can be avoided. We just need to keep figuring out how. Any ideas?

Please feel free to share add your comments and thoughts!

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

Why the question now is when and not if Barnes and Noble will file for bankruptcy

In the last couple of years I started thinking B&N might file for bankruptcy because they have no strategy to transform their brick and mortar stores from a liability back to an asset. Now, after reading Julie Bosman's article 'The Bookstore’s Last Stand' on the New York Times, I'm more positive about it than ever.

Unfortunately after reading this article, I'm afraid the realistic question we need to ask is when B&N will go bankrupt and no if they'll actually do it. Here are five quotes from the article that will explain why:

1. "Mr. Lynch says Barnes & Noble stores will endure. The idea that devices like the Nook, Kindle and Apple iPad will make bookstores obsolete is nonsense, he says." - It's a 3-page article, yet you won't find there a word of explanation from CEO Lynch why its nonsense and how he plans to save his stores.

2. "For all the bells and whistles and high-minded talk, Barnes & Noble doesn’t exactly have the cool factor (or money) of, say, a Google or a Facebook." - Say no more. Do you really believe B&N can out-innovate Amazon and Apple with their very limited resources? I doubt that.

3. "Carolyn Reidy, president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster, says the biggest challenge is to give people a reason to step into Barnes & Noble stores in the first place. “They have figured out how to use the store to sell e-books," she said of the company. "Now, hopefully, we can figure out how to make that go full circle and see how the e-books can sell the print books.”" - She is right and I guess she also knows B&N haven't provided yet any good reason for most readers to step into their stores. I can only wonder if she believes they'll actually find a way to do it.

4. "And yet, in three years, he (William Lynch, CEO, B&N) has won a remarkable number of fans in the upper echelons of the book world. Most publishers in New York can’t say enough good things about him: smart, creative, tech-savvy — the list goes on." - It's definitely great to have a nice guy at the top of the pyramid, but with no answers on how to transform the stores back from a liability to an asset and with little vision on how to keep B&N in business, not to mention relatively poor results, Lynch needs less fans and more people that will tell you what he's doing wrong and how to fix it.

5. "No one expects Barnes & Noble to disappear overnight. The worry is that it might slowly wither as more readers embrace e-books." - two years ago no one in the media would even speculate such a thing. Now it has became a reasonable assumption, which shows you how high the probability that B&N will file for bankruptcy is.

To learn more on our B&N index series visit Barnes and Noble Bankruptcy Index on our website.

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: Working to green the book industry!

What we can really learn from Booklr comparison between the top 100 Kindle and Nook lists

Booklr just released an interesting comparison between the prices of the top 100 sold ebooks on BN.com and Amazon. It's an interesting comparison, although it might have reached the wrong conclusion.

"With the Kindle Fire, Nook, and e-readers constantly in the news, Booklr took a look at the prices in the Amazon Top 100 Kindle List and the Barnes & Noble Top 100 Nook List over the past week. The results might surprise you. The price of ebooks from each retailer is not always uniform. Consumers should consider this important factor since once you choose a device, you’re locked in to that retailer."

As you can see from the comparison below, the average price of a book on the top 100 list on Amazon is $6.48, while the average price of an ebook on the top 100 list on BN.com is $8.94. As you can also see from the comparison below the main reason for the difference is that cheap ebooks, with a cost between $0-2, are 35 percent of the top list on Amazon.

What we can learn from this data?
1. Readers like cheap ebooks.
2. Amazon offers many cheap books.

What we can't learn from this data?
1. ebooks have different prices on Amazon and BN.com - it might be the case, but you can't learn it from this compassion.
2. Amazon is cheaper than B&N - to reach this conclusion, you need to compare apples to apples (the same books), not apples and oranges.























Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

Don't be an iPhoney, buy where you shop!

Here's Harvard Bookstore's reply to Amazon's evil app (thanks to GalleyCat for the link):



Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

5 reasons why the Nook spin off gets B&N closer to bankruptcy

Barnes & Noble announced this morning it is beginning “strategic exploratory work” to separate its rapidly growing Nook digital business. If you follow our blog, you're probably not that surprised - as we reported again and again on the B&N Bankruptcy Index series, B&N behaves for a long time like the Nook is its core business and not its 703 bookstore.

So you're probably wondering - would this spin-off will help B&N to avoid bankruptcy? Actually, I believe it only gets them closer to this unfortunate faith. Here's five reasons why:

1. B&N bookstore business is declining and B&N has no clear strategy how to transform it back from a liability to an asset. Frankly, this announcement only demonstrates that B&N is giving up on the brick and mortar stores and putting all its energy and resources just into the Nook. Don't believe me? Just count look how many times B&N mentions its bookstores in its press release from today (hint: less than one).

2. B&N is focusing all of its resources on one egg - the Nook. It's a good egg, but even if it will have a bright future as B&N is expecting it's still too risky, especially in a market where your competitors are are Amazon and Apple.

3. B&N doesn't have the deep pockets Apple and Amazon have. Just look at the balance sheets of these three and compare how much cash each of them has - Amazon has $2.8 billion, Apple has $9.8 billion, while B&N has $23 million in cash and cash equivalents (latest figures available). Now, who do you think has a better chance to develop better tablets and e-readers in the near future?

4. Bad management - B&N would have a much better chance if it would have spun off its management instead of the Nook. Why it's a bad management? How else you can call a management that takes an asset like 700+ bookstores and makes almost zero efforts to save it from bankruptcy?

5. "Mr. Lynch said Barnes & Noble doesn't see itself as a competitor with Apple, as it focuses more on digital reading, but said internal research shows customers prefer the Nook over the Kindle." (Wall Street Journal) I wish I have a faith in a company that this is the worldview that directs its strategy and this is the quality of research data it uses. Unfortunately I really can't.

To learn more on our B&N index series visit Barnes and Noble Bankruptcy Index on our website.

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: Working to green the book industry!

My article on Triple Pundit on the evil app of Amazon

Here's an update on a new article I published today on Triple Pundit with the latest news on the new price check app, which is supposed “to guide you in making informed purchase decisions”, and got by now the nickname 'the evil app'. Why? Check the article..

The article is entitled 'Amazon’s Evil App Makes It the New Enemy of Main Street'. Here's the first part of the article:

Amazon has always had a love-hate relationship with small businesses. For some, it provided a well-needed online platform to sell their products, while for others it created a competition that drove them out of business. Now, with Amazon’s new price comparison app, which was promoted last Saturday with further discounts for anyone who goes to brick and mortar retailers, but chooses to buy at Amazon, it looks like things are changing. Amazon is becoming the new villain retailer threatening the future of local economies, a role that Wal-Mart filled until recently

To read the full article go to http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/12/amazon-new-evil-app-makes-new-enemy-main-street/

Links to other articles I wrote for Triple Pundit can be found at http://www.triplepundit.com/author/raz-godelnik/

To read more on how green is your (and my) Kindle, visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/kindle.asp

Image credit: Wayne Senville, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

When Amazon tries to compete with Apple in the tablet market

Amazon tried to penetrate the tablet market lately with its new Kindle Fire, trying to create a cheap yet quality alternative to Apple's iPad, by far the most dominant tablet computer. As we learn today from the New York Times, it might be more difficult than what it looked like to Amazon in the first place.

The article ("As Kindle Fire Faces Critics, Remedies Are Promised") reveals that the Kindle Fire is generating a lot of negative customer feedback and therefore Amazon Amazon, although it does not say so, is soon likely to release an improved version of the device.

What's wrong with the Kindle Fire? The article explains: "A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing. The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky."

Some analysts think customers can still live with it, given the $199 price tag - “I would have expected things to be even worse at this point,” Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, said, adding that initial buyers were usually the most critical. Pricing will save the Fire, he predicted. At $199 versus $500 for an iPad, “Amazon has a lot of air cover to have a B-level product.”

But Amazon can't count on it, which is why we're going to see soon, according to the article probably in the spring, an improved version of the device.

The lesson to Amazon is clear - you need to come more prepared when you try to penetrate new markets and generate high expectations of your new products.

The lesson to consumers is also clear - don't buy the Kindle Fire now. Save your money and wait for the Kindle Fire 2.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Check our special holiday offer!

Latest updates on the future of publishing

The publishing industry is one of the most dynamic industries I know, with new products and innovations coming almost every week, if not every other day.

Just think about the last couple of weeks, where we saw the release of two new tablets (Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet), significant reduction in the price of e-readers (again the Kindle and the Nook), introduction of Amazon new e-library and a new innovative book publisher (i.e. iPad editions of children's classics), Ideal Binary, raising $1.03 million in venture capital. And did we mention the upcoming Publishing App Expo?

And these are just the tip of the iceberg.. We keep tracking the most interesting stories on our 'future of the publishing' webpage. Here are links to couple of interesting articles we read in the last couple of weeks:

Amazon lending library and the future of digital publishing - Virginia Postrel, The Washington Post, November 13, 2011

Amazon.com Inc. is at it again. To the consternation of much of the book industry, the online giant is again offering digital titles for less than major publishers think books are worth. And this time, the price is zero.

The future of books? Publishing by numbers - The Irish Times, November 11, 2011

BARELY A week goes by without something – a full-page discursive article in a newspaper, a hefty blogpost on an arch American culture website – declaring the death of publishing. “Books are doomed. Doomed I tell you!” is the general gambit of these pieces, but many don’t share that view. At a time when books are engaged in a paper-versus- electronic tussle between physical copies and e-reader editions, at least people are still reading.

The Future of Publishing - Rocky Lewis, November 11, 2011

Let's talk about the future of publishing. This conversation usually looks like a self publish vs. traditional publish debate. I believe that is not the “bunny” we should all be looking at behind the camera.

Our relationship with e-books: It's too complicated - Mathew Ingram, GigaOM, November 1, 2011

One of the best things about media going digital is that it can be easily shared and distributed to others with just a click — except of course that it often doesn't work like that, thanks to copyright or licensing restrictions and competing platforms. E-books are a great example:

Epstein on the future of the publishing industry - Sophie Rochester, The Frankfurt Book Fair Blog, October 12, 2011

Jason Epstein has had an incredible career in books – co-founder of the New York Review of Books, a long-standing and lauded editorial career working with literary stars such as Mailer, Nabakov and Roth, and a pioneer in the 1950s when he created a whole new category of book publishing – the Trade Paperback. Most recently he has brought us the Espresso Book Machine – named by Time magazine as Invention of the Year in 2007 – which now gives retailers, libraries and other institutions the chance to offer readers a much wider choice of reading through a print on demand service.

Enhanced E-books and the Future of Publishing - Peter Osnos, The Atlantic, October 9, 2011

Enhanced e-books are thought to be the next major threshold in the digital book universe. We are still in the very early stages of the development and availability of these books, which contain audio and video features. An informal count of enhanced e-books, according to a publishing executive who is following the field closely, numbered about one thousand available on a variety of devices.

Will book publishers be able to maintain primacy as ebook publishers? - Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files, October 4, 2011

Here’s an assumption that is not documentable; it is my own speculation. I think we’re going to see a US market that is 80% digital for narrative text reading in the pretty near future: could be as soon as two years from now but almost certainly within five. We have talked about the cycle that leads to that on this blog before: more digital reading leads to a decline in print purchasing which further thins out the number of bookstores and drives more people to online book purchasing which further fuels digital reading. Repeat. Etcetera.

For more updates visit our Future of Publishing webpage at http://www.ecolibris.net/publishing_future.asp

Photo credit: marklarson, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

On Amazon Kindle new lending library: The good, the bad and the ugly

Yesterday Amazon opened the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, allowing Amazon Prime members to rent one digital book per month for free. Right now, this library includes 5,000 titles, including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers.

Coming from Amazon, this is a big step in the ebook space and we thought it's worth looking into three consequences of it: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good: If you are a Kindle holder and also Amazon Prime member you just got yourself a free ebook every month. This is also good news to ebook lending fans in general - the market is and will get more competitive and readers will be the ones that will profit from it eventually. For example, right now ebook lending services such as eBookFling and BookLending, as well as libraries, let you rent ebooks only up to 14 days. Now that Amazon is offering you to rent a book for one month, there's a good chance other players in the market will eventually try to offer a similar offer.

The bad: Amazon is conquering another piece of the ebook market. It's true that right now it's only a pilot program offered to Prime members, but how much time do you think it will take Amazon to dominate the market? Not too much I guess. So even though the entrance of Amazon to this market will benefit readers (see the good part), it also helps to strengthen the status of Amazon as the most powerful player in the book market. And with Amazon exploring other parts of this market like publishing and self-publishing, it looks like that in couple of years Amazon won't be just a powerful player in the book market, but it will be the book market. This is definitely not a desirable future for this industry.

The  ugly: This move is bad news for brick and mortar bookstores in general and independent bookstores specifically, as it will help to energize the transformation to ebooks  (if this trend needs any help at all) and make more people do their ebook activity, whether its shopping or renting through Amazon. Not to mention that it provides readers that are not Prime members a good reason to consider paying the $79 annual fee and become Prime members. And once they become Prime members, with the free two day shipping, there's also a good chance they will start doing their paper book shopping only on Amazon, enjoying this shipping benefit. Again, not a desirable situation if you're an independent bookstore or even Barnes & Noble.

To read more updates on the ebook lending space check our ebook lending page.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

How green is the Kindle Fire - part 5: The impact on Amazon's carbon footprint and its refusal to disclose it

This is the final part of our Amazon week. After discussing if the new Kindle Fire and other new Kindles will contribute to making e-reading greener (it will), and comparing Kindle Fire with iPad 2 and Nook Color and see which device is greener (iPad 2), and it's influence on B&N (big trouble for the bookseller), and the impact of the new Kindle products on independent bookstores, we'll talk today on the influence of the new Kindle Fire on Amazon's carbon footprint the company's refusal to disclose it.

The second point is easy to start with - I doubt if Amazon will change its policy not to disclose its carbon footprint because of the release of the new Kindle products. As we saw earlier this year, even pressure from shareholders didn't make a difference for Amazon. So what might create a change in its policy? I see three possibilities: 1. Pressure from customers - if there's anything Amazon cares about, it is what customers think. 2. A Greenpeace campaign - Greenpeace knows how to it. Just ask Mattel, Nike, Adidas, Kimberly Clark and a long list of companies that changed their practices following a Greenpeace campaign. 3. An ongoing pressure from shareholders - it can work in the long-run, if more shareholders will join and pressure the company.

Now to the new Kindle's influence on Amazon's carbon footprint - it's difficult to say as so little information is disclosed, yet it is clear that with many more millions of Kindles manufactured and sold, not to mention busier cloud network, there's a good chance Amazon's footprint will increase significantly. This is why we should hope to see Amazon becoming a leader not just in technology and consumer products, but also with corporate responsibility and carbon disclosure.

To read more on how green is the Kindle, visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/kindle.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

How green is the Kindle Fire? Amazon week - Part 2: Comparing Kindle Fire, iPad 2 and Nook Color

Yesterday we started our Amazon week to examine some of the impacts of the new Kindle Fire and other new Kindle products. Today we'll try to compare compare Kindle Fire with iPad 2 and Nook Color and see which device is greener.

First, we need to acknowledge the sad fact that currently only Apple publishes information on the carbon footprint of its device, as well as information on its eco-friendly features, such as having an arsenic-free display glass, being brominated flame retardant-free, PVC-free, and so on.

Unlike Apple, Barnes & Noble and Amazon either don't care about the environmental impacts of their devices or just don't think it worth the effort of sharing this information with their customers. Either way, Apple's leadership makes iPad 2 the greener device among the three. Once Amazon and Barnes & Noble will change their mind we could make a meaningful comparison among the three tablets. Until then, Apple's iPad 2 rules!

By the way, if you look at the features comparison between the three below, published by OSXDaily, you will see that the Kindle Fire is lighter than the other two (although it's thicker than the iPad 2), so it will be interesting to see if it also means it is more material efficient than the Nook Color and the iPad 2. Well, Bezos, we're waiting..





Tomorrow we will see what will be the impact of the new Kindle products on Barnes & Noble.


To read more on how green is your (and my) Kindle, visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/kindle.asp

More resources on the ebooks vs. paper books environmental debate can be found on our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.


Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

How green is the Kindle Fire? Amazon week - Part 1: Green impacts on e-reading

Today we start our Amazon week, following the announced of the company last week on the launch of its new tablet, Kindle Fire, and the new Amazon Kindle products (Kindle for only $79, Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G). The question we'll discuss today is are these new Kindles How making e-reading any greener?

Let's start with the bottom line. Our answer is Yes. Why? Mainly because of cheap prices and the evolution of e-reading devices:

1. Cheaper price, greater availability - "These are premium products at non-premium prices. We are going to sell millions of these." - Jeff Bezos. He's right and the new prices for both an e-reader ($79) and a tablet ($199) makes them more available for many people who couldn't afford these products so far. It is an important issue as one of the claims against e-reading was that it was one of these innovations that is only available to the rich and leaves the poor out. Well, not anymore, or at least Amazon's new prices are a big step to make this claim irrelevant.

2. Evolution of e-reading devices - It's important to mention that Amazon did not disclose the Kindle Fire's carbon footprint and given their past resistance there is a little chance they will do it later on. It means there are questions about manufacturing, the use of chemicals and other parts and so on that unlike with Apple for example are left unanswered.

Nevertheless, the contribution of the new Kindle products, both the Fire tablet and the new Kindle touchscreen e-readers are the fact that they're moving the whole market one or two steps forward. As we always said, even if right now e-readers are not as eco-friendly as we would like them to be, they will surely be so within couple of generations, and the competition between e-reader sellers is right now the most effective driver we have to ensure we're moving in that direction, seeing both e-readers and tablets that are better and in many ways more eco-friendly (the reduction in the iPad 2's carbon footprint comparing to the first iPad is a good example of this process).

So the bottom line is that the new Kindle Fire and the Kindle e-readers are contributing to greater competition in this market and therefore advancing the evolution and greening of e-reading.

Tomorrow, we'll compare Kindle Fire with iPad 2 and Nook Color and see which device is greener.

To read more on how green is your (and my) Kindle, visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/kindle.asp

More resources on the ebooks vs. paper books environmental debate can be found on our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.


Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

Come on Bezos, Kindle My Fire, or: Amazon's week on our blog

Jeff Bezos introduced on Wednesday Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet device. The new $199 tablet , as well as Amazon's other new products, the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, are the biggest development in the e-reader /tablet market since the launch of iPad last year and created an incredible buzz.

We also think this is big news and we will have an Amazon week next week, exploring the impacts of the new products in five posts from our green perspective:

On Monday we'll discuss if the new Kindles will contribute to making e-reading greener.

On Tuesday we'll compare Kindle Fire with iPad 2 and Nook Color and see which device is greener.

On Wednesday we'll see what will be the impact of the new Kindle products on Barnes & Noble.

On Thursday we'll check what will be the impact of the new Kindle products on independent bookstores.

Finally, on Friday, we'll discuss the influence of the new Kindle Fire on Amazon's carbon footprint and if we'll see any change in the company's refusal to disclose it.

See below Jeff Bezos demonstrating the new tablet at a presentation on Wednesday:



So stay tuned and visit us next week to learn more on the green impacts of Amazon's new tablet.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

Is Amazon killing independent bookstores by not collecting sales tax? Not really..

After reading on David Streitfeld's article on the New York Times on Amazon's efforts to avoid collecting sales tax in California (as well as other states), I was thinking about the importance of this refusal on independent bookstores.

The problem? "Any Californian who buys a book or a DVD player from Amazon is supposed to pay a use tax when filing state taxes. In practice, however, few do." And Bill Dombrowski, head of the California Retailers Association, adds "Amazon is killing our business in bricks-and-mortar stores."

I believe Amazon's refusal to collect sales tax is wrong and immoral, but is it really killing indie bookstores? I decided to check it out.

I heard yesterday a great book review of Maureen Corrigan on "The Submission" by Amy Waldman and decided to check what happens if I live in Novato, California and want to purchase this book. For my unscientific experiment I compared an online order from three independent bookstores located in San Francisco (The Booksmith, City Lights Books, Green Apple Bookstore) and an online order from Amazon.

	Amazon	City Lights	Booksmith	Green Apple
Book price	13.68	26	26	27
Shipping	3.99	10	8	5.9
Tax	0	2.21	2.21	2.3
Total	17.67	38.21	36.21	35.2
Sales tax as part of the difference between the store and Amazon:
		11%	12%	13%

Bottom line: What kills indie bookstores is the fact that Amazon sells books in half price and provides much cheaper shipping. Not the sales tax. Even if Amazon will start paying sales tax tomorrow (and they definitely should), indie books are still going to be in trouble with such a difference in costs.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

Amazon is moving forward to become a publisher - Is it good or bad for publishers and readers?

The New York Times has a story today on the growing efforts of Amazon to publish books. Amazon is for a long time much more than a book seller, but apparently its efforts to establish itself as a publisher are getting many publishers and other players in the book industry worried. Amazon, they fear is becoming too big and too strong and will be able soon to take bigger and bigger bites out of the market.

According to the article Amazon publishing books is not news as it has been publishing books for several years. Its efforts went up several notches in visibility when it brought in the longtime New York editor and agent Laurence Kirshbaum three months ago as head of Amazon Publishing, but this is not the news either. The news is that Amazon announced yesterday that Amazon Publishing's made its first major acquisition - it has signed Timothy Ferriss, the wildly popular self-help guru for young men.

Ferriss, the press release added is author of the #1 New York Times best sellers "The 4-Hour Body" and "The 4-Hour Workweek". He will publish with Amazon Publishing the next book in his "4-hour" series, "The 4-Hour Chef."

Ferriss explained that "My decision to collaborate with Amazon Publishing wasn't just a question of which publisher to work with," said Tim Ferriss. "It was a question of what future of publishing I want to embrace. My readers are migrating irreversibly into digital, and it made perfect sense to work with Amazon to try and redefine what is possible. This is a chance to really show what the future of books looks like, and to deliver a beautiful experience to my readers, who always come first. I could not be more excited about what we're doing."

On the NYT article Ferriss added two interesting observations:

"Amazon has a one-to-one relationship with every one of their customers. You can just imagine the possibilities that opens up.”

and

“The opportunity to partner with a technology company that is embracing publishing is very different than partnering with a publisher embracing technology."

Basically, Ferriss is saying that Amazon is better geared to be a publisher in the digital age than other publishers, providing readers a better reading experience and authors with better chances to sell more books. Is it true? It's not clear yet, but Amazon's technological capabilities and customer engagement experience give them a substantial advantage in the age of multi-reading platforms.

Should publishers be worried? Yes and No. Yes, because Amazon can create value for authors publishers can't and authors know it. No, because publishers also have added value and experience and if they will know to adjust themselves to the new technological demands of the market and readers they can still give Amazon a good fight.

Bottom line: Although this step might make publishers' life more difficult, it has the potential to move everyone forward and eventually readers will only benefit from it, as they will have more options and enjoy an enhanced reading experience.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

Amazon presents a new e-textbook rental service - Does it make the Kindle any greener?

Three months after Amazon announced it would allow Kindle users to read e-books from more than 11,000 public libraries on the devices, it is going even further and launching Kindle Textbook Rental.

According to Amazon's press release, tens of thousands of textbooks are available for the 2011 school year from leading textbook publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis.

Interesting feature of the new program is its flexibility - Kindle Textbook Rental offers the ability to customize rental periods to any length between 30 and 360 days. Students can also easily extend any rental period in increments as small as one day or choose to purchase the book they are renting at any time. The electronic textbooks can be downloaded to and read not just on Amazon's Kindle, but also on other devices such as PC, Mac and iPad using Kindle reading software.

The company claims that students can save up to 80% off textbook list prices by renting from the Kindle Store. This element will be very effective in getting more students to use the program. For example, Ryan Judy of Ohio University told msnbc.com that he "would, and probably will, use Kindle's service because I have an iPad and you can just download the Kindle textbooks on there, which makes it really convenient. It's also cheaper. I normally try find the cheapest way to get my books."

It is very interesting development in Amazon's services, but only a natural one as we see a growing interest in digital books among students. My question is whether this new service also helps in making the Kindle greener?

It's obvious that renting textbooks is more eco-friendly than buying new ones because this way you maximize the usage of already printed book. Just like with books, after reading a number textbooks on an e-reader, this practice is becoming greener than the alternative - buying paper textbooks. As the length of textbooks is usually higher tend to be longer (500-600 pages in many cases, if not longer), their footprint is larger than the one of 'regular' books and hence the breakeven point of e-textbooks is smaller than the one of e-books.

So we can definitely see that it would be relatively easy to establish e-textbooks rentals as a greener option with a smaller footprint, but does it make Amazon or the Kindle any greener? It's a difficult question because there is no difference in terms of e-reading if you buy an electronic textbook or rent it. Either way, you're using one electronically instead of its paper version. Nevertheless, the fact that renting might be cheaper for students makes etextbook rental more attractive and increases the chances students will move to textbook e-reading.

This service won't change the carbon footprint of the Kindle - it doesn't change anything in the device's production, transportation, usage or recycling. Also, there's actually a good chance many students will use a Kindle reading app to read it on their iPad or even just read it on their PC.

As you can see it's complicated to estimate the impact of the new service, but there are two things we can say for certain: 1. Amazon's new service might lower eventually the breakeven points of e-readers and tablets as the usage of textbooks electronically will be increased due to the new rental service. 2. Amazon's new service will help eventually in making textbook reading more sustainable. Hopefully it will also help students to get better grades!

To read more on how green is your (and my) Kindle, visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/kindle.asp

More resources on the ebooks vs. paper books environmental debate can be found on our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant one tree for every book you read!

Why Amazon rejected a shareholder decision to disclose how it deals with climate change?

Last Tuesday Amazon's shareholders rejected on their annual meeting a resolution calling the company to prepare and publish a report describing how Amazon.com is assessing the impact of climate change on the corporation.

This resolution was This resolution was filed by Calvert Investments, one of the largest sustainable and responsible investment companies in the U.S. and we also helped in the preparation of this resolution.

Why Calvert filed this resolution? Because as a shareholder it sees climate change in terms of risks and opportunities that Amazon can’t and shouldn’t ignore any longer. Rebecca Henson, sustainability analyst at Calvert, explained it to Seattle Times:

"We own this company and want it to do well, so we wouldn't want any poor performance to come from the release of a document. We just think it's something that would be beneficial and could save money in the long run."

Amazon's shareholders rejected the measure mainly because Amazon was opposing it. Why Amazon opposed it? Well, according to Seattle Times "Amazon opposed the measure, saying that preparing a climate-change report would not be "an efficient use of time and resources."

I think this is a poor reply and definitely not the one you can and should expect from Amazon. We're talking about a company that in the same shareholder meeting reported on $34.2 billion sales and $2.5 billion free cash flow.

Now, how much it costs to prepare the report Calvert was asking for? If Amazon would use the format offered by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which is used by 70 percent of S&P 500 companies that unlike Amazon disclose their emissions, then it would be about $80,000 (65% of the companies surveyed by CDP are spending up to £50,000 on reporting greenhouse gas emissions). Let's say for the sake of arguments that it would be $100,000 because Amazon is a large company.

$100,000 are 0.004% of Amazon's free cash flow. In other words it is such a marginal expense, Amazon wouldn't even notice it. Actually, according to the CDP, most companies believe the benefits of reporting outweigh the costs, so there's a good chance it won't even be an expense at the end, but a profitable investment.

It's not just Calvert and I that are positive that climate change represents material risks and opportunities that should be assessed and considered accordingly. A growing number of investors understand that climate change is influencing every business and ignoring it equals poor management of their money.

Only yesterday climate change investor groups published a report on global investor practices relating to climate change, and according to their press release "the majority consider climate change a material investment risk/opportunity and incorporate climate change risk assessments into their existing investments; public policy a key driver of investment decisions". This report is based on survey responses from 44 asset owners and 46 asset managers with collective assets totalling more than $12trillion.

Unfortunately the majority of the shareholders of Amazon doesn't see it this way and chose last Tuesday to follow the company's position against a measure that even doesn't propose to take action, but only to prepare a climate change assessment.

For a company involved in the manufacturing and sale of the Kindle, providing web services, relying on data centers and using shipping it just doesn't make sense. Not to mention the fact that Amazon is a company that is proud in making decisions based on “long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions”. We hope that Jeff Bezos and Amazon will understand it eventually, not just for the sake of the environment, but also for the sake of the company's future success.

More related articles:

Why Amazon Needs to Come Clean About its Carbon Footprint - Triple Pundit

Why Amazon is so hush hush about the Kindle's sales figures and footprint?

Dear Jeff Bezos, please make Kindle the greenest e-reader

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!