Eco-Libris, Ninja, Cowboy, Bear and a great picture

We always like to share great pictures like the one above that was sent to us by David Bruins, the author of the new children's book entitled "The Legend of Ninja Cowboy Bear" from a signing event that took place two weeks ago at Chapters in Burlington, Ontario.

Last October we wrote here on our new collaboration with David Bruins, where for every copy printed of "The Legend of Ninja Cowboy Bear", a tree will be planted with Eco-Libris. You can also find our logo on the cover of the book! In addition, the book is printed using vegetable-based ink, on 30% recycled paper, by a FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified printer.

"The Legend of Ninja Cowboy Bear" is an illustrated children's story about three friends who discover an important truth about equality, diversity and how to appreciate one another's unique traits. The pictures and prose work together to capture children's attention, spark their imagination, and impart a valuable lesson about the world around them. The book also include instructions on how to play the game Ninja Cowboy Bear.

The book is available now online (http://www.ninja-cowboy-bear.com/buy.htm) and in many bookstores in Toronto and its surroundings (see full list here - http://www.ninja-cowboy-bear.com/wheretobuy.htm).

We're going to have very soon a review of the book with a giveaway of one copy so stay tuned!

And you can find more great photos from the signing event (with many ninjas, cowboys, bears and kids and their parents that are having a lot of fun) at http://www.ninja-cowboy-bear.com/gallery/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Reading books chapter by chapter

I read few days ago in Springwise (a great source to new interesting ideas) about a new initiative of Random House: Selling books by the chapter.

Random House explains the logic behind the new initiative: "Sometimes what you want is a slice instead of the whole pie. That's why we're offering a new reading experience-- the ability to purchase individual chapters. Imagine that! Downloading and reading exactly the part of a book that meets your needs".

The first book to be offered by them is 'Made to Stick', written by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This book actually looks like a very interesting book. Here's the book description on its website:

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that “stick” and explain sure-fire methods for making ideas stickier, such as violating schemas, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating “curiosity gaps.”

The process is very simple - on the book's website you can find a short description of each one of the six chapters of the book and its epilogue. You can choose the chapter that's right for you and download it as an Adobe Digital Editions file for $2.99. The introduction and index are available for free with the purchase of any chapter.

If you want to purchase the paper version of the book, you can still do it for $24.95 (or the audio CD for $29.95).

I like this idea as it generates more incentives for customers to download the book (or the chapters they are interested at in this case) instead of buying the paper version.

As Springwise writes, this idea won't work for every book, as most books you want to read from page one to the last page, but it can definitely work for guide books, such as 'Made to Stick'.

Random House is already involved for almost two years in a green initiative that is aimed to increase its usage of recycled paper to 30% by 2010. I'm not sure if Random House had the goal of reducing the usage of virgin paper when they came up with their chapters initiative, but it's definitely goes a welcomed by product.

Now we should only see if this initiative will really work. I guess other publishers will wait as well before jumping into the water with similar initiatives. We'll keep you posted as always.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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