Last day to buy great green ebooks from Island Press for just $4.99!

I wanted to share an update from our friends at Island Press. Today (Friday, Aug 2) is the last day  about a special opportunity Island Press is offering this week to our supporters  – all of our backlist e-books will be available for just $4.99. This special incorporates more than 500 titles from our three decades of publishing including:

·        Gretchen Daily’s Nature’s Services, usually $45.00, now $4.99;

·        David Orr’s Hope is an Imperative, usually $30, now $4.99;

·        Callum Roberts’ The Unnatural History of the Sea, usually $24, now $4.99; and others.

These titles include the best ideas and information on the environment, including books on water, food systems, urban issues, ecosystems, and climate change. Island Press e-books are available at its website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other online retailers. 

Yours,

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

A.O. Scott and David Carr talk on the Sweet Spot on books vs. ebooks

I'm a fan of the New York Times' Sweet Spot conversations/ video clips, and I'd like to recommend on last week's episode including a  great conversation between A.O. Scott and David Carr about the differences between paper books and ebooks. In addition you can learn what the good people working in the New York Times are reading these days!

You can check it out at http://nyti.ms/15Rmcyh

For more comparisons (this time green ones..) between ebooks and paper books visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp 

Enjoy!
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Digital Publishing: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?

This is a guest post by Tony Viardo, the CEO of the publisher, Astor + Blue Editions. [Astor +Blue Editions has put its entire first season’s list of e-book titles on a holiday promotional sale for $0.99 or $1.99 until Jan. 7, 2013]

So how many articles have we read about E-books and Digital Publishing this year? For anyone who generally follows the book world (rabid booklover, book-blogger, industry pro or casual reader), we’re literally inundated with the amazing numbers—“E-book sales up 125% (again) over the 175% they were up from last year’s 225% increase!”—and equally amazing technological announcements—“Next Fall, the new ZimWittyZoomDitty tablet not only updates your Facebook and Goodreads friends whenever you snort in disgust … it cooks dinner for you at the same time!” 

This leads many to take at least casual stock of what’s going on/going to happen to the “Publishing World” as we know it. And if your friends are like my friends (hardcore print book consumers), that stock is usually pretty morbid (sharp Greenwich Village angst not included): “Print books are doomed, so are brick-and-mortar stores. Goodbye literary quality. Oh and some pajama-wearing techie living in a basement with a laptop is going to be the new Sulzburger; we’ll all have to bow down!” 

If you (or that good friend of yours) fall into the mortified category, my take (for what it’s worth) may come as positive news: E-books are not, and will not be, the Grinch Who Stole Christmas; in this case, the “Print World’s” bacon. Now, as the owner of a “Digital First” publishing house (Astor + Blue Editions, www.astorandblue.com) my opinions may easily be written off as self-serving and invalid. But bear with me for a minute… these are fact-based observations and I might just make sense (Someone tell my mom and dad). 

As someone who earns a living from publishing, I have to follow numbers and industry trends as closely as possible. And while some see doom and gloom for Print, I see exciting developments for both Print and E-book formats. What do the numbers show? Digital book revenue is skyrocketing, print revenue is declining. Natural conclusion? E-books are killing print books. But not so fast. Historically, Print revenue has always seemed to be declining (even before E-books were invented), but that doesn’t mean the book market is dying or shrinking. 

We have to remember that in fact the book market is growing. Readership always grows because population always grows. Every year, new readers enter the vast pool of the club that is “adult readership,” (despite Dancing with the Stars). And every year more readers are being born and theoretically being inspired by Ms. Crabtree’s elementary reading class. **So why the decline? Readership grows gradually, but the sheer number of books and book vendors grow exponentially, showing an investment loss almost every year. (Basic statistics: the widening universe makes it look like a shrinking pie when it isn’t). 

So what does this mean? If you look at the numbers (historically), revenue for print books may have declined, yes, but not more than “normal,” and not significantly more than it did when there were no E-books around. (This is arguable of course, but the long term numbers do not show a precipitous drop-off). The yearly revenue decline, if there is one, can just as easily be written off to economic conditions as to E-book competition. Bottom line: Any drop in print revenue that may be caused by E-books are not significantly sharp enough to declare that E-books are destroying print book sales. (Hence no Grinch). 

What may be happening, and what I believe is happening is that a whole new market for E-books is developing, while the print book market growth, like Publishing as a whole, is still growing at a historically gradual pace. (Boringly flat). Come up with your pet anecdote here, but I believe that more new readers are entering the market (who otherwise wouldn’t have) because of E-readers; existing readers are consuming more books (both print and e-book) than they did before; and while it would seem that a certain print title is losing a sale whenever readers buy it in E-book format, this is offset, at least somewhat, by the fact that more print titles are being bought (that otherwise wouldn’t) because of the extra marketing buzz and added awareness produced by the E-book’s cyber presence. All of it evens out in the end, and I believe, ultimately fosters growth industry-wide. 

So take heart Print fans, E-books are not the dark villain you think they are. And here, I should correct my earlier analogy—that E-books are not the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. They may actually be the Grinch…in as much as, at the end of the story, the pear-shaped green guy ended up not only giving all the presents back to the singing Who-villers, he created a flash mob and started a big party as well.

How E-books Helped Environmentalists Spread Awareness To People Worldwide

This is a guest post written by Kathleen Hubert

E-books are becoming more and more popular as time progresses. They have been able to raise awareness about issues that were previously unknown. The environmentalist movement is one beneficiary of the growth in popularity of e-books.

Increased Exposure
Before E-books, in order to learn more about something, you had to get a book out about it from a library or buy one from a book store. That created a couple of problems relating to exposure. There are some places where people don’t have easy access to a library or a bookstore. In those places it was difficult to learn more about the environmentalist movement. Sometimes, even if they did have access to a book store or library, but they felt it wasn’t worth the trouble of looking for. Regardless of the reason the rising popularity of e-book helps both of those issues.

The internet is very prominent all of over the world today, which e-books makes information much more accessible. Since e-books are downloaded from any computer with internet access you no longer need to go to a library or a bookstore to get a book. You can just download one from the internet.

Increased Portability
Another large problem that people face with books is that over a long enough period of time they take up a lot of space. Once you develop a big collection of books you need to actually start buying additional furniture to house the books and keep them in order. E-books help to cut down on the storage requirements for reading material, which is another way that e-books help the environmentalist movement. You can keep an e-book on an iPod, iPhone, Android, or other mobile device and read them there. You don’t have to worry about carrying around a book everywhere since many of the devices you can read an e-book with you can fit in your pocket.

It’s Cheaper
One of the largest problem that faced groups who wanted to get information out there about a movement or a problem that the world faced is that it’s expensive. No matter what the information is about, getting it to large amounts of people costs a lot of money. If you want to put an article in a magazine, you have to pay the magazine publisher money. If you want to publish an entire book about a cause you have to pay a book publisher to get everything all setup and in motion. That takes both a large amount of time and money.

E-books cost significantly less to produce and distribute. You don’t have to deal with a book publisher and there are a number of places that allow you to distribute e-books for free. The environmentalist movement has benefitted greatly from the increased popularity of e-books, due to it being cheap, easily accessible, and very portable.

Kathleen Hubert is a blogger who writes on a variety of different sites. Check out more of her work at Prefab Houses.

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!

Where print books still beat ebooks?

Apparently at the public library. Washington Post reported on Saturday on the growing lines (e-lines?) for ebooks in libraries, where the supply is far from meeting the demand.

"Want to take out the new John Grisham? Get in line. As of Friday morning, 288 people were ahead of you in the Fairfax County Public Library system, waiting for one of 43 copies. You’d be the 268th person waiting for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” with 47 copies. And the Steve Jobs biography? Forget it. The publisher, Simon & Schuster, doesn’t make any of its digital titles available to libraries."

Another problem is that publishers still don't make many books available to libraries. Why? The article explains that "wary of piracy and the devastation it has caused the music and film industries, Penguin recently put its new e-book titles off-limits. Like Simon & Schuster, Macmillan doesn’t make its e-book content available to libraries. And last year, HarperCollins announced that it would require libraries to renew licenses for e-books after 26 checkouts, outraging some librarians."

I guess this balance of power will change eventually, but at least for now, the print book is still the king of the public library!

To read more of this interesting article, click here -As demand for e-books soars, libraries struggle to stock their virtual shelves.

To read more news and updates on ebook lending please visit our ebook lending webpage.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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

A new report find that kids prefer ebooks on print books - should parents encourage that?

I just saw an update on eBookNewser about a new report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop that found that kids prefer to eBooks to print books.

"The Center observed 24 families with children ages 3-6 for this “QuickStudy” in the summer and fall of 2011. The kids were given both print and eBooks to read and according to the research children preferred reading an eBook to a print book though comprehension was equal."

The sample group used by the center was relatively small - only 24 families, but if you have kids in this age you would probably a similar conclusion. Yet, at least from my personal experience, these findings would probably be more accurate looking 5 or more years ahead. Many kids kids right now still enjoy and prefer print books, but they will probably switch in some point in the near future to e-books because they grow up with so much exposure to digital formats and its easier for them to do it compared to older generations.

One thing I'm not sure I understand is the following quote from the original report on Digital Book World - “If we can encourage kids to engage in books through an iPad, that’s a win already,” said Carly Shuler, senior consultant for industry studies at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. Why do we need to encourage kids to engage in books through an iPad and not through print book? They'll have enough time when they grow older to engage with digital formats, but in the meantime they could lose some valuable lessons from converting too early to ebooks.

I'd just like to quote Junko Yokota, a professor and director of the Center for Teaching Through Children’s Books at National Louis University in Chicago, who explained on the New York Times last November what is lost by taking a picture book and converting it to an e-book. She said that the shape and size of the book are often part of the reading experience. For example, wider pages might be used to convey broad landscapes, or a taller format might be chosen for stories about skyscrapers. "Size and shape “become part of the emotional experience, the intellectual experience. There’s a lot you can’t standardize and stick into an electronic format,” she said.

What do you think? What does your kid prefer? Are you happy with his or her choice? Drop us a comment and join the discussion.

Image credit: Tundra Books, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

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!

Book buzz: e-reader vs. print books (infographic)

I wanted to share with you a great infographic created by RetailMeNot.com about e-readers and their economic and environmental impact. With both the new Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire that were released in the last couple of weeks, RetailMeNot thought it might be interesting to take a look at how e-readers are changing the book industry, for better or worse.

In the graphic, titled “Book Buzz”, you’ll find information about e-reader market share, sales figures, but more interestingly, how e-readers stack up to print books. For instance, and a little surprising, only 15% of e-reader owners actually stop purchasing print books.

Please note that in their comparison between the carbon footprint of e-readers and paper books, it looks like they use for the e-reader's footprint a figure taken from a 2009 research. As we wrote here in the past we believe that the results of this research are not reliable and should be addressed as more of a guestimation, which means they shouldn't be used for comparisons. Until Amazon and B&N will disclose the carbon footprint of their Kindles and Nooks, the only figures that should be used for such comparisons are the ones Apple disclosed fro the iPad and the iPad 2.

Other than that, this is a great presentation and I hope you'll find it interesting as well.

Due to the size of the infographic we couldn't upload it to our blog, but you can find it in full size right here.

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!

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!

Hyperink, a new e-publishing startup is revolutionizing the digital publishing space

If publishers thought the only threat on their business comes from Amazon and its plans to seriously get into publishing, they're wrong. The eBook space is a great place for innovators, creating new models and ventures that might become even a bigger threat for traditional publishers in the near future. Take Hyperink for example.

Hyperink, as The Next Web defined it, is looking to change these facts. Essentially the company is looking to speed up the publishing industry, providing nearly on-demand access to topic-driven books, focusing on the micro scale. So rather than a “How to Get Into College”, you’re likely to see “How to Get Into Stanford”.

On Hyperink's website you can find the following: "We started Hyperink for a simple reason: there is too much knowledge trapped in people's heads, inaccessible to the world. Our mission is to unlock and share that knowledge by working directly with domain experts to publish beautiful, high-quality eBooks."

This need identification was made by Kevin Gao who founded Hyperlink after he left McKinsey and wrote down his thoughts on how to get there in a 90-page tract he called The Consulting Bible and began selling the e-book at $25 apiece. Last year, he told Businessweek, the title made more than $100,000, and the book’s unexpected success got Gao thinking. “There are millions of people out there like me who have interesting knowledge about all these random topics,” he told Businessweek. “But to market a book online there are a thousand steps that I had to figure out through trial and error.”

His idea transformed eventually this publishing startup that is focusing on producing 30-50 page nonfiction e-books on selected niche topics, from how to get into Ivy league schools to getting consulting jobs in India. Hyperink raised already $1.2 million from venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, SVAngel and Lerer Ventures and has published 100 e-books since January. Gao, who serves now as the company's CEO, wants to publish 100 books per month, available for download on e-readers, tablets, mobile devices and computers.

The comparative advantage of Hyperink is specialization - you already have For Dummies and other guides covering almost every topic on earth, but they're usually general. Hyperlink is looking to provide for more specific and thus valuable guidance. Scott Weiss, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who took part in the decision to invest in Hyperink gave Businessweek an example -instead of College Admission Essays For Dummies, Hyperink can produce 30-50-page volumes on the admissions process at hundreds of different schools, like "How to Get Into Amherst".

Hyperink also puts a lot of effort in identifying the right topics, the ones that will actually generate enough sales. The company, as businesweek reports, created software to predict in-demand topics. The algorithm takes in datasets, such as recent book sales figures and popular Internet searches, to determine what kinds of titles to produce.

And what about the authors? Hyperink explains on the website that "we’re ideal for experts who are entrepreneurial but don’t want to deal with the hassles of self-publishing. We’ll put you on a schedule and provide you with guidance to get the project completed." They hunt for what they call “domain experts” by advertising on Facebook, enlisting consultant-for-hire services such as Evisors, and simply calling around. There are no upfront payments to authors, but experts who write these books by themselves can get up to 50% of the royalties.

Hyperink's vision is to change the book publishing space - "book publishing needs to go through a lot of change - it should be faster, more personalized, and more democratic. We're going to make that happen," they write on their website. This is an ambitious goal, but Hyperink seems to be armed with the right tools to make it happen, or at least significantly contribute to such a change. In any event, publishers better pay attention to Hyperlink - this is the future of the publishing space and if they won't learn how to adjust to it, they will find themselves in trouble.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

The rise of ebooks and the consequent fall of paperbacks

Julie Bosman had an interesting article yesterday on the New York Times on the falling sales of paperbacks, which is actually more on the rise of ebooks and the consequent fall of paperbacks.

She writes there:

"A comprehensive survey released last month by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group revealed that while the publishing industry had expanded over all, publishers’ mass-market paperback sales had fallen 14 percent since 2008."

Why? David Gernert, a literary agent whose clients include John Grisham, a perennial best seller in mass market, explains on the article that “e-books have bitten a big chunk out of it”and Matthew Shear, the executive vice president and publisher of St. Martin’s Press adds “in some ways, the e-book is yesterday’s mass market.”

Is it a bad or good trend? I actually think this is the wrong question. Even if e-books are not responsible for 100 percent of the fall of he paperback sales, I guess their rise as a convenient and cheap alternative makes paperback books a less valuable option and therefore a product less people want to purchase.

Although some people in the book industry, like Michael Connelly, the best-selling mystery writer best known for “The Lincoln Lawyer,” are worried of this trend and afraid that "book buyers would not be able to discover new authors very easily if mass-market paperbacks continued to be phased out," I think they'll find out that the electronic format, coupled with more online presence of authors and publishers, actually has the potential to increase the exposure of book buyers to new authors and not reduce it.

So what would you read this Labor Day - would it be a paperback or an ebook? Or maybe both? Feel free to share your choice with us.

Image credit: umpcportal, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

What's the best way to read a book? Nick Bilton compares the Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone and a paperback

Nick Bilton is writing great pieces on the New York Times, many of them related to our favorite subject - books. This week he writes about another favorite subject of ours - the multiple options you have today to read a book, from the Kindle and smartphones to good old paperback. In other words - what's the best format to read a book?

As he mentions this question becomes no less important than the question what book to read as we have a growing number of options available.

So Bilton went out and checked couple of popular options: The Amazon Kindle, the first- and second-generation Apple iPads, the Barnes & Noble Nook, an iPhone, a Windows Phone, a Google Android phone, a Google Android tablet and a laptop computer. Oh, and yes, he also compared it with reading on a paperback.

How he did it? He bought a book, “The Alienist,” by Caleb Carr, and read a chapter on each format. He's sharing his experience on this piece and you're welcome to read it all, but here are just couple of conclusions from his non-scientific yet so realistic experience:

1. Reading on the Amazon Kindle is a joy in many respects.

2. If you don't want distractions or you're the type that it's easy to destruct don't use a tablet, or otherwise you'll soon find yourself "sucked into the wormhole of the Internet and a few games of Angry Birds."

3. The Barnes & Noble Color Nook ($250) does allow you to surf the Web, but it is a little slow, though, and that sometimes frustrated Bilton. In other words, if you want to surf use the iPad 2, and if you don't use the Kindle. Nook's effort to provide you the advantages of both worlds is not really working.

4. Regular mobile users should be fine - "Despite the small screen on a mobile phone, I find reading on one to be simple and satisfactory. Maybe this is because I have become accustomed to mobile screens, using them for hours at a time to check the news, sift through e-mail and navigate social networks." One comment - I still have a feeling that reading a book on your mobile device is so much fun for your eyes, so be good to your eyes (you can't really replace them, right?) and just use a tablet or an e-reader.

Finally, Bilton says "but if money is tight, go for print. My used paperback cost only $4." He just forgot another option, even cheaper - taking it in your local library, either in a paper or an electronic format. Not only it's cheaper, it's even greener!

Photo: Nikkorz, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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

Have paper books become just an intellectual decoration in the age of ebooks?

Nick Bilton has an interesting piece on the New York Times' Bits, where he's presenting his dilemma - he's moving from NY to SF and not sure what to do with all the hundreds of books he have? Should he take them with him or not?

He's explaining:

"Although I love my print books, e-readers, in one form or another, have become my primary reading device over the last few years. I barely touch my print books, although they are still beautiful and important to me. But they sit on my bookshelf as a decorative and intellectual art form...

As I packed for the move, I questioned whether it made financial sense to ship my several hundred books across the country, and more important, if I went through the trouble of doing this, what was the point when they would only sit untouched in a different city, just as they have for so many years in New York?"

This is a dilemma I'm sure many readers who are became mostly e-readers share. I find it a very interesting as this is not just a question of space and technology - I believe it's a much broader question about our culture and identity because for so many of us, the paper books are still a significant part of who we are. So can we move on and leave this part behind us now that we can have these books in an electronic version within seconds? Tough question.

So what Bilton did eventually? He reports: "In the end, I decided to leave 80 percent of the books behind, donating them to bookstores and even throwing some old, tattered volumes in the garbage. I still feel guilty about it, but I also feel vindicated by the practicality of my actions."

I can understand Bilton, although I really wish he would put the old, tattered volumes in the recycling bin instead of throwing them to the garbage.

What do you think? What would you do or have done in similar situation? Please comment and share your thoughts with us!

Photo: Books on the floor, Flickr Creative Commons, Toni Girl

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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

5 ways to green your ebook reading

If you one of the millions of readers who read e-books and you're wondering if you can do anything to green up your e-reading, the answer is clear and simple: Yes, you can. Actually, it's very easy.

Here are five simple things you can do to green your ebook reading:

1. Ask Amazon and B&N to follow Apple and disclose the carbon footprint of their e-readers.
Why? Both of them don't provide any sort of information on the carbon footprint of neither the Kindle nor the Nook and hence we have no way to know how eco-friendly these devices really are. Any sustainability journey begins with transparency and Apple is example both Amazon and Barnes & Noble should follow.

This is especially true when it comes to Amazon, which sells the most popular e-reading device, and, as I mentioned many times in the past, has repeatedly ignored requests to provide information regarding the Kindle’s footprint.

What to do? If you own a Kindle, email Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com), founder and CEO of Amazon.com, letting him know you own a Kindle and you would really appreciate if Amazon would disclose the Kindle's footprint just like Apple does. If you own a Nook, write the same request to their customer service at nook@barnesandnoble.com (sorry, I don't have the email address of B&N CEO, William Lynch). Although we're focusing here on the market leaders, please feel free to send similar emails if you have other e-reading devices.

2. Maximize the use of your e-reader
Why? The largest part of your e-reader's footprint comes from its production - for example, about 60% in the case of the iPad 2. It means that when you get your new e-reader, you receive it with much of its footprint already attached to it and even though you can't change that, you can still use it to reduce your reading's footprint by using it as much as possible and hence avoiding the generation of carbon emissions from the printing of new books for example (4.01 kg per book).

What to do? Read ad as many books and magazines as you can on your e-reader instead on paper.

3. Don't replace your e-reader so fast
Why? Because you need at least couple of years of reading on the same e-reader to pass the breakeven point that will make your e-reader a greener option comparing to paper books (about 26 books with the iPad 2 for example).

It's also about efficient use of resources. Buying a new e-reader every year or so might keep you with the most updated version, but will also increase your footprint significantly and will be a very inefficient use of resources.

What to do? Try to keep your e-reader with you at least for 3-4 years. Then recycle it or sell/give it to someone else to use.

4. Buy ebooks at local independent bookstores
Why? Because independent bookstores are a viable part of local economies and making your local independent bookstore stronger will make your community stronger. You can't say that about your local Barnes & Noble and Borders (if there's still one around you) store and certainly not about Amazon.com. Remember that social sustainability is not less important than environmental sustainability.

What to do? Now that Google eBooks Now Sold at 250 Indie Bookstores it shouldn't be a problem. Just go to your local indie bookstore's website and purchase there the ebook you're looking to read.

5. Rent ebooks
Why? Again, it's about maximizing the use of your e-reader and making sure you'll reach the breakeven point that you need to pass to make it a greener reading option. Renting books, whether through your local library or one of the online lending services available now is a great way to make e-reading more affordable, which will result in more e-reading and better and greener use of your e-reader.

What to do? Check if your local library provides this option. Also, check one of the lending services available online - eBookFling, BookLending and Lendle.

For more resources on how green e-books are, check our ebooks page at http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

10 best green business ebooks!

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

This time I prepared a list that is a bit different than our usual weekly lists of recommendations on the latest ebooks on green issues available as ebooks. Inspired by Marc Gunther's article 'Reader Faves: Best Books About Green Business', I decided to present you with my 10 recommendations on green business books that are available in an electronic version.

This list is based on my personal preferences as well as on the books I use on the course I teach at University of Delaware's Business School on sustainability and green business. Therefore, some of them are relatively old (2-3 years old), but I still find them relevant and valuable.

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 business e-books:

1. Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart's Green Revolution by Edward Humes - Harper Collins, Inc. (May 10, 2011)

2. Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose--Doing Business by Respecting the Earth by Robin White and Ray Anderson - St. Martin's Press (April 1, 2010)

3. Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top by Andrew Winston - Harvard Business Press (August 17, 2009)

4. Revolution in a Bottle: How TerraCycle Is Redefining Green Business by Tom Szaky - Portfolio (February 18, 2009)

5. Strategies for the Green Economy : Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business by Joel Makower - McGraw-Hill (October 5, 2008)

6. The Green to Gold Business Playbook: How to Implement Sustainability Practices for Bottom-Line Results in Every Business Function by P.J. Simmons and Daniel C. Esty - Wiley (April 8, 2011)

7. The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win by Jeffrey Hollender and Bill Breen - Jossey-Bass (January 21, 2010)

8. Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto by Adam Werbach - Harvard Business Press (July 6, 2009)

9. Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid: New Approaches for Building Mutual Value by Ted Landon and Stuart Hart - FT Press (November 5, 2010)

10. Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs by Muhammad Yunus - PublicAffairs (May 11, 2010)

See you next week!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Pick Your Battle by Douglas Lain and 9 other recommended 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. Pick Your Battle: Your Guide to Urban Foraging, Hollywood Movies, Late Capitalism, and the Communist Alternative (a memoir) by Douglas Lain - Amazon Digital Services (May 8, 2011)

2. Earthship I want one by Michael Reynolds - Earthship Biotecture (April 30, 2011)

3. How to start an Urban Farm by Matt Mayer - Amazon Digital Services (March 4, 2011)

4. Great Eggspectations? by Rus Slater - GA&P ePublishing; 1.0 edition (April 28, 2011)

5. The Oil Price (The Oil Price Trilogy) by Guy Lane - Amazon Digital Services (April 27, 2011)

6.Original Instructions by Melissa K. Nelson - Bear & Company (April 19, 2011)

7. GREEN FACILITIES HANDBOOK: SIMPLE & PROFITABLE STRATEGIES FOR MANAGERS by Eric Woodruff - The Fairmont Press (April 18, 2011)

8. Easiest And Cheapest Way To Start Organic Gardening At Home - "Creating Fun For The Family" by Willem M Strydom Strydom (Author), Marthina Strydom (Editor) - Amazon Digital Services (April 26, 2011)

9. Climate Change and Land Policies by Gregory Ingram (Editor) , Yu-Hung Hong (Editor) - Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (May 10, 2011)

10. Urban Design: The Composition of Complexity by Ron Kasprisin - T & F Books UK (May 3, 2011)

See you next week!

Yours, Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Eco-Warriors, Nihilistic Terrorists, and the Environment and 9 other recommended 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. Eco-Warriors, Nihilistic Terrorists, and the Environment by Lawrence E. Likar - Praeger (April 30, 2011)

2. The Healer by Deborah Greenspan - Llumina Press (April 14, 2011)

3. Recycle The Box, Make Happy The Fox. (Green Toddlers) by Aia Ribadeneira (Author), Kiana Nagales (Illustrator) - Amazon Digital Services (May 1, 2011)

4. The Cruise by Donald Blake - Donald Blake (April 13, 2011)

5. The Enviroment under the mens shadow by Victoriano Garza Almanza - Fabro Editores (May 2, 2011)

6. Earth: The Operators' Manual by Richard B. Alley - W. W. Norton & Company (April 11, 2011)

7. Nuclear Energy : What Everyone Needs to Know by Charles D. Ferguson - Oxford University Press, USA (May 2, 2011)

8. #13 Mallory Goes Green! by Laurie Friedman - Darby Creek (April 28, 2011)

9. 7 Ways To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint by Mary Ford - Amazon Digital Services (April 28, 2011)

10. Queen of Environmental Club by S.I. Decker - Electric Prose Publications (April 28, 2011)

See you next week!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!