Green Book Reviews - Ready, Set, Green by Graham Hill & Meaghan O'Neill (+ Free Book Giveaway)

In it's own way, 'Ready, Set, Green: Eight Weeks to Modern Eco-Living' can become an important book. It is a well written introduction to green living, that covers the basics, answers the most common questions and busts some myths while at it. It also gives very specific action items to tick off over a well structured period of eight weeks.

Written by Graham Hill and Meaghan O'Neill of TreeHugger.com, one of the most popular on-line green Meccas, it gets credibility and potential audience among the site's wired following. Add to that the fact that about a year ago TreeHugger was acquired by Discovery Communications, owners of the Discovery Channel, and here's a chance for bona fide green mass media exposure.

That is why I was surprised to realize that I really need to look relatively hard in order to find mentions of the book on TreeHugger.com (small link in the navigation bar to the book's Amazon page, of all places) or Discovery's Planet Green website (it is featured only at the Discovery shop), and that's only two months since the publication date.

Approaching the book, I was reminded of the introduction to 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'. There, Michael Pollen was illustrating how convoluted our food culture has become, so that the answer to the most trivial of questions, “What should we have for dinner?” becomes a complex endeavor, with the answer changing from fad diet to the other:

Somehow this most elemental of activities—figuring out what

to eat—has come to require a remarkable amount of expert help. How

did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell

us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner

menu?” (The Omnivore's Dilemma, Page 1)

The current influx of green living how-to books is coming to answer an even more basic question, that of “How should we live?” Hill & O'Neill are not afraid to give an answer and chunk it down to a bite-sized “Eight Week to Modern Eco-Living” program, echoing the famous Eight Weeks to Optimum Health diet by alternative medicine's poster doctor, Andrew Weil.

Marketing and packaging aside, do they deliver? I think they do. Each of the eight weeks in this lifestyle diet is dedicated to another aspect of life, represented in one chapter each:

Week one: How to think like a TreeHugger – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Week Two: Food & Drink

Week Three: Cleaning and Interior Décor

Week Four: Transportation

Week Five: Greening Your Home – Energy Consumption, Water, and Building

Week Six: Clothing and Personal Care

Week Seven: At the Office

Week Eight: R&R (Travel, Sport, Entertainment), Volunteering, and Activism.

Each chapter has the look & feel of a mini school textbook on the topic, only much more enjoyable to read. True to the “more hip than hippy” TreeHugger.com style, the writing is clear, with added tables, lists, illustrations and Q&A expert sections, that are actually on topic help divide the information into digestible bits.

The action items are at the end of each chapter and are divided to two types.

“Save the Planet in Thirty Minutes or Less” action items are what Ed Begley Jr. likes to call 'the low hanging fruits'. These are fairly easy and immediate ways to make a different, like starting to use a reusable coffee cup that week, or switching to at least one Earth-friendly house cleaning product.

The second type of action items are “So you Want to Do More” and are relatively deeper or more difficult commitments. Choosing apparel made of hemp or bamboo doesn't sound so difficult and life-changing, but becoming a Client Project ambassador certainly is.

All in all these actions can add up. Every reader that follows this eight week program, and adopts only the 30 minute fix-its, would be making a significant positive change in their life, and will be doing a thousand times more than most people to help reverse climate change.

But like changing your diet according to a set regime, the outline is useful only as far as there are strong personal motivations and commitments to take the plunge. I believe that these kind of lifestyle eco-diets are going to be successful in making a difference on a large scale only if there is enough support for the individual who pledged to go for it. I am talking about the likes of support groups a-la “weight watchers” and specialized 8-week eco-coaches to those who can afford it. Heck, why not a relaxation tape with subliminal messages reminding you not to leave the travel mug at home while at it? One thing is certain, we need all the help we can get.

Title: Ready, Set, Green: Eight Weeks to Modern Eco-Living

Authors: Graham Hill and Meaghan O'Neill

Publisher: Villard (a Random House imprint)

Published: May, 2008

Pages: 240

GIVEAWAY GIVEAWAY GIVEAWAY

One lucky reader can receive a free copy of the book directly from yours truly. This review copy has been with me the last few weeks in bus stops, the beach and the kitchen table, so expect reasonable wear and tear and an Eco-Libris sticker. Yep, we'll plant a tree to balance out the paper used in making this copy.

How to win? Simply – write a comment below, suggesting ingenious ways of convincing a reluctant domestic partner to join and support you in the eight weeks commitment. Good luck :)

[submissions accepted until Saturday, 12PM PST. The winner will be announced the following day]

Eylon @ Eco-Libris

Plant a Tree for every Book you Read!

SolFest, Green Publishing, and a mini interview with Stephen Morris

And this time it's Eylon, guest-blogging for Eco-Libris from sunny and green California.

SolFest at the Solar Living Institute in Hopland California, was being promoted as “The Greenest Show on Earth” and I have to say that it was impressive. Thousands of people, good music, excellent food (I just had to get the combo plate from Amma's Kitchen's,) several big tents with ongoing workshops and lectures, and many many vendors booths with everything green under the sun.

One session in particular had my Eco-Libris spider sense tingling. The “Green Publishing”session with Stephen Morris, promised to explain about new technologies that “have made both book and magazine publishing more accessible than ever,” and to examine “the opportunities and the pitfalls of starting a local publishing “empire.”” I just had to go and report back, thus awakening my dormant journalist persona.

Morris has a very impressive track record in green living and green publishing. He was involved in the set up of several successful organizations, in publishing both in Chelsea Green, and recently in his own The Public Press. But more central to his presentation was his involvement in the publication of the Green Living journal, a quarterly publication, serving the “friends of the environment,” with an interesting multi-local and sustainable business model, that aims at bringing local news back home.

Since we're talking about a business model here then the first thing to ask is what is the problem being solved exactly? According to Morris, local news aren't local anymore. Dedicated local publishers experience a burn out based on lots of work and low returns and end up being gobbled up by national entities. Advertising money is siphoned out and outside interests are coming into the local reporting.

Green Living is based on a licensing model where a local publisher can get a license to publish a local edition of Green Living in their locale. Currently there are two editions being published. The original Vermont edition, going on for more than a decade, and the more recent Southern Oregon/Northern California edition. By acting as editor-in-chief, and providing administrative services to the local editions, Morris manages to cut on some expenses and provide the local publishers more time to focus establishing relationships locally in order to serve it better as far as localized content, and selling of advertising. According to Linda Pinkham, the licensee for the Southern Oregon/Northern California edition, she broke even by the 2^nd issue and went into profit by the third. This is apparently unheard of in local publishing.

Some of the content is original but most of is re-used by permission of the original publishers and authors. When a certain local edition requires more content on specific topics, Morris supply it to the local publisher. For example, Pinkahm found out that in Oregon she is serving a growing community interested in green building.

Since I managed to miss Morris at the booth at the show I had to resort to e-mail to clarify some questions I had:

Q: How did you choose to publish a Southern Oregon/Northern California edition specifically?

“I received an inquiry from Linda Pinkham for editorial work. She is a former Managing Editor for Home Power Magazine. I am familiar with the territory from my days with Real Goods. I was looking for a test location that had a high environmental consciousness, but one that was far enough from our home turf in the Northeast, so that if it didn't work out, it wouldn't hurt the core business. I wasn't quite ready to expand, but Linda was such an ideal candidate that I held it out as an option. The rest, as they say, is history.”

Q: What do you see as the minimum geographical region size or demographics that could support a local edition?

“The geography will be different everywhere. You can probably find more "friends of the environment" within 5 miles of Berkeley than you can find in the entire state of (not meaning to pick on them) South Dakota. In general a population of 125,000 is enough to support a local edition of Green Living Journal.“

Q: Do you have any upcoming new local licensees lined up already?

“We've just signed on to do a new edition in Northern Vermont. We have had inquiries from another 50 people around the country, but we do not want to expand until we're convinced we've debugged the mechanisms to support multiple editions.“

Q: Since you provide the licensees with a lot of the contents, where does their creativity come into play?

“From their suggestions about what topics are hot and deserve coverage; from their selection of which article that we provide that they choose to run; to their comments on cover images; to new voices that they develop from their areas; to what they write in the Publisher's Page ... Those with no creative input need not apply.“

Q: What is the personal profile of the new independent publisher?

“All over the map. We've had expressions of interests from recent college grads looking for entrepreneurial activities to energetic retirees looking for a means of doing something more closely aligned with their beliefs to community leaders looking to enhance the "green profile" of their locales. The only commonality is that these people all consider themselves 'friends of the environment.' “

Q: You mentioned 16,000 copies are printed for each edition. How many would you say are actually picked up and read? Where do the rest go?

“100%. If we find remaining copies from the previous issue we pick them up and distribute them at the events we attend. (We just handed out over 1000 copies of the Southern Oregon/Northern California edition at the Real Goods SolFest. I can't think of a more fuel-efficient means of distribution.)”

Q: Green Living is printed locally, with soy based inks and on recycled paper, and that is great, but do you see magazine publishing moving away from tree based paper anytime?

“Never say never, but I don't see us abandoning the paper edition any time soon. It's still the best way to present printed information. We've put a lot of effort into reducing our overall carbon footprint, however, from electronic invoicing to posting stories on our website so they are accessible for people who prefer getting their information that way. The whole idea behind our localization strategy is to produce and distribute as efficiently as possible. The backbone of our business are the small, local enterprises who are environmentally responsible. We want the dollars generated to stay right in the community.”

Q: How can any of this be applied to book publishing? Or do you have a different vision for that?

“We have a book publishing division called The Public Press. Here the goal is very different from Green Living because we are exploring the economies of scale, but SMALL scale. Our goal is to produce the right amount of product for the demand, and no more. Conventional publishing rewards the economies of large scale and is characterized by extraordinary amounts of waste. We may never have a best-seller, but you won't find our books filling up the landfill either.”

Till next time...

eylon@ecolibris.net

starting NOW

Hi, my name is Raz and I am one of the co-founders of Eco-Libris. I am very excited to write the first post on our blog.

Although I have written dozens of articles on green business for Israel's second-largest newspaper web edition (sorry, they are only in Hebrew...), this is my first time here at the blogosphere. So, I have some catching up to do, but I’ll do my best to keep it interesting and with a good sense of humor (hopefully), in the spirit of my favorite green news website - Grist.

So, welcome to the blog of Eco-Libris, a green venture of a dedicated team who wants to do good and do well at the same time. Check out our team page to see who we are - http://www.ecolibris.net/team.asp.

Behind the smiling faces, there is a bunch of excellent people (I’m not kiddin’, you can check it with our mothers), who have diversified backgrounds and share the same belief: we need to green up our lifestyle and make it much more sustainable. And as you may know already we decided to begin with books, by aiming to plant a tree for every book read.

This blog is the place where we’ll tell you more about what we’re doing and what’s going on in general in the fast growing green market. Here, you’ll receive the hottest news on Eco-Libris, interesting stories from the green world in general and the junction of sustainability and book publishing industry in particular. Not only that, but we also plan to cover trends and issues related to your everyday life, from green sex and eco-fashion to where you can find cheap compact fluorescent bulbs. We also promise to bring you links to cool sites and videos related to eco-friendly issues that we always pick up as we surf the web.

So stay tuned, you won’t regret it ;-)

Humbly yours,
Raz

p.s. if you wandering what's the photo - this is the Eco-Sexy Kit of the excellent sex toys shop, Babeland. And this is our first recomendation on this blog. It includes body-friendly Laya Spot vibrator and a selection of premium, all-natural spa products. Check out their website for more details. Enjoy!