Funny yellow pages photo!

(Source: Brand Constructors)

Actually it's a bit sad when you think about it..

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Working to green the book industry!

Watch the Espresso Book Machine at McNally Jackson in action!

We wrote here in the past about the Espresso Book Machine, the machine that brings POD into bookstores, but it's always fun to see it in action. NPR’s Science Friday (a great show by the way) has a great video on their visit at McNally Jackson in New York checking out their Espresso Book Machine.

According to McNally Jackson's website, their new Espresso Book Machine "can print in minutes affordable, library-quality paperbacks. In addition to those books publishers have given us access to, the machine can also print anything in the public domain--increasing the store's inventory by over 4 million potential titles" To search the books available to print, click here.

The video is available at www.sciencefriday.com/arts/2011/02/robot-invades-nyc-bookstore/


More related articles:

The future of bookstores - business as unusual, local solutions and positioning for success

Will Xerox help to further green up the Espresso Book Machine?

Will the new collaboration between Google and On Demand Books green up the book industry?

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Working to green the book industry!

Where readers buy their ebooks? The short answer: Amazon and eBooks.com

We're on the final week of our 10-week ebook experiment. Like all experiments, it began with a (research) question: Where will readers look to buy their ebooks? Following the launch of Google eBookstore, its collaboration with independent bookstores, and when Amazon, B&N, Borders and other bookstores are fighting on their market share, competition on the dollars spent by ebook buyers is getting fierce.

Our assumption is that many readers will look for e-books using a search engine and will buy from one of the first results of their search. So we randomly chose 10 books of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2010 and googled each title with the word ebook and wrote down the first two results we got. We redo it every Thursday for 10 weeks and will see if there are any changes in the search results.

Here are the results for week 10. In brackets you'll see the last week's results. If they were the same we just wrote 'same'. And if you click on the titles, you will be forwarded to the first place on the title's search):

1. Girl by the Road at Night by David Rabe
1st place: Simon & Schuster (same)
2nd place: Simon & Schuster (same)

2. The Long Song by Andrea Levy
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Amazon.com (same)

3. The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Amazon.com (same)

4. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
1st place: Powell's Books (same)
2nd place: Amazon.com (same)

5. Big Girls Don't Cry by Rebecca Traister
1st place: Simon & Schuster (same)
2nd place: Simon & Schuster (same)

6. The Price of Altruism by Oren Harman
1st place: Kobo (same)
2nd place: Kobo (same)

7. INSECTOPEDIA by Hugh Raffles
1st place: eBookMall (Amazon)
2nd place: Amazon.com (eBookMall)

8. Country Driving by Peter Hessler
1st place: Goodreads (B&N)
2nd place: Barnes & Noble (iFlow Reader)

9. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
1st place: eBooks.com (Amazon)
2nd place: Amazon (Random House)

10. Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens
1st place: Atheist Movies (same)
2nd place: Amazon.com (same)

Here's the summary of the results:

	Amazon		B&N		Publishers		Others
	1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd
week 1	6	3	1	2	3	4	0	1
week2	6	4	1	3	3	3	0	0
week3	6	2	1	2	3	4	0	2
week4	6	3	2	1	2	4	0	2
week5	5	4	1	2	2	3	2	1
week6	5	3	0	2	3	3	2	2
week7	4	5	0	2	3	1	3	2
week8	4	6	0	1	2	2	4	1
week9	4	4	1	0	2	3	3	3
week10	2	6	0	1	2	2	6	1

We give 2 points for 1st place and 1 point for 2nd place:

		Amazon		B&N		Google		Publishers		Others
week 1		15		4		0		10		1
week 2		16		5		0		9		0
week 3		14		4		0		10		2
week 4		15		5		0		8		2
week 5		14		4		0		7		5
week 6		13		2		0		9		6
week 7		13		2		0		7		8
week 8		14		1		0		6		9
week 9		12		2		0		7		9
week 10		10		1		0		6		13

To make sure our results are reliable and since our experiment is based on a list of books that was "new" 10 weeks ago, we decided to check last week's list of bestsellers in the same manner and see if there's any significant difference. So we looked into the New York Times' list of bestselling hardcover fiction and these are the search results we got for the first 10 books:

1. Tick Tock by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
1st place: Amazon
2nd place: eBooks.com

2. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
1st place: eBooks.com
2nd place: Amazon

3. The Inner Circle by Kate Brian
1st place: Simon & Schuster
2nd place: Amazon

4. Strategic Moves by Stuart Woods
1st place: eBooks.com
2nd place: Amazon

5. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
1st place: Amazon
2nd place: eBooks.com

6. Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning
1st place: Amazon
2nd place: B&N

7. Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy
1st place: eBooks.com
2nd place: Amazon

8. The Sentry by Robert Crais
1st place: Amazon
2nd place: Amazon

9. The Confession by John Grisham
1st place: Amazon
2nd place: B&N

10. Room by Emma Donoghue
1st place: Waterstones.com
2nd place: eBooks.com

Here's the summary of the results:

Amazon		B&N		Publishers		Others		Google
1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd
5	5	0	2	1	0	4	3	0	0

Here we also give 2 points for 1st place and 1 point for 2nd place:

	Amazon		B&N		Google		Publishers		Others
	15		2		0		2		11

Conclusions? Here we go:

1. Amazon is definitely no. 1 online bookstore when it comes to ebooks. Its reputation and online presence gives Amazon a significant advantage especially with new ebooks. We see though that Amazon's competitors are getting stronger and generating better results with ebooks that are in the market for more than just a couple of weeks.

2. Barnes and Noble? They get poor results that reflect their decline in the book market. If they count on online sales they should do a much better work to regain some lost power.

3. Google eBookstore is nowhere to be seen yet. The masters of online searches are failing in the place where they were supposed to excel. But they're still new in the game, so we'll have to wait and see. Right now it's a big disappointment.

4. Small online players (well relatively small) like eBooks.com or eBookMall can't be ignored any more and some websites like eBooks.com are showing a very strong performance, especially when it comes to new ebooks, are are second many times only to Amazon. This is a force that will only become stronger and if there's any threat to the leading position of Amazon, it's from this side of the map.

5. Independent bookstores - Not surprisingly are not part of the game yet. They're too small and unfortunately lack the resources and expertise to compete even with websites like eBooks.com.

We promise to redo this experiment in 6 months and see if anything has changed. In the meantime, you can find all the survey results so far at www.ecolibris.net/buying_ebooks.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Are you a bookworm? Got a big library? Try our monthly subscription option!

We would like to remind you with an option that is available on Eco-Libris' website - monthly subscription.

If you have a big library at home and you want to green it up one bookshelf at a time, balancing out 5 or 10 books every month on a regular basis, our subscription option can be a good fit for you.

The process is very easy and similar to one-time purchase: On the subscription page you choose how many books you want to balance out each month. Then just click on the 'Buy' bottom and complete the payment process on the PayPal page. That's it.

Then, every month we'll work with our planting partners to plant trees in developing countries on your behalf the number of books you chose (10 trees for 10 books each month for example). You will receive a confirmation email from PayPal following each monthly payment, and of course we'll send you our "One tree planted for this book" stickers on monthly basis.

And that's not all - If you're also a member at bookmoocher, you will receive 1 bookmooch point for every 10 books you balance out!

If and when you'll decide you want to suspend your subscription, you will be able to do it easily and quickly on PayPal website.

If you have any questions about the subscription option, please feel free to email us at info [at] ecolibris [dot] net.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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

Barnes & Noble Bankruptcy Index: The failure of Groupon's special coupon deal

While Borders, the nation’s second-largest book chain, is on the verge of bankruptcy, we continue to look at Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest book chain to see if they follow will Borders and go into bankruptcy and if so, when exactly.

Two weeks ago we launched a new B&N Bankruptcy Index, which is based on 10 parameters, which receive a grade between 1-10 (1 - worst grade, 10 - best grade). Hence we receive a 0-100 point index scale, which we divide into several ranges as follows:

90-100: B&N is in an excellent shape. Couldn't be better!
80-89: B&N is doing great. Bankruptcy is no longer a real threat.
70-79: B&N could do better and has to be cautious of bankruptcy.
60-69: B&N doesn't look good and bankruptcy is becoming a real threat.
50-59: Bankruptcy is a clear and present danger.
49 and less: Red alert! Bankruptcy is just around the corner and is likely to happen within a short time frame.

We will check the B&N Bankruptcy Index every Wednesday, updating each one of the parameters included in the index and will analyze the trend. You can follow the weekly changes in the index from the day it was launched on the Barnes and Noble Bankruptcy Index page on our website.

So here we go (in brackets is last week's grade):

1. Confidence of the stock market in B&N
This parameter will look at the performance of the B&N stock (symbol: BKS) in the last week. The performance of B&N's stock is an indication of the confidence the market has in the ability of B&N to maintain a viable business.

So let's look at last week's figures:

2/2: $16.41
2/8: $17.11
Change: +4.2%

As you can see, B&N's stock did pretty well the past week. They did much better comparing to the S&P500 Index (+1.57%), but not as good as Amazon (5.49%). In other words, the markets still believe in B&N, unlike the situation of Borders, for example, which continues to go down - last week (2/2-2/8) the stock went down by 7.69%. This week's grade for this parameter is: 8.5 (8.5)

2. What analysts say on B&N
We haven't find any updates here so this week's week's grade for this parameter stays the same: 7 (7)

3. New strategy to regain sales in the brick and mortar stores
Just like Borders, B&N still doesn't have a a clear and comprehensive strategy that will transform their brick and mortar stores from a liability back to an asset.

This week was all about the Groupon offer ($10 for $20 Worth of Toys and Games, Books and More at Barnes & Noble). With regards to B&N's brick and mortar strategy, this deal only showed the lack of strategy. As we asked B&N last Friday, if you already go with a nation-wide deal and offer such a great offer, why not to use it to make your stores stronger by limiting it just to purchasing in stores? Your problem is with brick and mortar sales, not your online sales. Wouldn't this deal be a great incentive to bring back customers to stores?? Anyway, they didn't do it and therefore this week's grade is going down: 4 (4.5)

4. What B&N is saying about itself
We haven't find any updates here so this week's week's grade for this parameter stays the same: 6 (6)

5. Steps B&N is taking
This week was as we said all about the Groupon special deal. It was supposed to be not just a special deal but also a way of creating positive momentum and presenting B&N's strength to those who wonder what's their situation. It was also in a way a reply to Amazon's deal from last month. Amazon offered the same offer ($20 coupon for $10) on LivingSocial. But even if the offers were similar, in terms of results they totally different.

Amazon's offer was a huge success - according to PCMag.com Amazon sold 1,378,938 coupons in a single day. Now, nor Groupon neither B&N provided information on the results of B&N's deal, and since the deal was area based it's not so simple to get the results by yourself, but we tried and looked into the number of B&N coupons sold on the 6 largest cities in the U.S.:

New York City - 26, 629
Los Angeles - 21,557
Chicago - 75,221
Houston - 10,272
Phoenix - 11,674
Philadelphia - 9,940
Total: 155,293 coupons.

Even if we assume that the total number of coupons sold on all areas was two times than this figure (i.e. 310,000 coupons), we still look at less than 25% of what Amazon achieved and Amazon, to remind you, did it in a single day, whereas B&N's deal was going on for 3 days. In other words, consumers don't really find B&N that attractive in comparison with its competitors. Not that we didn't have an idea that this was the case, but this deal came and provided a very interesting example enabling us to compare what you might call the "attractiveness factor" of both Amazon and B&N. Well, Amazon won. This week's grade is: 5.5 (6)

6. Competitors
This parameter will mainly look into Borders and how its problems affect B&N. This week it looks like Borders' bankruptcy is closer than ever.

Borders are still on the verge of bankruptcy. Only today, Al Greco, a book publishing expert and professor of marketing at Fordham University's Graduate School of Business Administration, is quoted on NewsObserver.com saying that "he expected the company to seek bankruptcy protection soon. "It's pretty clear they will file for bankruptcy; it's just a question of when," he said. "Borders at one time was an unbelievably impressive bookstore chain - people loved it. The day they go into bankruptcy will not be a happy day for publishers, authors and readers."

As we mentioned earlier, there are positive and negative effects to the upcoming bankruptcy on B&N. On the positive side, for example, Stifel Nicolaus stated that the sector pressures on Borders may give "breathing room" to Barnes & Noble strategic and operational decisions. On the negative side, Borders' bankruptcy might show that what was once was unthinkable when you talked about the big book chains, is now a realistic option. We feel that Borders' bankruptcy can do more harm than good to B&N and as Borders seems to getting closer and closer to bankruptcy our weekly grade for this parameter is: 6 (6.5)

7. Financial strength
B&N's latest financial report was published on November 2010 for its second quarter, which ended Oct. 30. Yesterday B&N announced the company will report fiscal 2011 third quarter earnings results on Tuesday, February 22nd.

So there's no change here from last week, even though the Groupon offer will cost B&N around $2.1 million (155,293 coupons x13.5 average loss on each one of them, which includes the $10 discount and Groupon's estimated fee). Therefore this parameter's grade stays the same: 7.5 (7.5)

8. Strength of the ebook business
No news on this front (maybe we should call it e-front?). This week's grade is: 7.5 (7.5)

9. Sense of urgency
Maybe B&N think they still have time but this is not the case of course and if we can learn something from the Borders' case, it's how fast things go bad when your reach a certain tipping point of financial distress or distrust of your stakeholders (consumers or publishers for example). Therefore this parameter will try to look into B&N's sense of urgency.

No news on this front as well The week's grade is: 6 (6)

10. General feeling
This parameter will be an indication of our impression of all the materials read and analyzed for this index. Our feeling this week, after the Groupon offer is that B&N still lacks a comprehensive strategy to address its problems as well as a clear idea how to bring customers again to its stores. Moreover, the failure of this deal in comparison to Amazon's deal only shows how deep B&N's problems are. Therefore this week's grade is: 6.5 (7)

This week's Barnes & Noble Bankruptcy Index: 64.5 points (66.5)

As you can see, this week's index is set at 64.5 points, which translates into the scale of 60-69: B&N doesn't look good and bankruptcy is becoming a real threat. Definitely not a good place to be at, but it could definitely get worst, although we hope it won't! See you next Wednesday.

To view the weekly changes in the index 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!

Are men from Mars and women from Venus when it comes to green marketing?

Apparently yes! Green marketing to women takes a different approach than green marketing to men.

Check out this interesting video where Bill Roth, who partners with Eco-Libris to plant trees for his books THE SECRET GREEN SAUCE and "On Empty (Out of Time), interviews Mike Dodge, President of Atomic Online, during OMMA Video Conference in San Francisco. They discuss best practices concerning women seeking green products vs. men seeking to buy green products.



(source: Environmental Leader)

I found it very interesting and learned couple of differences that are gender based like the fact that women are looking for advice and tips and are value focused whereas men likes facts and let them make the decision, or at least feel they're making it.. You'll find many more of these interesting differences in this interview so check it out.

You're are also invited to visit Bill Roth's website - Earth 2017, where you will find more interesting articles he wrote and other great green business materials. You can also find there you can get at no cost the first chapter of The Secret Green Sauce: Best practices used by actual companies successfully growing green revenues.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Save Our Libraries Day in the UK against coalition plans to close 450 libraries

Last Saturday was Save Our Libraries Day in the UK with more than 100 protest events where librarians, writers, and readers stormed local branches to protest the government’s possible plans to close 400 libraries.

The events, as The Bookseller reported, included read-ins, storytelling events, workshops and gigs.

The 400 libraries might be closed due to budget cuts, and these are bad news not only to book lovers, but for everyone who appreciate valuable public services and spaces such as libraries. As a son of a librarian I'm really sorry to hear these news and I hope this protests will be heard on Downing Street and help saving these libraries from closing down.

A crowd of around 100 gathered at Holyrood, Edinburgh to read sections of their favorite books. See the Guardian's video below:



Here's also a cartoon protest against spending cuts (Photograph: Ros Asquith):



We keep our fingers crossed, hoping this fight will succeed and will let you know once we'll have more updates about it.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!