Is going green really worthwhile for authors?

The post this week on James Kaela, who is going to ride his bike for 1900 miles in 40 days to promote his new zero emissions book reminded me of the last piece missing in our series on the green future of the book industry - the one about authors.

Yes, just like publishers and bookstores, we believe authors can be a significant force in moving the book industry ahead toward a sustainable future. Just think about J.K. Rowling and the role she had in making Harry Potter so green (including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which was called the greenest book in publishing history).

It's true of course that not every author has the power J.K. Rowling had (she for example blocked the Finnish version of Harry Potter no. 7 from being printed on local paper because it lacks the ecological FSC certification), but on the other hand it doesn't mean that authors are powerless unless they're best-sellers. Authors can make a difference, whether they're called Margaret Atwood or James Kaela.

But the (maybe) more interesting question is whether green choices are better for authors? When we talked about the future of publishers and bookstores, we made an argument that making greener choices in their cases is not just great for the environment, but also has a strong business case. Is this the case with authors?

We believe that although such a move won't necessarily generate benefits to authors in all cases, there's still enough evidence to support the assumption that going green is worthwhile to authors. Here are couple of examples:

1. Greener choices receive positive media mentions, which help to spread the word about the book and promote it. The book tours of Margaret Atwood and James Kaela are good examples.

2. Making sure your book is printed on recycled paper or FSC-certified paper can get the author a warm endorsement from NGOs, like in the case of RAN that published a list of 25 children’s books that are “rainforest-safe.” All books on the list are printed on post-consumer recycled, FSC certified or recycled paper, allowing parents the assurance of knowing that their childrens’ books are not contributing to the loss of Indonesia’s or other endangered rainforests.

3. Print On Demand (POD) not only reduces waste and books' footprint, but also gives authors (and publishers) a way to save money. Though not suitable for every author, in a future, where Smashwords's Mark Coker estimate that "most authors will be indie authors", this is certainly a win-win solution for many of them.

4. Creative green ideas can generate more sales - Even just using the Internet and social media networks for marketing instead of more traditional off-line marketing channels with greater carbon footprint is a win-win solution, generating usually better ROI and reduced environmental impacts.

5. Diversifying to other forms of publishing such as e-books might prove itself as another way of generating sales while reducing the book's footprint. Of course, as we say every time, we don't know yet how green e-readers really are, but from what we do know, we can definitely assume that they will come a more solid green alternative in the near future.

Given the relatively easy and cheap process of creating an e-book, it should be a good way for authors to go green while generating more sales from the growing numbers of readers who like to read their books on screens instead of paper. These are just couple of examples. We're sure that there are plenty more. In all, we believe that the future of authors is no different from the future of the book industry, meaning that they go through the same trends.

These trends no matter how you look at them are either already green (POD, online marketing) or will be in green in the near future (e-books). What I like about these trends is that you don't necessarily have to be green to utilize them, but no matter what is your reason, both you and the environment will benefit. We do believe nevertheless that authors that will also know how to position themselves as "green" authors will even benefit more. What do you think? We'll be happy to hear your thoughts!

Here are the articles we published so far in our series on the green future of the book industry:

Why should the book industry go green?

Can publishers build an effective green brand?

Is there a future for Barnes & Noble and Borders? Is it a green one?

Can monetary incentives + local benefits generate a brighter future for independent bookstores?

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Read more about JK Rowling wants Green Paper for Harry Potter by CreativeCloud from the UK's leading supplier of printer cartridges

Read more about JK Rowling wants Green Paper for Harry Potter by CreativeCloud from the UK's leading supplier of printer cartridges

GPI will have a webcast this Friday on the Latest on the challenges and opportunities of printing in Asia

Last month we wrote here about a report published by Rainforest Network Action (RAN) which connects children's books to the destruction of endangered rainforests in Indonesia. We also work now on an interview with Ian Lifshitz, Sustainability & Public Outreach Manager at Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), which is at the center of the report.

The challenges (as well of opportunities) of printing in Asia are also the topic of an upcoming webcast organized by our friends at the Green Press Initiative. The webcast will take place this Friday, July 16, 2010 at 11:30 AM (ET). Registration is free, but you need to register online until July 15 to attend it. You can do it at http://greenpressinitiative.eventbrite.com/

It is expected to be a very interesting webcast, so we recommend everyone who wants to learn more about these issues to join. Here are more details on the webcast:

Manufacturing books in Asia has risks and rewards. Aside from ensuring compliance with the Lacey Act, socially responsible publishers need to take new steps to ensure that they are not impacting communities or the world’s most biodiverse and Endangered Forests. This webcast will attempt to update you on the realities of sourcing from Asia and provide perspectives on your options and related tools. Panelists will address the connections to Indonesia and present success models and clear steps for minimizing risk and utilizing your market leverage for positive benefit.

Panel Details:

Linda Kramme, Global Forest & Trade Network - North America, World Wildlife Fund
Linda will discuss the biodiversity and climate impacts that illegal and unsustainable logging in Indonesia is having on the country's shrinking forest and wildlife resources. She will also share some tools that WWF has developed to help paper purchasers "green" their supply chains and reduce impacts.

Lafcadio Cortesi, Rainforest Action Network
Lafcadio will discuss the impacts that logging in Indonesia has on local communities. He will also discuss Rainforest Action Network’s campaign to encourage children’s book publishers to stop sourcing fiber from Indonesia and recent tests which indicate that much of the fiber in books printed in Asia is sourced from Indonesia.

Shona Burns, VP Production, Chronicle Books
Shona will discuss Chronicle’s efforts to print books in Asia while ensuring that paper is made from fiber that is responsibly sourced.

Kurt Andrews, Production Director, Melcher Media
Kurt will discuss the success Melcher Media has had reducing the portion of books that are printed in Asia and increasing domestic production while at the same time maintaining margins.

Todd Pollak, Program Manager, Green Press Initiative
Todd will moderate the panel, and will also introduce a newly developed tool from Green Press Initiative which identifies overseas paper suppliers that are at low risk for Lacey Act violations or impacting endangered forests or local communities.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading

Author James Kaela is biking 1900 miles to promote his new Zero Emission book

Some authors say they care about the environment. James Kaela is willing to bike 1900 miles in 40 days to prove it.

I read today on Treehugger that James Kaela, who just published his first novel 'We're Getting On', is doing it "because he recognises that it is difficult to be carbon free in the manufacturing of the book, no matter how hard one tries. So he wants to make the promotional part as emission free as he can. He will be staying at organic farms and eating vegan power bars. He will be travelling from Los Angeles to Vancouver. Calling it the Zero Emissions tour, he will be visiting 22 towns, biking 1900 miles in 40 days"

The book itself walk the walk (or in this case, bike the bike or something like this..), with interiors that are printed on 100% recycled paper and covers that are made of seed paper which, upon burial, germinate and grow into birch trees.

I like the idea very much. Not only that the book is printed using environmentally-sound practices, but it also use them as an inspiration to a unique eco-friendly promotional tour. What I like even more is the fact that Kaela is not afraid to take on himself a difficult challenge to get the word out on his book. He said in an interview that he'll stop the bike tour until Stephen Colbert will invite him to his show. So we keep our fingers crossed and look forward to seeing him on the Colbert Show!

'We're Getting On', published by Flatmancrooked, is part of a limited edition run of 1000 copies, so if you're interested in buying it don't wait too long! And by the way, if you're wondering what you do with the book after you read it - do you keep the book on your shelf or plant it in your garden? According to Treehugger, the author thinks that "makes for a nice commentary on materialism. What's more important? The contents of the book or the physical book itself?"

You can follow the Zero Emissions tour and purchase a copy of the book at http://www.zeroemissionbook.com/the-tour.

Here's the first commercial/book trailer for the Zero Emission Book Project:



Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading

A new website provides with everything you wanted to know about the life cycle of paper

Looking to stay informed about paper is always a challenge, as you have many bits of information here and there, but it's difficult to understand the big picture. Although there are already some good sites that try to meet this challenge, we always felt there's still a need to have one more good website we can always go to when we need information. Now it looks like we got one.

The new website, which was launched this week, is called Paper Life Cycle. It was created by Metafore, a program of GreenBlue, a nonprofit institute that works with the private sector to enable the positive redesign of industrial systems, in collaboration with stakeholders across the paper supply chain.

The new website explains its promise:

The Paper Life Cycle project is a multi-stakeholder initiative that provides key environmental information about the sourcing, production, use and end of life of paper so that buyers of paper and fiber-based products can make better-informed, more sustainable purchasing decisions.

This online resource promotes greater understanding of the key issues throughout the paper supply chain, covering topics such as climate change, forest practice management, recycling, illegal logging, energy use and product performance.

On their press release, Tom Pollock, Senior Program Manager of Metafore says that “we found there was a need in the marketplace for information about the many environmental considerations across the life cycle of paper. This is an online resource for businesses to make informed purchasing decisions that integrate environmental and economic performance.”

The site includes in-depth articles, trend reports and guidance on key questions facing paper manufacturers and buyers. From the couple of visits I made so far in this website, it is very comprehensive and user-friendly (including a search option), and I also liked the fact that it is constantly updated with reports, news and trends to make sure the information in it stays up to date.

I will definitely keep using this new resource and you are also welcome to check it out at http://www.thepaperlifecycle.org/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading

Happy birthday - Eco-Libris is three years old!

Last weekend when the United States celebrated Independence Day, Eco-Libris had its own birthday celebration - we have just turned three years old!

Yes, another year passed and just like the year before, it wasn't an easy one. Like many others we had to cope with a challenging economic environment and that wasn't easy :) Still, we did our best not only to keep our head above the water, but also to grow and move forward in our quest to make reading more sustainable.

And indeed it was a year of progress - we managed to create more partnerships, launch a unique campaign promoting books that are printed in an eco-friendly manner, enhance our educational work, join the Book Industry Environmental Council, contribute to the discussion on how green e-books and e-readers are, provide further analysis of the green trends in the book industry, visit one of our planting partners and of course plant more trees!

I am proud to report that Eco-Libris balanced out so far 145,347 books, which resulted in 158,949 new trees, of which 47,559 are the result of our operations on the third year.

Here are our tree planting figures over our three of operations:

2007/8	65,865
2008/9	45,525
2009/10	47,559
Total:	158,949

*Photo above is courtesy of our planting partner AIR from the 2009 planting season - AIR volunteer and young helper planting Aliso trees to fertilize family crop, in El Tablon, Guatemala.

We would also like to take this opportunity and thank everyone involved in our efforts - from the dedicated eco-conscious readers that balance out their books with us, through our partners - publishers, authors, bookstores, businesses, organizations and others that take action to support sustainable reading and of course our wonderful planting partners, which are doing such a great job in planting the trees in developing countries.

Here's a reminder of some of things we did on this year, month by month:

July 2009
Our planting partner SHI is getting mentioned on Oprah Magazine

The state of green printing: An interview with Livio Ciciotti of Monroe Litho

August 2009
A new children's book, "A Lion's Mane" is going green with Eco-Libris

Global Sky, a leading Philippines-based call center is partnering with Eco-Libris

September 2009
Analysis of a new report that finds Kindle to be greener than physical books

Write Bloody Publishing is partnering with Eco-Libris, starting with a poems collection by Taylor Mali

October 2009
Pick-a-WooWoo Publishers, an Australian publisher, is going green with Eco-Libris

Kabbalah Publishing, publisher of "The Power to Change Everything" by Yehuda Berg is collaborating with Eco-Libris

November 2009
Our Green Books Campaign is taking place with over 100 bloggers who take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly manner by publishing reviews of more than 100 such books

A new book from Flux, "Turning to One Another", is going green with Eco-Libris

December 2009
We publish the annual assessments of our planting partners

Everything you always wanted to know about forestry carbon credits - A special interview with Paulo Lopes of Carbon Clear

January 2010
Presenting a new series: How green is the iPad?

GreetQ is celebrating 650 new trees that are being planted with Eco-Libris following their operations in 2009

February 2010
Eco-Libris starts a new campaign rewarding green readers with green gifts

Karen Finneyrock's new collection of poetry is going green with Eco-Libris

March 2010
Plant a Book: ELI, a leader in educational publishing, is partnering with Eco-Libris in a new program aiming to plant tens of thousands of trees

A new memoir, Coming Clean by Sarah Dean, is going green with Eco-Libris

April 2010
The reissued novel The Birth Machine by Elizabeth Baines is going green with Eco-Libris

Launching new pages on the future of publishing and the future of bookstores

May 2010
Moon Willow Press plant trees with Eco-Libris for their first e-Book: The Little Big Town

Speaking with green marketing experts in an attempt to to find out if book publishers can build an effective green brand

June 2010
Infinity partners with Eco-Libris to launch the first green program for self-publishing authors

How green is my iPad? Analyzing the iPad's environmental report (4-part series)

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading

We have a winner on our giveaway of "The Real Man's Guide to Fixin' Stuff"

We have a winner on our giveaway of the "The Real Man's Guide to Fixin' Stuff"!

Following our review of "The Real Man's Guide to Fixin' Stuff: How to Repair Anything You Need (or Just Want) to Know How to Fix" by Nick Harper. We asked you to share with us what was the last thing that you have fixed.

We got many interesting replies and we have a winner! Our winner is Danielle a.k.a Yellie who wrote:

I fixed my vacuum. My son ran over a guitar string that had broke on his guitar and he had just thrown on the floor and ended up running over with the vacuum. He knew it was bad when he heard the crazy noise it made. Fortunately it sounded worse than it really was and after I unwound it from the brush, it was all good. He's lucky because it was our Dyson that we seriously splurged to have.

Congrats Danielle! You won a copy of "The Real Man's Guide to Fixin' Stuff" and we'll also plant a tree for this book. Thank you also for all the rest of the participants!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading

Three new children's books published by Pick-a- Woo Woo go green with Eco-Libris!

We are happy to announce a new collaboration with our partner, the Australian publishers Pick-a-Woo Woo, on not one, not two, but three new children's books they're publishing now!

We started working with Pick-a-WooWoo last October to green up children's books they publish by planting trees. We began with 625 trees planted for "The Boy Who Was Born To Love Frogs" and now we continue with planting 625 trees planted for "Angel Steps", 625 trees for "Oceans Calling" and 825 trees for "KC the Conscious Camel".

This brings us to a total of 2,475 new trees planted on behalf of Pick-a-Woo Woo!

Based in Western Australia, Pick-a-Woo Woo Publishers are publishers of Mind Body Spirit books for children. Their inspirational books are designed to help children connect with their intuition and inner guidance, develop their awareness skills and enhance their Mind, Body, Spirit connection.

Here are more details on the three new books:





















Angel Steps

About the book:

Love You, Miss You. Through five easy steps Paris learns how to call upon Archangel Gabrielle ...the Angel of messages. Paris wishes to share with her Nana, how much she still loves and misses her. Paris is overjoyed when Nana, in return, gives her some very special messages.

"Angel Steps sensitively illustrates the process used to heal, comfort and send a message of love"

Author: Lidija Pretreger
Illustrator: Carolyn Maree Rose





















Ocean's Calling

About the book: An enlightening journey to the lost city of Atlantis.

Filled with the ancient knowledge of colour and crystal healing, this beautifully illustrated story follows the journey of a young girl who meets blue dolphins and a magical mermaid. Deep beneath the waves, they find a hidden city where they discover a secret which helps them to heal the ocean. Both children and adults will want to immerse themselves in this timeless underwater adventure.

Author: Jacqueline Nicholl
Illustrator: Gabriel Evans

KC the Conscious Camel

About the book:

When K.C.'s dear friend, Sticky the Pig, is ridiculed by the class bully, Ginger the Red Fox, for an unfortunate mud puddle incident, KC shares with Sticky the tools to owning an emotion and then moving beyond it. KC demonstrates the need for acting instead of reacting. Throughout the day, the precocious camel points out opportunities for he and his friends to tune in to their inner peace, joy, and unconditional love. KC shows them how to stay connected to these productive and positive emotions through meditation.

KC and his classmates ultimately demonstrate to their teacher and to each other that they are capable of complex spiritual evolution...and a harmonious day on the playground!

Author: Suzanne McRae
Illustrator: Alexander Mortimer

More information on these books and other titles published by Pick-a-Woo Woo can be found on their website - http://www.pickawoowoo.com

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!