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!

Great offer of Barnes and Noble on Groupon ($10 for $20), but why not limit it just to stores?

Groupon just sent an offer you can't refuse: $10 for $20 Worth of Toys and Games, Books and More at Barnes & Noble.

Sounds great, no? 50% savings is always a good offer and it's not limited to a specific area like most of Groupon's deals, but "is valid for purchases made online, at any of more than 700 Barnes & Noble retail locations, or on Barnes & Noble's e-reader, the Nook."

B&N are following here Amazon that offered last month on LivingSocial.com a similar nation-wide deal on a $20 Amazon gift card - 50% off for $10. That offer was a huge success and Amazon sold 1,301,296 gift cards in a single day.

But here's a little question for Barnes and Noble: 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??

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Where readers buy their ebooks? Amazon is still number one but getting weaker!

We're on week 9 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 9. 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 (Amazon)
2nd place: Kobo (same)

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

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

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

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

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

So what do have here? Amazon is still number one, but this is their worst performance so far with only 12 points and just 3 points atop of 'others'. On the other hand, the 'Others' segment is continuing to show strength, as it's the second week they reach 9 points. B&N? Almost gone. Google eBookstore? Still nowhere to be seen.

Conclusions? We're still one more week to go, so we'll wait with the conclusions until then. Still, we can definitely say that we see growing presence of smaller players that might even shake a little the dominance of Amazon. Anyway, it's certainly getting more interesting! See you next Thursday.

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!

Barnes & Noble Bankruptcy Index: Is B&N also going out of business?

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.

Last week 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. 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:

1/26: $16.50
2/1: $16.92
Change: +2.5%

As you can see, B&N's stock did pretty well the past week. Actually, when you compare it to the performance of Amazon in the past week (-1.87%) or the Dow Jones Index (+o.46%), it looks even more impressive. We wouldn't though get too excited as today the price went down to $16.41 and it looks like the jump in the price to $16.92 was mainly influenced by the report of Bloomberg that Borders will file for bankruptcy as soon as next week.This week's grade for this parameter is: 8.5 (8)

2. What analysts say on B&N
According to Benzinga.com, Stifel Nicolaus reviewed Borders and Barnes & Noble in a research report, stating that a Barnes & Noble buy [of Borders] may be a good tactical choice in the short term, but that it does not upgrade Barnes & Noble on account of "bankruptcy fishing" not being a sound investment thesis. Stifel Nicolaus stated that the sector pressures on Borders may give "breathing room" to Barnes & Noble strategic and operational decisions. Well, it's not very encouraging, but still more optimistic than what we heard from analysts last week. This week's grade for this parameter is: 7 (6)

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.

Nothing changed from last week - when it comes to the brick and mortar stores B&N still haven't come out with anything that looks like a winning strategy. Therefore this week's grade stays the same: 4.5 (4.5)

4. What B&N is saying about itself
This parameter will examine quotes and statements from B&N on its financial state, strategy and other related issues. There are no news this week and therefore this week's grade stays the same: 6 (6)

5. Steps B&N is taking
No steps were taken this week. In B&N's case no news is not good news as we believe steps should be taken and soon. This week's grade is: 6 (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.

GalleyCat reported earlier today that:

On the heels of news that Borders delayed payments to a number of vendors, landlords and other groups last month, two major outlets predicted that the bookseller will file for bankruptcy this month..

As we mentioned last week, 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' struggling actually show that bankruptcy, which once was unthinkable when you talked about the big book chains, is now a possibility and even more than that also for B&N. Therefore our weekly grade for this parameter is: 6.5 (6)

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 no change from last week and it still looks like B&N still has the financial strength to survive. This parameter's grade is: 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, especially now after they had successful holidays sales,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 is still not too good given how B&N is handling the situation so far. Therefore this week's grade is: 7 (7)

This week's Barnes & Noble Bankruptcy Index: 66.5 points (63.5)

As you can see, this week's index is set at 66.5 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 at least we see a small (3 points) change in the right direction from last week. We'll have to see in the next couple of weeks if this is a trend or just a one-week rise. 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!