Tuesday, November 29, 2011
10 ideas on how to green your book gift this holiday season
Here are 10 ideas how to green your book gift this holiday season:
1. Buy from your local independent bookstore (if you can't walk or bike there, purchase online)
2. Another option: Buy books at Better World Books, a unique social enterprise and a certified B Corporation!
3. If you choose to go to a bookstore, use a reusable shopping bag, or even buy one there and add it to your book. Also, look for bookstores where you can print books instantly using their Espresso Book Machine
4. Buy from publishers who have established environmental policies.
5. If you're an avid reader or you're buying for one, buy an e-reader or ebooks if you or the person you're buying for already has one (one e-reader is usually enough..)
6. Buy children's books from passionate green publishers
7. Buy books on a green topic.
8. Buy an audiobook (if you can download it it's even better!)
9. Buy from authors and publishers that work with Eco-Libris to green their books.
10. Plant trees for your books with Eco-Libris and add our stickers and a beautiful holiday gift card made of recycled paper.
Have fun!
Image Credit: wilbertss, Flickr Creative Commons
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Sunday, November 27, 2011
10 recommendations on green ebooks for Cyber Monday
The links of these ebooks are to Amazon.com, but you can also find them in electronic formats suitable for other e-readers and they're also available in other bookstores. This is also the place to disclose that we're taking part in Amazon's affiliate program, so if you do use these links to purchase one of these ebooks we receive a small percentage of it. We hope you don't mind!
Without further ado, here's this week's list of 10 recommended green e-books for Cyber Monday:
1. But Will the Planet Notice?: How Smart Economics Can Save the World by Gernot Wagner
2. Endless Appetites: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest (Bloomberg) byAlan Bjerga
3. The Future of Value: How Sustainability Creates Value Through Competitive Differentiation by Eric Lowitt
4. Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet by Jay Conrad Levinson and Shel Horowitz
5. Boiling Point by K.L. Dionne
6. Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All by Oran B. Hesterman
7. Plastic: A Toxic Love Story by Susan Freinkel
8. Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose--Doing Business by Respecting the Earth by Robin White and Ray Anderson
9. EcoChi: Designing the Human Experience by Debra Duneier
10. The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove by Cathy Erway
More lists of recommended green ebooks can be found on our recommended green ebooks page.Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Two new children's books, Herbie and the Tune and A is for Asking, go green with Eco-Libris!
100 trees are planted with Eco-Libris for each of these children's books. As you can see in the picture above, our logo is also added to the book's cover.
Here are more details about Herbie and the Tune:
Deep within every moment, there is pure joy. Set in a heavenly airport, this lovely allegory finds Herbie preparing for his flight to earth. What follows is the wonderful discovery that the tune (pure joy), can still be heard in the physical world. With thanks to the gentle guidance of the pilot, Herbie learns how to listen out for the tune.
Age range: Read Together 4-9 yrs/Read Alone 6-9 yrs
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Brad has travelled the world extensively, fuelling his thirst for knowledge beyond these shores and this life as we know it. He lived in London for more than five years where he wrote a number of unpublished children's stories, eventually returning to Sydney for another three years.
Though an accountant by trade, Brad has always been a writer by nature, and his published works are the inevitable result. He credits his major turning point in both his writing career and life to an 800 kilometer walk across Spain in 2007. It was in every way, a life-changing pilgrimage. His primary hope is that his words bring inspiration and evolution to the reader, whether old or young.
He now lives in Melbourne with his beautiful wife Ruth, only moments away from the house of his childhood.
Here are more details about A is for Asking:
Join Angel (Love), Fairy (Light) & Pixie (Laughter) on a small Australian farm as they gather key spiritual words to help the children with their vision board project. With thought provoking rhyme and wonderful heart warming illustrations encouraging young children & adults alike to experience the benefits of creating a positive spiritually enhanced mindset through the spoken & unspoken word. Your thoughts and the words you choose to use every minute of every hour of every day, create your attitude & actions which creates your reality. Enjoy your journey.
Age range: 3-9 yrs
Author: Wendy Neilson
Wendy has been working with words for most of her life, sharing her thoughts as a poet. While training to be a lifecoach, Wendy realised there were many key words associated with gaining a positive enlightened mindset. This realisation has developed into a spiritual alphabet book that she wishes she had access to when she was a child. She is now 53 years of age with 4 children and 2 grandchildren and hopes that her first book will help people, young & old to evaluate their lives and make the changes within themselves to create a life that makes their heart sing, every day in every way.
Copies of the book are available for purchase on Amazon.
Other Pick-a-Woo-Woo titles that go green with Eco-Libris:
Friday, November 25, 2011
10 ways to green your Black Friday
1. Unless you can walk to the store, it's usually greener to buy online.
2. Buy locally. For example, buy at your local favorite independent bookstore.
3. Don't buy from retailers that opened their stores at midnight - they just don't deserve your trust and money.
4. Try to look for products that can help you make your lifestyle greener, like an e-reader.
5. Buy only valuable products. Don't be one of those people who are being persuaded to spend money they don’t have, on things they don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people they don’t care about (Tim Jackson, ‘Prosperity without Growth’)
6. Add to your decision-making process environmental and social elements. Look for items that are made from recycled or organic materials, fair trade certified, energy efficient (check for the ENERGY STAR logo), FSC-certified and so on.
7. Use the GoodGuide to choose greener options.
8. Look for green and cool ideas on Kickstarter, like the classic Windowfarm.
9. Prefer products that it's possible and easy to recycle when you you won't want them anymore, and believe me this day will come.
10. Do it quickly and spend the rest of the days with your loved ones - it's much more important and fun!
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Penguin suspends ebook library lending
Why? "We have always placed a high value on the role that libraries can play in connecting our authors with our readers," the publisher announced in a statement Monday according to AP. "However, due to new concerns about the security of our digital editions, we find it necessary to delay the availability of our new titles in the digital format while we resolve these concerns with our business partners."
You could only wonder if this is really the issue here or it's actually about revenues, or more specifically lost revenues Penguin is worried about. Somehow I got the feeling that a financial arrangement will sort this out, not an extra safeguard on Penguin's digital editions.
More updates on ebook lending can be found on our ebook lending page.
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!
What can you do with your old phone books and lottery tickets? How about building a new house!
How cool is that? Students from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas Tech are conducting the research and you can further learn about their work in this video:
For more information on the Greenstar blox visit http://www.masongreenstar.com/
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Monday, November 21, 2011
Two new books of Write Bloody Publishing are going green with Eco-Libris
These books are published by Write Bloody Publishing, which is collaborating with Eco-Libris to plant trees for the books it publishes. In the past we worked with Write Bloody Publishing to green up the following books:
the LAST TIME as WE ARE by Taylor Mali
Ceremony for the Choking Ghost by Karen Finneyfrock
The Feather Room by Anis Mojgani
38 Bar Blues by C.R. Avery
How to Seduce a White Boy in Ten Easy Steps by Laura Yes Yes.
Here is some more information on the two new books:
Strange Light by Derrick C. Brown
Derrick Brown's fourth and final collection of poetry and short stories is a unrelenting machine of honesty that has been called his finest collection of new work. Strange Light takes us back to the docks, to a violent drama class and boring prom, an undersea conversation with Jacques Cousteau, and into his famous romantic bursts of verse.
The epic poem, Strange Light, anchors this collection as one of the most inventive and potent collections of modern American poetry. About.com called his 2009 collection Scandalabra, one of the best books of the year. Everything hilarious and stirring is illuminated. The power of Strange Light is waiting.
Aim For The Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry edited by Rob "Ratpack Slim" Sturma
Film buffs have George Romero. TV nerds have "The Walking Dead". Fiction fans have World War Z. Now, a cross-section of some of the best contemporary poets from the stage and the page rise up and shamble their way through an anthology of post-apocalyptic zombie poetry edited by Write Bloody author and GeekWeek.com personality Rob "Ratpack Slim" Sturma.
Funny, creepy, shocking, and even poignant, this collection challenges award winning authors like Scott Woods, Laura Yes Yes, and Khary Jackson to shake the dust off of old conventions, pull the triggers on their imaginations, and...Aim For The Head.All these books and other great books of Write Bloody Publishing are available at Write Bloody Publishing's store.
On Write Bloody Publishing: We publish and promote great books of fiction, poetry and art every year. We are a small press with a snappy look dedicated to quality literature. We are not a printer, we are a sweet publishing house. We are distributed by one of the largest book distributors in America, SCB Distributors. We print our books in the USA. We plant a tree in a needy forest for every book we print. (ecolibris.net) We have offices in Long Beach CA. Our design team has been pulled from all over the nation. We are proud of our unique style by utilizing modern painters, photographers and rock album designers for all our book cover art. We publish and promote 4-12 tour savvy authors per year. We are grass roots, DIY, boot strap believers. Our employees are authors and artists so we call ourselves a family.
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Friday, November 18, 2011
Great offer from Strand Bookstore - get a free Greetings from Strand Tote!
About Strand: Located in 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), this New York's independent landmark bookstore is not only one of most famous bookstores in the world, but also a partner of Eco-Libris. Strand are taking part in our bookstore program and customers at the store can plant a tree for every book they buy there and receive our sticker at the counter!
Visit Strand's website for more details.
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
My Cup of Tea, a new children's book in Hebrew by Dror Burstein is going green with Eco-Libris!
We are very delighted to be part of this collaboration as this is the first children's book in Hebrew that is going green with Eco-Libris! This is our second collaboration with Burstein - on August 2010 we worked with him to plant trees and green up his book 'Natanya' - which was the first time we worked with a book in Hebrew, adding it to the growing list of languages of books we work with, which includes among others Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Italian and English.
'My Cup of Tea', the fourth book published by Dror Burstein, was released last week and is already available online (on this link you will find more details (in Hebrew) on the book). Even if you don't read in Hebrew, I'm sure you can appreciate the beautiful cover of the book (see photo above) by Meir Apelfeld, who is the illustrator of the book.
Here's more information about the author:
Dror Burstein was born in 1970 in Netanya, Israel, and lives in Tel Aviv. He first became a fully qualified lawyer, then he left the legal field and started studying literature. He received a PhD in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2001 and now teaches there as well as at Tel Aviv University. He also edits programs for Israel Radio`s music station and writes literary and art reviews. Burstein has been awarded the Jerusalem Prize for Literature (1997), the Ministry of Science and Culture Prize for Poetry (2002), the Bernstein Prize for his novel, Avner Brenner (2005) and the Prime Minister`s Prize (2006).
You can read Dror's blog (Under the Table) at http://drorb.wordpress.com/
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Latest updates on the future of publishing
Just think about the last couple of weeks, where we saw the release of two new tablets (Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet), significant reduction in the price of e-readers (again the Kindle and the Nook), introduction of Amazon new e-library and a new innovative book publisher (i.e. iPad editions of children's classics), Ideal Binary, raising $1.03 million in venture capital. And did we mention the upcoming Publishing App Expo?
And these are just the tip of the iceberg.. We keep tracking the most interesting stories on our 'future of the publishing' webpage. Here are links to couple of interesting articles we read in the last couple of weeks:
Amazon lending library and the future of digital publishing - Virginia Postrel, The Washington Post, November 13, 2011
Amazon.com Inc. is at it again. To the consternation of much of the book industry, the online giant is again offering digital titles for less than major publishers think books are worth. And this time, the price is zero.
The future of books? Publishing by numbers - The Irish Times, November 11, 2011BARELY A week goes by without something – a full-page discursive article in a newspaper, a hefty blogpost on an arch American culture website – declaring the death of publishing. “Books are doomed. Doomed I tell you!” is the general gambit of these pieces, but many don’t share that view. At a time when books are engaged in a paper-versus- electronic tussle between physical copies and e-reader editions, at least people are still reading.
The Future of Publishing - Rocky Lewis, November 11, 2011Let's talk about the future of publishing. This conversation usually looks like a self publish vs. traditional publish debate. I believe that is not the “bunny” we should all be looking at behind the camera.
Our relationship with e-books: It's too complicated - Mathew Ingram, GigaOM, November 1, 2011
One of the best things about media going digital is that it can be easily shared and distributed to others with just a click — except of course that it often doesn't work like that, thanks to copyright or licensing restrictions and competing platforms. E-books are a great example:
Epstein on the future of the publishing industry - Sophie Rochester, The Frankfurt Book Fair Blog, October 12, 2011
Jason Epstein has had an incredible career in books – co-founder of the New York Review of Books, a long-standing and lauded editorial career working with literary stars such as Mailer, Nabakov and Roth, and a pioneer in the 1950s when he created a whole new category of book publishing – the Trade Paperback. Most recently he has brought us the Espresso Book Machine – named by Time magazine as Invention of the Year in 2007 – which now gives retailers, libraries and other institutions the chance to offer readers a much wider choice of reading through a print on demand service.
Enhanced E-books and the Future of Publishing - Peter Osnos, The Atlantic, October 9, 2011Enhanced e-books are thought to be the next major threshold in the digital book universe. We are still in the very early stages of the development and availability of these books, which contain audio and video features. An informal count of enhanced e-books, according to a publishing executive who is following the field closely, numbered about one thousand available on a variety of devices.
Will book publishers be able to maintain primacy as ebook publishers? - Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files, October 4, 2011
Here’s an assumption that is not documentable; it is my own speculation. I think we’re going to see a US market that is 80% digital for narrative text reading in the pretty near future: could be as soon as two years from now but almost certainly within five. We have talked about the cycle that leads to that on this blog before: more digital reading leads to a decline in print purchasing which further thins out the number of bookstores and drives more people to online book purchasing which further fuels digital reading. Repeat. Etcetera.
For more updates visit our Future of Publishing webpage at http://www.ecolibris.net/publishing_future.aspPhoto credit: marklarson, Flickr Creative Commons
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Catalog Choice is launching a new service to combat increasing junk mail
For all the rest (the 99% perhaps?) the good news is that you can take measures to avoid this ridiculous amount of waste with the help of Catalog Choice, an organization that is working to help consumers combat the impending tidal wave of junk mail.
This Berkeley-based non-profit launched last week a new service that you might want to check - MailStop™ Envelopes. The idea behind these envelopes is that users can purchase them for $6.75 each, fill them with up to 15 mailing labels from unwanted mail and send the envelopes back to Catalog Choice. Their staff will then scan the labels, fulfill the opt-out requests and record the transaction in customers’ secure accounts.
Companies have 90 days to honor requests before formal complaints are filed and then submitted to the FTC. Customers can use the envelopes to opt-out of any unwanted mail including catalogs, donation requests, circulars and coupon mailers, as well as phone books. The envelopes are available for purchase at www.catalogchoice.org and can also be gifted to friends and family.
Another option Catalog Choice is offering is free opt-out service - this service has been expanded to include phonebooks, coupons, and other marketing and donor solicitations. Now you can use Catalog Choice to opt-out of postal mail and name sharing from more than 3,000 companies.
So no matter what option you choose, the sooner you act the better for you, your mailbox and the environment!
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Book buzz: e-reader vs. print books (infographic)
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!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
My article on Triple Pundit on Victoria's Secret catalogs that get greener
The article is entitled "Victoria’s Secret to Greener Catalogs". Here's the first part of the article:
If you’re receiving Victoria’s Secret catalogs there’s a good chance the paper they’re printed on will not be the part you’ll be most interested with. Yet, I’m sure even those who are more interested in the latest bra models will be happy to know that these catalogs, which for years were a symbol of unsustainability, are becoming more sustainable. Five years after making headlines for partnering with ForestEthics, Limited Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, reported last week that it has dramatically increased the use of post-consumer waste (PCW) and FSC-certified paper in their Victoria’s Secret catalogues – from 23 percent in 2007 to 88 percent by the end of 2009.
To read the full article go to http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/11/victorias-secret-catalogs-getting-greener/
Links to other articles I wrote for Triple Pundit can be found at http://www.triplepundit.com/author/raz-godelnik/
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Comparing B&N Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire and the iPad 2 - which tablet is greener?
Just like when the Kindle Fire was out, you can already see detailed comparisons between the new Nook Tablet, the Kindle Fire and the iPad 2, which are all competing each other in the tablet space this season. As you can see here for example, some comparisons also add to the game the older Nook Color, which can also be considered as a tablet.
We would like to add our green perspective, checking which one among these 3 or 4 options is the most sustainable one.
First, we need to acknowledge the sad fact that currently only Apple publishes information on the carbon footprint of its device, as well as information on its eco-friendly features, such as having an arsenic-free display glass, being brominated flame retardant-free, PVC-free, and so on.
I might sounds like a broken record, but although we have seen so much progress in the tablet market, this situation hasn't changed unfortunately so far. Unlike Apple, Barnes & Noble and Amazon either don't care about the environmental impacts of their devices or just don't think it worth the effort of sharing this information with their customers. Either way, Apple's leadership makes iPad 2 the greener device among the three (or four) by default. Once Barnes & Noble and Amazon will change their mind we will be able make a meaningful comparison among the three tablets. Until then, Apple's iPad 2 rules!
Still, there are three more points to be made:
1. Apple's iPad is green only to some extent - when you look at the manufacturing part, and you have to look at it if you're taking a life cycle approach, the picture is far from being satisfying as we reported here couple of times and was reminded about lately in an article on Fast Company magazine. The only reason it doesn't disqualify Apple's iPad 2 from being considered the greenest among the three devices is that we don't know for sure that B&N and Amazon are doing better - the fact is that we only have information on Apple, but there's a chance that the same unsustainable practices that are associated with the manufacturing of the iPad devices can be associated with the manufacturing of the Nook and Kindle devices.
2. Both Kindle Fire and Nook Color are sold now in $199, which is way cheaper than the iPad 2. Their affordability is actually a sustainable advantage as one of the criticism against ebooks and e-readers / tablets is that it's only an option for rich people, while most people (the 99% maybe?) can't really afford it. With a price tag of $199, which will probably get even lower on the holidays it looks like the tablet experience is becoming more affordable than ever. And if you're only interested in ebook reading, don't forget you can buy a Kindle now for only $79.
3. One of the features of the new Nook Tablet B&N is focusing on is its battery life:
"Barnes & Noble developed revolutionary battery life with NOOK Tablet, enabling 11.5 hours of reading time or nine hours of video viewing – the equivalent of five full-length movies."
This feature has of course environmental implications (better battery life, less need to recharge it and consume electricity), but just don't forget these estimates are given for battery life with WiFi off, which as Geek.com makes very little sense given these are multimedia devices:
"It’s obvious that these estimates were given by companies whose background is in eReaders. While WiFi off estimates make sense there, they don’t with tablets. These are multimedia devices now, and customers want to know what their battery life will be like when using them that way. Who buys a tablet and then leaves the WiFi off? Okay, some will when reading on the train or watching videos in a car, but that’s not going to be the norm. We’ll look forward to some testing to see how both slates hold up with WiFi on."
So the bottom line is that when it comes to battery life the winner is still the iPad 2.
To read more on how green is Amazon Kindle, visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/kindle.asp
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!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Pick-a-Woo Woo's new book, The Elf that Flew, is going green with Eco-Libris!
We are happy to announce a new collaboration with our partner, the Australian publishers Pick-a-Woo Woo, on a great new green children's book that was just released: The Elf that Flew.
625 trees are planted with Eco-Libris for this book. As you can see in the picture above, our logo is also added to the book's cover.
Love and Joy give you wings to fly. A magical tale about Greenleaf the Elf who lives happily in the rainforest surrounded by his many tree friends. A chance encounter with flying flower fairies propels Greenleaf on an unlikely quest to fly like the fairies. Told with humour and warmth, this tale celebrates the importance of being yourself while promoting love for our natural environment.
Lindy's love of nature led to a career in horticulture. Later in life she decided to pursue her other love, literature. After completing an English degree, Lindy then worked in Mental Health and volunteered as a telephone counselor. During this time Lindy became aware of society's disconnection from the natural world and the rise in mental illness. Lindy's experience and innate wisdom spoke of how spending time in nature was not only beneficial to mental and physical health but vital for the spirit.
In her new career as Storyteller, Lindy seeks to connect people with the healing essence of nature. Through the written and oral traditions, Lindy uses humour and imagination to tell tales of simple spiritual truths, promoting the love of nature and fostering a sense of stewardship. Lindy encourages children and their families outdoors to explore and reconnect with their environment.
Lindy considers herself blessed to live on the Central Coast of NSW surrounded by her family and friends. The spectacular natural scenery of the region is the inspiration and setting for her stories....and she now meets the fairy folk regularly though the bunyip remains elusive.
Other Pick-a-Woo-Woo titles that go green with Eco-Libris: