Bloggers - you can still find some great green books to review on our new green lit campaign!

We updated you last month about our new campaign, entitled "It's Time for a Green Book": 1 Day, 100 bloggers, 100 green books, 100 reviews.

As we mentioned the idea is to have 100 bloggers, who review books on regular basis, simultaneously publish on Tuesday, November 10 2009, their book review of a "green book" of their choice. We want to use the power of the internet and social media to promote "green" books and increase the awareness of both publishers and readers to the way books can be printed responsibly and sustainably.

We have great green books that take part in the campaign and we still have some that are available and are waiting for a blogger that will take them home for review such as:

No Such Thing as a Free Ride?: A Collection of Hitchhiking Tales by Simon and Tom Sykes (travel)

The Players by Margaret Sweatman (fiction)

Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time by Casson Trenor (food)

Sacred Commerce: Business as a Path of Awakening by Matthew Engelhart and Terces Engelhart (business)

The War in the Country - How the Fight to Save Rural Life will Shape Our Future by Thomas Pawlick (Environment)

The Horned Viper by Gill Harvey (Children's books)

You can find the full and updated list of available books at http://www.ecolibris.net/greenbookscampaign.pdf - just look at the books the books not colored (yet) in green.

If you're a blogger and you wish to review one of these books that would be great! Just email me at raz@ecolibris.net

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris


Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!

Bloggers and publishers: please join our green lit campaign: 1 Day, 100 bloggers, 100 green books, 100 reviews

As part of our efforts to promote green books, i.e. books that are printed using recycled and FSC certified paper, we're initiating a special project called "It's Time for a Green Book": 1 Day, 100 bloggers, 100 green books, 100 reviews.

If you're a publisher or an author that have books that would be a good fit for this campaign, we would like to invite you to participate in it and get your "green" books reviewed.

If you a blogger and you review books on your blog from time to time, then we would like to join this campaign and review a "green" book on your blog.

The idea is to have 100 bloggers, who review books on regular basis, simultaneously publish on Tuesday, November 10 2009, their book review of a "green book" of their choice. We want to use the power of the internet and social media to promote "green" books and increase the awareness of both publishers and readers to the way books can be printed responsibly and sustainably. We hope the magnitude of this initiative will help grab readers, publishers and others' attention and get them to think about and discuss the future of books and how the "green" factor should be part of it.

How we do it? We're preparing now a list of at least 100 books that are meeting the "green" criteria (recycled or FSC-certified paper), with preference for newer books to the participating bloggers, who will be able to choose then the book they want to review (on first come first served basis). Then, we would ask the publishers to send them a review copy accordingly. Bloggers will publish simultaneously their book review on Tuesday, November 10, exactly at 1:00 PM EST.

What are the benefits for publishers/authors? This is not only a great opportunity to promote new books printed in an environmentally sound manner and make their "greenness" more recognizable, but also an opportunity for publishers to get further recognition and appreciation of readers for their commitment to the environment and to green publishing.

If you want to participate or you have any questions please don't hesitate to email me at raz@ecolibris.net.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!

Which wine would go well with the book you're reading?

Ever since I saw Gary Vaynerchuk presenting at the BEA last May I follow him (not literary, just on the web..) and I just love reading about his insights creative ideas. His latest one: pick the best wine to go with a new book.

GalleyCat reported that Vaynerchuk, author of the upcoming book "Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion", Wine Library TV host and the master of social media has started pairing wines and books at The Daily Beast.

His first selection was pairing a 2005 Montepulciano with "Ground Up" by Michael Idov.

Here's a little taste of Vaynerchuk's choice on Book Beast: "This is a fun read and is very much a real look at the world. In selecting a wine I aimed for something equally real, a traditional wine without lots of makeup. The 2005 Monti Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a real wine with a sense of place. It delivers the charm of a bright Italian red wine and also offers up a subtle coffee-bean flavor that, if only briefly, catapults me right into a neighborhood coffee shop just like Café Kolschitzky."

This is a great idea and Vaynerchuk seems the right person to do it, bringing it in an interesting, educational but also a fun way. I just hope he will soon have the opportunity to pair a new "green" book with a great organic wine!

Yours,
Raz @@ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green reading!

Kudos to Wiley for their first annual corporate citizens report, but where are the figures?

Publisher John Wiley & Sons released last week its first annual Corporate Citizenship Report to share the progress of its global Corporate Citizenship initiative, which was introduced in 2008, and establish goals for the coming year.

As their press release mentions, Wiley launched this global initiative to address its key social, economic, ethical, and environmental challenges; formalize and globalize its policies and strategies; improve its communications; and become more proactive addressing its carbon footprint and supply chain matters.

This is a very impressive initiative and the report itself is also an achievement in itself, as such report is very rare in the publishing industry. So first and foremost I think Wiley deserves big kudos for their efforts to become more sustainable and for this report. Nevertheless, one thing was missing in this report: figures.

Here's one example: paper. The report is very clear about it:

"Wiley uses paper sourced from mills around the globe and recognizes our responsibility to select papers that meet the highest standards of sustainable, clean, and efficient production.

In 2008-2009, Wiley established global guidelines for environmentally favorable paper sourcing and procurement strategies based on generally accepted best practices, with guidance from stakeholders, industry trade associations, and third-party certifiers. Moving forward, Wiley will adopt locally tailored programs that apply these global principles, guide decision making, and facilitate external communication."

What was achieved in 2009? The report explains that Wiley did the following:

- Formalized global Responsible Paper Sourcing guidelines.

- Reduced paper consumption by adopting lighter weight papers and reducing waste, migrating more print subscriptions to online license deals, and taking advantage of digital technologies to deliver content online as well as more efficiently in print.

What are the goals for 2010? The report gives the details :

- Support paper choices by leveraging resources such as PREPS (Publishers Database for Responsible Environmental Paper Sourcing) and EPAT (Environmental Paper Assessment Tools).

- Reduce paper use and shipping through new print technologies such as Print On Demand and Ultra Short Run.

As you can see Wiley takes the issue of paper very seriously, but were are the numbers? when Wiley says it reduced paper consumption in 2009 - is it a 10% reduction, 25% reduction or maybe 2% reduction? I mean, there's no real way to value these steps when they're put in such a vague way.

And it's not just the part about paper. I also couldn't find on the other parts of the report figures describing either a 2009 achievement or a 2010 goal, except with ethical conduct goals (such as monitoring vendor performance by making annual visits to at least 75% of our major vendors).

Wiley mentions in the report that "This is a long-term initiative, with the full support of our leadership team. It may take years to reach some of our ultimate goals, but we intend to achieve measurable improvement from year to year. For information on our initiative and our progress, please visit www.wiley.com/go/citizenship." I was hoping that maybe the missing figures can be found there, but unfortunately I found none.

Just for comparison let's look at another company from the publishing industry, although this time it's mainly magazines - Time Inc. If you look at their 2007-2008 sustainability report you'll see it's full with figures that let you a good understanding of their efforts and can also assist you to benchmark them against other companies' sustainability efforts. Here's just one example:

After considering what would be both ambitious and practical, Time became the first U.S. publisher to set targets for producing less greenhouse gas throughout its supply chains. Time asked the paper companies to reduce carbon emissions 20% from a 2004 base by the year 2012. Some suppliers pointed out that they had already achieved some reductions before 2004 and felt they deserved credit for their leadership role. To accommodate these suppliers, Time set some alternative but equally challenging goals. Keeping the same target year of 2012, the paper companies have the options of cutting carbon output by 25% from a 2000 base or 30% from a 1996 base.

As I said earlier I still believe Wiley deserves kudos for their efforts and I hope the second report will include all the figures that are so missing here. Nevertheless, I think that this report could do a much better job with figures to help us seeing Wiley's deep commitment to sustainability.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green reading!

Raincoast Books and Eco-Libris are collaborating in a green campaign: Buy a book, Plant a a tree

We are very excited to update you on our joint campaign with Raincoast Books, a leading Canadian book company, which is taking place this month for the second year in a row: 'Buy a Book, Plant a Tree'.

Here are the details:

Raincoast Books is best known in green circles as the Canadian publisher of the green editions of the latest Harry Potter books. Currently its provides full-service Canadian representation to a wide range of publishers from the US, the UK and Canada, had a wholesale division (BookExpress) that is dedicated to supplying bestselling frontlist and backlist titles to bookstores and retailers across Canada and owns Publishers Group Canada, which distributes titles from over 100 independently owned book publishing houses from all over the world.

Following our successful partnership last year, Raincoast Books signed up this year Canadian retailers who will be selling a wide range of environmentally themed books starting this month. These books come with Eco-Libris stickers stating that one tree will be planted for each one of them. Participating bookstores include independent bookstores located in British Colombia, Nova Scotia and Ontario (a full list can be found at http://raincoast.com/green).

This year we have 257 new trees that will be planted following this joint campaign! And all together our partnership with Raincoast Books has resulted so far in 4,776 new trees that are planted on behalf of Canadian readers with our planting partners in Central America and Africa.

This project is part of an ongoing effort by Raincoast to work towards being a greener company. Here's some more information about these efforts from the company's website: Raincoast has joined Markets Initiative (CDN) and Green Press Initiative (USA), organizations working with publishers, printers and paper mills to reduce the environmental impact of the publishing industry.

Until the closure of the publishing program in January 2008, Raincoast published fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. Over 95% of Raincoast’s text-based books are printed on ancient forest friendly paper. In June 2003, Raincoast printed the Canadian edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on 100% ancient-forest-free, chlorine-free, 100% post-consumer recyled paper. To date, Raincoast has saved over 75,185 old-growth trees.

Raincoast was awarded the 2003 Ethics in Action Award and the 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Award.

We are very excited to be continue our joint work with Raincoast Books and look forward to many more years of promoting together green-themed books and the need to make a positive impact on the earth.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Starting Tomorrow: Pilcrow Lit Fest in Chicago

If you're in Chicago the next few days and looking for a real literary feast, head over to Pilcrow Lit Fest. Yep, seems like once again Chicago is the place to be, less than a week since the Chicago Green Festival.

When? Thursday, May 22 to Sunday, May 25
Where? Several locations around the city. Check the calendar.

So what's a Pilcrow? Well, unless you are a real typographical hardcore fanatic, I think this wikipedia article does a good job explaining. About the festival, I'll let Amy Guth, author of Three Fallen Women, and the festival's organizer take the stand:


Q: Can you explain what is the Pilcrow Lit Fest all about?

A: Pilcrow Lit Fest is a four-day literary festival with particular focus on small press and independent media, taking place in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, May 22-25th. Throughout the festival, we have scheduled parties, networking events, panel discussions on a variety of topics, readings and performances. I've never heard of a lit festival having any sort of green focus, and that is a high-priority of mine, so I have made an effort to keep it as responsible as possible, even going so far as to include a local environmental activist in the planning phases to make sure I'd thought of every way possible to green the festival up.

Q: What's the story behind the creation of this festival?

A: When I was touring around the US and Canada to promote my first novel, Three Fallen Women, I had the opportunity to speak at the Decatur Book Festival in Atlanta, the (Downtown) Omaha Lit Fest and the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival and there was a certain something about the way the festivals were executed that I knew would translate well in Chicago. There is such a wonderful and large literary community in Chicago, yet few events to really bring all of us together, so I decided to create the festival and focus it primarily in the direction of small presses, independent media and DIY sort of efforts.

Q: What's the thing you like most about the festival?

A: I would have to say that the thing I like most about the festival is the community-building aspect of it all, as writing is a rather solitary profession, and because most communication is done over email, it's wonderful to meet people face to face, share ideas and discuss common issues, concerns and goals. I'm probably most pleased by the fact that as we've planned and arranged aspects and events of the festival, we've worked with an eye towards keeping the festival as eco-friendly as possible, and made a point to operate with repurposed items, borrowed items, and have used as few resources as possible in the festival's execution.

Q: Is it only for authors or also for aspiring authors who haven't published yet?

A: Pilcrow Lit Fest is for absolutely anyone. Our participating authors, writers and publishers are all in varying stages of their own careers, and all from very diverse backgrounds. I made a point to keep as may events free and low-cost as possible, so events wouldn't be cost-prohibitive to anyone. I also intentionally didn't have any "headliner" guests, so that every participant and attendee feels equally welcome at Pilcrow.

Q: Besides authors, is it also for your average Chicago book lover?

A: Absolutely. The panel discussion are, as I mentioned, free and open to the public. I tried to create a mix of panel topics that are useful not only to published authors and seasoned publishers but also to not-yet published authors, and enthusiastic readers.

Q: Can you name please some of the authors who will participate, or some of the main attractions?

A: I've put much focus on not having a headliner, so that no authors feel more or less valuable to the festival than another. All the participating authors, publishers and designers are listed on the Pilcrow Lit Fest website so everyone to read about, including available links to their websites or online projects.

During the course of the weekend, however, we have a lot of exciting events. Thursday night, Jami Attenberg and Katie Schwartz read at the Fixx Readings Series, which I host each month. Friday night, right before our official opening night reception, we have a special edition of The Dollar Store Show--- a performance event where pre-selected authors are given an item purchased at a dollar store in advance and must write a comedic piece about the object and read it before the crowd. Saturday, after a day of panel discussions, we are hosting a benefit party to raise much-needed funds for New Orleans Public Library branches damaged and destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. For that event, I've asked authors to disassemble a copy of their own book then reassemble it into a piece of art for auction. I'm very excited for that event. I've rebuilt my own first novel, Three Fallen Women for the occasion, and the artwork being created is really sounding incredible. Other authors have donated other items for auction, too. Nick Hornby donated a handwritten list yanked from his notebook, that he wrote as he brainstormed songs to use for his book Songbook. I'm very excited about that. I'm also very excited to be linked up with Eco-Libris for the event. As I've been explaining the system to authors and publishers, they're all terribly excited to know more, so I'm really thrilled to be able to introduce them all to the work done by Eco-Libris. A note from Eco-Libris:

Amy indeed introducing Eco-Libris to all festival goers, and encouraging participating authors to balance out the paper in their books. In addition to that, Eco-Libris stickers will be available in the New Orleans Public Library fundraiser event during the festival, and we will donate an extra tree for every sticker auctioned.

Eylon @ Eco-Libris
Plant a Tree for Every Book you Read!

Hey, Mr. Green

Today's green book review is by Anna Hackman of Green-Talk , a blog she started while in the process of building her house using the greenest materials possible. It is about greening your home and garden, and topics include green building and living products, recycling tips, and a mix bag of green content based upon Anna's personal experiences. This post was originally posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2008.

Hey, Mr. Green is a cumulative assortment of green every day questions and answers posed to Bob Schildgen (aka “Mr Green”) for his column in the Sierra Magazine. The column was started in 2005 to provide useful answers to question posed by their confused or curious readers who wished to protect the environment in their daily lives.

When I received the book, I thought the questions would be based upon in depth, tree-hugging, environmental concerns given my perception of what Sierra Club is all about. I was pleasantly surprised since the topics were practical and right-on with everyone’s concerns. It was divided into five sections: “At Home” ( domestic details,) “Food for Thought” (eating and drinking better while spending less,) “Out and About” (fueling up and the great outdoors,) “The three Rs ( you know what this means, ) and “The Big Picture” (environmental politics, religion, and other interesting meal time topics.)

I am not normally a fast reader, but I read this book quite quickly. Due to the amount of questions and light hearted short answers by Schildgen, I was never bored. His writing style is easy going with the right mix of humor and authority.

What were some of my favorite parts of the book? It is funny, but the questions posed on the front of the book cover were some of my favorites: “Should I buy my beer in bottles or cans?” and “What’s the greenest oil company?” I guess the editor or Schildgen liked these questions too! Other parts that I enjoyed included the discussion about nuclear power plants and when to replace your appliances. He even included his salsa recipe that I am eager to try.

When I received the book, my intentions were to give this book away to one of Green Talk’s lucky readers. Since reading the book, I have changed my mind and decided to selfishly keep it for myself. Schildgen’s book is a great resource that I will refer to again and again. It contains a terrific topic index as well as the author’s resource notes for his answers.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who struggles with living a greener lifestyle. Schildgen’s common sense approach to every day environmental dilemmas can make that transition so much easier. The book can be pre-ordered at a special price of $11.25 here. Books will be shipped in mid-May.

Photo by permission of the Sierra Club

Related Book Reviews:

Green Chic: Saving in Earth in Style

Big Green Purse

Wake up and Smell the Planet

Cody's Books

To anyone who's from the San Francisco Bay Area, there's no need to introduce Cody's Books. This famous Berkeley independent bookstore has been around since 1956, when it was founded by Pat and Fred Cody as a small storefront, and even played a part in (The People's Republic of) Berkley's interesting political history in the 60's and 70's. In fact, Pat Cody wrote a book about it in Cody's Books: the Life and Times of a Berkeley Bookstore, which I heard is quite worth hunting down.

So today's announcement is that Eco-Libris finally plays a small part in the current chapter of Cody's history book. As of last week, our “One tree planted for this book” eco-friendly stickers are on sale for $1 at the book counter, and the Berkeley literati can now plant a tree for every book they buy at Cody's.

In a recent SF Gate article, journalist John King outlined Cody's somewhat iconic saga, which illustrates the exciting yet treacherous road of independent book retail these days. Pat and Fred Cody's little storefront endeavor grew over the decades to include two Berkeley stores, the flagship being a big storefront on Telegraph Avenue, and an additional third shop opened in downtown San Francisco in 2005.

However, the times being what they are, the Cody's of today is back to basics. After a recent move, the former chain is back to being a single store in Berkeley on Shattuck and Allston. That's good news to all book lovers in the area, because it hopefully means that this great resource is going to be available for yet another generation.

So definitely check out Cody's at their new location, when you are around. Meet an author, buy a book, and of course, plant a tree. For a complete list of upcoming event please check out their events calendar

Yours,

Eylon @ Eco-Libris

Plant a Tree for Every Book You Read!

24/7 Trivia is offering its players a special Eco-Libris promotion

This week is full of new collaborations for Eco-Libris. This time we're talking trivia.

Trivia is one of my favorite games and therefore I'm very happy that Eco-Libris is part of a green promotion run by a leading trivia website - 24/7 Trivia. The connection between trivia and books makes a lot of sense as a good trivia player is usually also an avid reader. Therefore balancing out books of trivia platers is only natural.

This special promotion is taking place today (Nov 17th) between 9pm and midnight EST, and you can find all the details about it on their promotions page.

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

No more catalogs for you!

Eric Wilson of the New York Times made me very happy. Wilson wrote today ('Deforest Your Mailbox') on a new online service called Catalog Choice that helps people to reduce the number of repeat and unsolicited catalog mailings they receive to their mailbox. And no less important - this service is free of charge!

Any news about an attempt to reduce the amount of catalogs sent to people's mailboxes is great news. Every year 19,000,000,000 (yes, 19 billion!) catalogs are mailed in the US. According to Catalog Choice's website, over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of these catalogs. Take into consideration the fact that most of the catalogs go directly to the trash bin (or recycling bin in the best case scenario), and you've got pure waste of natural resources.

Catalog Choice is according to the site "a sponsored project of the Ecology Center. It is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and funded by the Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, and the Kendeda Fund." Its mission, besides reduction of the number of the mailed catalogs, is to "promote the adoption of sustainable industry best practices. We aim to accomplish this by freely providing the Catalog Choice services to both consumers and businesses."

I tried it and it's a very easy and user-friendly process. You register yourself and then can indicate which catalogs you no longer wish to receive. Afterwards, they update the businesses with the list of consumers no longer wanting to receive their catalogs.

I like Catalog Choice as it creates a win-win-win situation: Customers benefit from reducing their junk mail at no charge, the companies benefit since they save money by not sending catalogs for customers that don't wish to receive them, and of course the environment benefit due to all the trees that won't cut down.

You are welcome to check it out. According to their website, 29,726 people already registered to the site, having opted out of over 103,490 catalogs. And they're online only since last Wednesday!

And last word - if you want to stop receiving any kind of junk mail, check out other services available like one of my favorite sites, GreenDimes.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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