For Earth Day Contest, Lulu and Eco-Libris are planting a tree for every entry!

We want to update you on an exciting collaboration we have for Earth Day with Lulu, one of the leaders in self-publishing:

In honor of Earth Day, enter the Lulu Earth Day Contest on Facebook. This is a print sales contest for Lulu authors - submit your book to compete for most sales between April 18-April 25. Also, Lulu will plant a tree per contest entry up to 6,000 through Eco-Libris. Contest prizes include a Nook®, a Marketing Consultation ($475) and a Clarion Book Review ($350). Enter now!

Please check it out and if you're a Lulu author, enter the contest at http://www.facebook.com/Luludotcom/app_322805704439844

More about Lulu: Lulu.com is a one-stop shop where, with a few clicks of a button, authors, publishers, and businesses alike can publish their ideas in a book for free and sell it to customers all over the world through a growing network of retail markets – as a print book or eBook.

Creators keep full creative and copyright control, set their own price, and keep up to 90 percent of the profits whenever their work sells. Since 2002, Lulu has helped over 1.1 million creators in over 200 countries and territories publish their remarkable works, making Lulu.com the number one source for indie content on premier channels including Amazon.com, the iBookstore℠, and Barnes and Noble.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

A green comment on the rise of self-publishing

The NYT had an excellent article yesterday about self publishing ("Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab", Motoko Rich), showing that while traditional publishers are struggling with the slowing economy, self-publishing companies are doing very well.

According to the article nearly 480,000 books were published or distributed in the U.S. Alone, up from close to 375,000 in 2007 (figures are from the industry tracker Bowker).

So POD self-publishing companies such as Blurb, Author Solutions, LuLu and others are flourishing, which is great news, but is it also good news for the environment?

Well, the basic answer is that POD is an eco-friendly printing system in comparison with the regular printing system that produce a lot of waste - in 2006 more than 1 billion books, or 25% of the books produced, weren't sold and some of it ends eventually in landfills, not to mention all the wasted resources (as well as costs). When you print on demand, there's no such thing and you always sell what you print.

Self-publishing is a a small niche - according to the article, Author Solutions sold a total of 2.5 million copies last year, which is a fraction of the total number of books sold (around 3 billion books). Still, it's a growing niche (Author Solutions represented according to the article 19,000 titles in 2008, nearly six times more than the number of titles Random House released last year) and a one that will get more and more attention, and therefore we hope to see more and more self-publishers who go green and adopt eco-friendly practices, including greater use of recycled paper.

It's true POD is not for everyone and it also has its disadvantages, but all in all I'm happy to see it growing and I think it benefits the whole industry by making publishing a more open and creative industry. I also hope to POD will contribute to make publishing more eco-friendly.

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