Writing, Self-Publishing, Book Marketing

A Publishing Company Planting Trees? It Ain’t Easy Being Green

May 30, 2008 at 9:16 am jdimos Leave a comment

Justin here, and today I’m announcing that our partnership with Trees for the Future has resulted in more than 500 trees planted in Moja Garena, Ethiopia, an area devastated by deforestation.

As you might recall, we pledged to plant a tree for every Wordclay book published in April, and two trees for books published on Earth Day, April 22. Fortunately, we published quite a few authors last month, and we were to make good on our word.

In honor of this achievement, Wordclay and our authors (notified via e-mail) received a snazzy certificate, but the real satisfaction comes from the locations and the people these trees help. The certificate is posted here, but you can view a copy on the Wordclay Bookstore Spotlight.

Just watch Trees for the Future documentary video with founder, Dave Deppner, if you’re curious about the settings your publication indirectly helped by our donation.

Truth be told, it’s difficult to conceive of an environmentally friendly publishing company without imagining a futuristic coffeehouse, where are the students are reading from their handheld digital books, paper now obsolete. You can definitely see movement toward these paperless technologies with print-on-demand virtual inventories and Amazon’s new wireless reading device Kindle, but we can hardly deny the substantial paper consumption by publishing and printing companies alike.

Wordclay understands its paper consumption and carbon emission shortcomings, but we also want to ensure the future of our planet’s health as well as the future of book publishing. Planting trees just makes sense – we need air; we need a stable water table; we need food and shelter; and we need paper (at least for now).

But Wordclay also tries to use technology that doesn’t needlessly harm the environment. For example, utilizing an online publishing wizard as well as the latest in print-on-demand technology, we’re able to sustain a virtual inventory, instead of ordering large print-runs, wasting paper on books that may never see the light of day, wasting storage space on areas that could have been reserved for more trees.

Unlike traditional publishers who order countless books that could remain in warehouses indefinitely, printing books only as books are ordered allows Wordclay to conserve natural resources as well as significantly diminish our carbon emissions.

As Trees for the Future’s Business Partnership Coordinator Gabriel Buttram says, “I feel strongly about maintaining natural resources in their natural places wherever possible. This, of course, involves being more conscious about the effects of our consumption of resources and less wasteful with the production of goods. Therefore, in my own opinion, if print on demand results in fewer wasted resources, then it is a better option than traditional modes of printing.”

This is Justin Dimos, blogcasting from Wordclay, signing off.

Entry filed under: Announcements, Behind the Scenes, In the News, Publishing. Tags: Amazon, Dave Deppner, Gabriel Buttram, Kindle, planting, print-on-demand, trees, Trees for the Future, Wordcaly.