Check out this article from MinnPost: Green publishing: turning over a new leaf by Amy Goetzman. It’s about how publishers are beginning to use more environmentally friendly (i.e. recycled) paper for their books. Nice! And don’t we all wish we were a big enough name like J.K Rowling and Philip Pullman to demand it. Of course usually the type of paper is a decision that publishers get to make. But I was pleased to see that almost all of Milkweed’s books are printed on 100 percent post-consumer-waste recycled paper. And noted that another MN press, Free Spirit, was also making the effort (and accepting the costs) of planning for a more sustainable future. As a children’s book writer and as a parent, I think it is an effort we all need to make.
And it brings me to another interesting topic: e-books. I remember Brock Cole standing up in front of the Vermont College MFA students, holding up a book, and saying that it could never be replaced. The ease and convenience, the intimacy, the tactile nature of holding a book, the physical act of turning pages would never be replaced by reading an e-book. That was almost ten years ago.
The publishing houses I worked at were more open to the idea. Milkweed Editions published/distributed an e-book on the Arctic Refuge. It was a collection of essays that was developed in seven weeks and sent to congress. One of the e-book advantages was that they could release it quickly. “A traditional trade book takes at least 12 months to produce, even on a fast track schedule,” said Milkweed publisher Emilie Buchwald. “Our only hope of helping the writers in their goal of influencing the current debate, was to use print-on-demand technology.” (“E-book about Alaska an unusual venture for Milkweed Editions: Essays oppose refuge oil drilling; [METRO Edition] Chris Waddington, Star Tribune. Minneapolis, Minn.: Mar 26, 2001. pg. 06.A)
At one point, Redleaf Press was looking at a subscription model for a web-based platform of written materials. I don’t know what happened with that. And now we have Amazon’s kindle. Does anyone have one of those who would like to comment?
Personally, I think the e-book revolution will start in colleges. Textbooks are too expensive, too heavy, and out of date too quickly. It seems the perfect place to use e-book technology. Save the students backs and wallets and make sure that the information stays up to date. It would be especially great if you could write notes and link to other pertinent information via the e-book device.
So what do you think? Will an e-book eventually replace the paperback? Will it help the environment or will people download pdfs and just print them out? How will it affect publishers? And what about the writer and royalties with electronic publishing? (That last topic may have to be its own post.)
hey, nice post! I’m really interested in the environment and it was nice to read what someone thought. I think that the amazon kindle would be great for college students. The problem with e-books is that not all books are able to be bought as e-books and some of them are still really expensive. Many of the textbooks though are quite a bit cheaper. I do wish that the amazon kindle was in color but maybe that will happen with the next edition of it! I do know that you can take notes or at least make bookmarks and annotations using the amazon kindle but I don’t know how easy that would be considering that the keyboard is small. In my personal opinion they should allow you to buy a keyboard that is bigger. I would suggest that the people who work on the amazon kindle make it so you could up load your notes to the computer.
Comment by kaitlyn — July 16, 2008 @ 6:42 pm |