What’s the Big Deal?

The last time you walked into a bookstore it probably didn’t feel much like a forest—but for all the trees used in those pages, it could be. According to bizstats.com, there are more than 6,000 companies in the US that publish books, and when you include “self-publishers,” there are literally tens of thousands. The global impact of this is rather mind-boggling. For instance, if a publisher sells a million copies of an average 250-page book, it takes 12,000 trees to produce books for this one title. Alternatively, if the publisher chooses to print the books on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper, no trees are cut. Reflect on the zillions of books you saw in the bookstore.

Publishers can lead the way to help reduce the impact on endangered forests, fight the climate crisis, conserve resources, and protect public health. Each time publishers of all sizes choose to use environmentally friendly methods and technologies, they decrease the impact of the publishing business on the planet and help transform the industry as a whole. In the long run, better publishing practices might even mean we need fewer books about deforestation, chemical toxicity, and climate change, and wouldn’t that be nice?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

Submitted by The Green Guide Girls™, Cindy Katz & Jennifer S. Wilkov

What’s the Big Deal?

A book is published somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, writes Gabriel Zaid in “How Many Books.” Fifty years after the introduction of television, says Zaid, the number of titles published worldwide each year has increased fourfold from 250,000 to 1 million—from 100 books for every million humans to 167. That translates into a lot of natural resources that are required to make these books, and this process clearly has a huge impact on the environment and our planet.

As we wrote in our book, The Green Guide Girls: Guide to Book Publishing, we know that everything begins in that moment of decision, that one breath when you say to your publisher, book manufacturer, printer, and book consultant, “would you like to publish my book?” We also know that in the same breath there is one question that has the power to transform the industry as we know it: “how do we make THAT book ‘green’?”™

The information in this Green Guide was provided by The Green Guide Girls™ from their book, The Green Guide Girls: Guide to Book Publishing.

What’s the Big Deal?

What's the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

Almost four decades ago, a US paper company wanted a symbol to communicate its products’ recycled content to customers. The design competition they held was won by Gary Anderson, a young graphic designer from the University of Southern California. His entry, based on the Mobius strip (a shape with only one side and no end) is now universally recognized as the symbol for recycling. To many people, recycling conjures up the blue plastic bins and bottle drives. But recycling is a design principal, a law of nature, a source of creativity, and a source of prosperity. For anyone looking to make recycling a more integral part of their lives, this guide is an overview of the basic legwork as well as some of the finer and more advanced concepts that have emerged in recent years.

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the Big Deal?