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How to Green Your Book (for Authors) What’s the Big Deal? 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 guide was provided by The Green Guide Girls™ from their book, The Green Guide Girls: Guide to Book Publishing. 1. Ask and do tell Let your publisher, book manufacturer, printer and book consultant know that you want to make your book “green.” Ask them our famous Green Guide Girls’™ question, “How do we make THAT book ‘green’?”™ and then find out how familiar they are with environmentally sound publishing practices and who they work with that can provide these services for your book. 2. What’s a green book anyway? Find out and ask more questions! Green book publishing is defined in many different ways. Essentially it means that ecologically sound practices can be used in the production of your book—from cover to cover and end to end. That means your book cover, paper, and ink could be provided using green resources. In The Green Guide Girls: Guide to Book Publishing, you can find eight different definitions from some of the top leaders in the green book publishing industry. Ask your publishing team to go green and define for them what this means for you. The spectrum of the process is easy for any author to understand and inquire about. Green alternatives are available for any piece of the puzzle. All you have to do is determine how green you want your book to be. If you are not sure, ask more questions about each step. 3.Find a publisher who is already using environmentally friendly practices “Now, it is easier than ever,” says Tyson Miller of The Green Press Initiative.“With over sixty environmentally responsible book papers available and stocked by over twenty book printers, the book industry is in the midst of a transformation—with over 140 publishers with environmental policies in place.” So if you think it’s going to be tough to publish a green book, think again. It’s easy to find a publisher who can provide ecologically sound processes to manufacture and print your book. Tyson also says, “asking questions of the publisher and/or doing research to find out which publishers are already using environmentally friendly practices is one of the best starting places. It perpetuates the message and helps support the existing green momentum.” 4. Authors don’t necessarily need to be experts As Tony Crouch from University of California Press says, “The authors don’t need to necessarily be experts. The authors need to speak to the experts. We need to help them understand it is easy to make anything ‘green’ anywhere in the spectrum, from a little bit green to all-out green.” 5. Get under the covers Pick up any hardcover book you have in your home, office, school, or library and look at it. It is sturdy because it has binder board underneath the front cover, the spine or side of the book, and the back cover. A piece of cloth or paper that includes your cover design is wrapped around these boards and glued together. Some hardcover books have a second piece of paper wrapped around it where the flaps fold inside the book. This is called a dust jacket cover. This thicker piece of paper has been painted and treated with your cover design and then wrapped around the hardcover of the book. But it is not glued to the binder board. So it is the piece of paper that wraps around the book that can fall off easily. Often times, many people use the front or back flap of the dust jacket cover as a “bookmark” to keep their place when they close a book. All of these pieces of your book can be green. In fact, making your book green may be simpler than you thought. Today, companies like Thomson-Shore, Inc., a book manufacturer and printer, use only 100% post-consumer recycled waste binder board for all their hardcover book projects. Other companies like Rainbow® provide endpapers, those pretty papers just inside your hardcover book, using a 100% solvent-free processes. It may come as a pleasant surprise that there is a good possibility that your book would already be pre-disposed to green processes. This is often a well-kept secret in the book publishing world. So just ask your publisher, printer, book manufacturer or consultant if the cover materials and endpapers you are using are eco-friendly. 6. Does it cost more to make my book green? The bottom line numbers have been summed up best by Tom Kemper, CEO & Founder of Dolphin Blue, the first member of the Green Guide Girls’™ Collective Wisdom Team™. “If you and I were to sit down and seriously analyze that issue, I think we may come to the conclusion that recycled paper does not cost more. If we look at the environmental costs, costs to human health, costs to habitat of fellow species, and societal costs, I think we could honestly say recycled paper does not cost more. That being said, yes, the receipt from purchases made at the register reflect recycled paper costing more, but we know that is not the final price we pay. Unfortunately, we human beings don’t look at the whole picture when we make our purchase decisions.” 7. The biggest decision you’ll make about your book: The paper Paper is a major component of every book and tends to be the focus of most green discussions in the book publishing industry. In fact, when you raise environmental issues with your publisher, book manufacturer, printer, or book consultant, the first topic they will probably talk about is the paper. There are lots of terms that describe the different types of paper available. Post-consumer recycled, percent recycled, acid-free, chlorine free, and FSC certified are some of the words that will be mentioned when someone tells you about their green papers. Please refer to the glossary in The Green Guide Girls: Guide to Book Publishing for thoughtful explanations of the different types of papers. As an author, when you specify post-consumer paper, besides reducing the amount of trees logged for paper production, you help grow the market for recycled products and actually ensure the viability of recycling programs. Did you know that your choice in paper had such a rippling effect? 8.Ink hits the spot! Consider asking for soy-based or vegetable based inks instead of petroleum-based inks for your book. Here’s why: “If you have ever been in a printing plant, you know ink is everywhere. You have waste ink and you have to think about how printers dispose of it. Much or all of it has to be carted away to a hazardous waste landfill. You can’t just dump it down a drain. Print operators get ink on their hands, and if the inks are toxic in some way, they are ingesting that toxicity. As I’ve said before, ‘green’ publishing involves looking at everybody and everything that touches your product,” says Deborah Bruner, Director, Book Publishing Papers from New Leaf Paper. Deborah is on our Collective Wisdom Team™ and has an extensive background in inks. 9. Prove it! There are many green certifications you may come across as you journey through the green book publishing world. Certifications exist to assure that what companies claim about their environmental responsibility is indeed verified. Some common certifications include Processed Chlorine Free (PCF), Totally Chlorine Free (TCF), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Ancient Forest Friendly™ (AFF), Green-e® for renewable energy products in the U.S., BioGas to evaluate energy sources used by the manufacturer, and Eco-Logo™ in Canada which uses a life-cycle review to evaluate the environmental impacts of the product or service. To keep apprised of the most current certification information, please refer to the organizations and their respective websites. 10. Take notes and record the ride We encourage you to record what happens during your green book publishing experience. Jot down your information, comments and contact information for all your publishing and printing steps in one place. You can use the pages set aside in the back of our book or use your own special journal of recycled paper. You’ll always want to celebrate and remember what it was like to make your book green. Inform the ones you care about why it is important to you to make these green choices. Then you can tell other authors how you green-ed your book! |
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