used books are greener books
Posted by telecommatt on August 22, 2007
i bought some books on amazon the other day and it got me thinking about why more people don’t buy a book used if it’s available. two of the books i purchased were over fifty dollars new, but i spent $2.50 apiece! aside from the money, think of how much carbon emission we could prevent by buying used books first instead of creating the need for another book to be manufactured and shipped. i wonder how much of an environmental impact it would have if amazon offered high quality used books as the first buying option and new books as the alternative.
BriteDay said
And eBooks are even greener! Or, probably the best option (which is a growing marked), Print-On-Demand. That is, read it digital, or request it printed hardcopy based on actual demand and not on hoped for sales.
telecommatt said
Briteday,
I agree completely! It’s a definte change in market paradigm, that is, to print on demand means the only copies you sell will be those people ask for. This is quite different from the current mindset of gathering an educated guess about how many books might be demanded and then over-printing and relying on marketing efforts to move those.