One of the biggest benefits, often taken for granted, of delivering books in an electronic form is that you can potentially save lots of trees. I don’t sound confident on that claim because I’m not sure how many trees go into manufacturing an electronic reader and the power it consumes over its lifetime. In fact, I’m not even sure how one would estimate the quantity of natural resources indirectly consumed by a manufacturing process. Not too long ago, I learned that 140 liters of water goes into your cup of coffee! According to ScientificBlogging.com, Professor John Anthony Allan from King’s College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies has been named the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate for showing a way to measure how much water is embedded in the production and trade of food and consumer products. For our discussion, I’ll just say I have a hunch that digital delivery will save trees.
Coming back to the main story, I read in Publishers Weekly that Random House has decided to give Sony Readers to all its field sales reps.
At its national sales meeting in Bermuda this past weekend, Random House told its field sales reps that they’ll soon be receiving a fancy gift: a Sony Reader. According to RH spokesman Stuart Applebaum, “We have bought several hundred of the devices.”
It seems Random House isn’t the only publisher doing it. Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and St Martin’s Press had already announced similar plans. All of them seem to be as motivated by reducing paper wastage (and associated expense) as they are by improved process efficiency from digitization.
The use case that created an incentive for the publishing houses to invest in eReaders is not too different from the one, millions of school students face every day. I was in Hyderabad, India earlier this month, for my sister’s wedding, when I saw little kids lugging their body weights in their backpacks. It reminded me of my own childhood - we lived in Hyderabad till my 5th grade. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that the packs have gotten a lot heavier over the years.
I was sitting with my uncle, who came from a village in South India for the wedding, watching the kids make their way through the school gates. I remarked that in the future, the kids will just need to carry their notepads and an eReader to school. He was intrigued. I showed him my Sony Reader and told him it can hold 160 books. And that a future version might hold thousands. He was truly blown away. For someone who hasn’t yet seen the ipods and the digital camcorders, this was fast-forward 10 years. Even he could visualize kids in his village reading all their textbooks and comic books on their reader. But then he found out how much the Reader costs and the enthusiasm quickly faded away.
I got to thinking. If a $100 laptop can be possible, a sub-$50 eReader should certainly be possible. An affordable reading device could mean lots of trees still standing.
