Publishers Do Their Part to Save the Planet

The publishing industry is doing its part to go green with two major publishers now equipping its staff with Sony Readers.

New York magazine reported that The Hachette Book Group has distributed the electronic gadgets to its editors and sent out the word to agents that it wanted digital files and not paper submissions. Publisher Jonathan Karp is quoted as saying that not only are they working, but that "people are evangelical about it."

Last week, Random House followed suit, according to a piece in PW Daily which reports that the publisher bought the devices for its sales staff to read each season's titles.

For the high tech crowd, this may seem a no-brainer, but for an industry whose lifeblood is printed words on physical page, I believe it's a quantum leap ahead. I've spent nearly twenty years in offices full of shelves that groan under the weight of paper manuscripts held in the center with a rubber band. Hardly practical, it was somehow part of the mystery and romance of being in the book business to read pages BEFORE they made their way into a book.

But it is clear time for romance to cede to practicality and to the needs of the planet.

My Reader is due to arrive next week and while I wish I could claim it was all due to the noble mission of environmentalism -- I do admit that the major factor in my decision is just the sheer pain of dragging manuscripts through security and onto airplanes during my twice-monthly commute to New York. My shoulders hurt at the memory of my last trip when my bag held one business suit, two shirts, and five manuscripts.

I am sure I will be pleased when my Kinko's bill plummets. Whether I become evangelical about it is yet to be seen. I'll report back on how I like it here in the blog, a very "green" medium, by the way.