The #weekendcoffeeshare is the brainchild of PartTimeMonster. We sit down every weekend and share our week in a more informal, personal way than maybe the rest of our blog posts are written. Feel free to join in.
If we were having a lovely soothing cup of tea (you can have coffee if you really have to – but I have a lovely Rose tea from Betty’s in my cupboard) I’d tell you it’s been a bit of a weird none week for me this week as it was half term for my youngest. The weather was rubbish and my health was blah, so we didn’t do anything.
But on Monday I did the whole of the weeks course work for a Future Learn course I’m doing which is on Branding, so I felt particularly good about myself that day. The first course I started with them I didn’t complete but the timing was bad, the end of the course coincided with me preparing for the release of Shallow Waters. Future Learn is a great facility for short courses to give you a taste of longer courses the university may offer. They are full of great content and get your mind working. With this Branding course, I wondered if I would be able to glean any information on Brands and how they work and if I could apply it to an author brand. So far on week two I’ve learned that the product needs to be good first and foremost and then it’s about customer experience rather than what the brand wants. Social media have changed the way a lot of information is exchanged and any brand, of any description that doesn’t move and adapt as quickly as its target audience is going to struggle.
Also, there is an issue of social awareness with brands. Is the brand socially aware? What are they doing to help people or the planet because society is finding this a more and more important issue. So for me, I looked at my Createspace printed book for Shallow Waters and couldn’t see the FSC sign (Forest Stewardship Council) on it, so I don’t think it is printed on environmentally friendly paper.
What do I do about this? If you pick up any of the books you read, you will more than likely find the FSC sign on the book because publishers have signed up to be environmentally aware, yet Createspace don’t have it. This makes me unhappy. Shallow Waters mostly sells eBooks, but it does sell a few paper copies and I have made them available. As an author brand, what is my social awareness if I provide books that I don’t know the origin of the paper? I think this week I might email Createspace and see what response I get and update you next week.
What are your thoughts on how we read and our impact on the planet in our pastime? Or how do you view brands? Is how they manage outside social factors important or do you not care?
Janet O'Kane says
An interesting aspect of publishing which I have to admit I hadn’t thought about before. One consolation: CreateSpace may not be using environmentally friendly paper but we authors who use it and other print-on-demand companies are at least not printing lots of copies of books which will be unsold, unread and ultimately pulped.
I’ll be interested to hear what Amazon’s response to this matter will be. I can’t imagine it hasn’t been raised before with them.
Rebecca Bradley says
That’s a good point Janet about only using what is needed. Thank you.
mbarkersimpson says
I think considering social factors is extremely important, and would be interested to learn what Createspace have to say if you do email them. Thanks for the tea, Betty’s is a treat đ Whilst we were drinking tea I would tell you that you’ve planted a seed in my head and I can’t seem to let it go! After your review of Yesterday’s Gone I ordered the audio and e-book versions and I’m really enjoying it. But I can’t stop thinking about writing a series of my own! I’m surrounded by a mountain of notes, ranging from how often I would release the episodes, to ideas on which way to go. I was tempted to go with my Morgan and Fairchild series, but I have so many thoughts I might go in an entirely different direction. I haven’t been this excited in a while, so cheers for the cosmic push *gently clinks cups together*. As we were drinking tea I would tell you that my half term was kind of blah too. My eldest was away for the week, and my youngest hasn’t been in – she certainly doesn’t want to spend time with her mom! Anyway, before I start rambling on, as you know I’m prone to do, especially over a good cup of tea – I’ll wish you a happy weekend đ
Rebecca Bradley says
Haha! I love this Mel! It really made me smile. It was a great start to the series that first one wasn’t it? And yes, I have also thought about series fiction myself. It’s a lot of work to produce it if you want to do it weekly as they do, but I suppose you could do it fortnightly…. I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Let me know what you’re doing!
I hope your weekend has been lovely. They tend to be much better when the sun is out. I’m so looking forward to spring and summer!
mbarkersimpson says
Absolutely – roll on better weather! It’s been a stressful weekend, but it’s not all bad and it’s a whole new week ahead!
I’ll keep you posted on the series fiction. If I’m going to do it, I’m probably going with a weekly thing, but I’m still trying to work things out!
Have a lovely week ahead đ
Margot Kinberg says
Rebecca – I think it’s extremely important to be aware of the impact we have on the environment. That’s one thing I like about doing things electronically. But some people do prefer paper products. In those cases, you’re right that there should be careful stewardship. I think too that branding oneself as an environmentally conscientious author can help get loyal readers.
Rebecca Bradley says
I love our planet and think so much more should be done, but that’s a whole other post and probably a whole other blog! I do like reading paper books, I alternate between electronic and paper because reading too much electronically aggravates my head and gives me headaches, so it’s good to know FSC paper exists.
Jacqui Murray says
In a a previous life, I worked in paper recycling, bought raw materials for paper mills. Lots of mills use recycled fibers (though they cost more in many instances and the product isn’t as good–not as strong or white in color) and all the ones I dealt with had an eagle eye on forest stewardship–planting as many trees as they consumed, not cutting particular types of trees.
Off topic, what’s ‘weird none’? Love your Brit speak!
Rebecca Bradley says
Did you? I thought price was probably why the CreateSpace books weren’t FSC paper. Especially as it does cost more to produce them individually as print on demand as it is. It was something that just crossed my mind as we covered the topic in this course.
it was a weird (stop ) none kind of week, so a nothing kind of week. Not a lot to say about it. There probably should have been a comma in there. I forget some sentences may not translate well. Sorry đ
FictionFan says
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. When I used to be a buyer I looked into the whole paper thing and it seems to me that ‘new’ paper is at least as environmentally friendly as any other kind. In fact the energy used to recycle paper is often more damaging than creating new paper. (As is the case with much recycling, I believe.) Most paper companies ensure that trees are replanted – it’s a matter of economics more than environmentalism. In this case I think the branding is fairly meaningless and it’s not something I look out for when buying books. As for electronic books, I’d like to see someone analyse whether the electricity used is really more environmentally friendly than paper…
Rebecca Bradley says
I have also wondered the same thing about the environmental impact of ereaders etc, especially when they’ve finished being used as well. As for my branding and the paper, it wasn’t a big thing, but something I just thought about as I did that section of the course because as we work through it, I am always trying to see how it applies to me because a lot of the talk is around big name brands like Coke and Apple etc. It’s a short course – about 6-8 weeks, I can’t remember and I’ll be signing up to many more đ
Diana says
Interesting! I didn’t know too much abut this before now. I’m not quite sure how to weigh in, really, but I’m fascinated. đ
Rebecca Bradley says
I’ve done a couple of blog posts in the past on being green when writing and when reading, so it was something that interested me when the course started talking about the social awareness of a brand. The course is obviously talking about big brands and I thought I’d do it out of interest, but I’m getting snippets of stuff that are interesting out of it. đ
Diana says
Looks like it! This is pretty fascinating. đ
Corina says
I don’t think that the paper issue is a big deal in this case. CreateSpace deals primarily in digital products. Paper products are printed on demand which means they are only printing what is ordered, not a bulk order of thousands of copies. I also know that recycled paper is way, way, way more expensive than non recycled which means it would increase the price of the printed book. So in this case, it doesn’t bother me. I think you actually have a phone number to contact CreateSpace when you open an account. I would call them. They are pretty transparent about their policies. I’ll try to find out on my end. (My son worked for CreateSpace until he was promoted to Amazon in 2010 so I’ll try to ask him.) See you next time!
Rebecca Bradley says
That’s interesting that your son worked there Corina! CreateSpace is just where I get the paperback version of my book printed and it was just something that crossed my mind as the course talked about social awareness. I know print on demand is more expensive anyway due to the fact that they are only printing when a book is ordered, so they have to keep costs down somehow. Thanks Corina, see you next week đ
Pamela Morse says
I read both paper and digital, but am shifting more and more to Kindle. I do think it is important if you use it to justify the sourcing of the paper. It probably means a lot in the long run.
Rebecca Bradley says
So many trees are being cut down it’s scary really. I know we all love books, and the trees aren’t just for books! But I hate it when I see those programmes where you see half a forest just felled.
Emma says
A few years ago, I took a green challenge. It wasn’t that formal, you picked at least three changes from a list and made a personal commitment to make them for at least a year. One of mine was not to buy a new paper book. I started using my library more and frequenting charity and second hand shops. I was amazed by how many new releases I found. When I really wanted a book straight away I bought an ebook. At first I thought I might miss out but I didn’t and would say the range of books and authors I tried expanded because I was rarely paying full price for anything I was reading so things didn’t seem as much of a risk. Once the year was up I found my habits had changed and I felt I had been a little less wasteful, though whether there is any real impact on the environment I’m not sure. Emma
P.s. I do Futurelearn courses too and they are great. I did one recently on Shakespeare and loved it.
Rebecca Bradley says
Thanks Emma. Future Learn are great aren’t they?! đ
You can also order new releases from Libraries. I know I did it once when my other half lost his job and though there was a bit of a queue for the book, I did get it. And authors still get paid for library borrows đ
Gwen Tolios (@GwenTolios) says
I’m gonna skip all my thoughts on branding cuz I’m working on a marketing degree, but the FSC thing interested me. I looked at all the books I have, both covers, spine and inner pages, but now a single one had the logo. It doesn’t really bother me. I mean, I try to conserve and everything myself, but that’s done through using scratch paper and having reusable water bottles. Books, to me, aren’t a waste of paper because I well read them and then someone else will read them after me.
As for createspace, well, print on demand is very green! You don’t have issues of printing and shipping 5K copies, only to sell 3K and worry what to do with the other 2K of unwanted printed paper.
Ryan says
Hi there! Did you ever contact them and get a response? Thanks for considering eco friendly options. Nice writing đ