We at Dire Wolf Books strive to weigh out the environmental impact of our business. Books require paper, and in our current industrial models, paper requires the processing of trees, which means more woods will be cut down to supply that need. Even though we are publishing on a small scale, we wish to emphasize electronic publishing, which also allows for a nice benefit for the reader—easily switching to the font style and size you prefer. If you want a smaller print in the middle of the day (for fewer page turns), you can always switch to a larger font in the evening when your eyes are tired. In addition, Dire Wolf Books can deliver ebooks to you much quicker—and cheaper, without shipping costs—particularly if you are on the other side of the globe. You can even lend ebooks to your family and friends. If space in your house comes at a premium, it is also nice to have your library reduced to your electronic library—and you can carry all those books with you wherever you take your one little, light e-reader.
On the other side, we still understand the experience of holding and reading a printed book. You like to smell your books, have a clear vision of page numbers and where the text falls on them, and maybe even enjoy writing in them. Still aware of the impact on the environment, Dire Wolf Books chooses when we print to print on demand. The old model of off-set printing may be cheaper (at first), but it leads to a large number of books being printed and placed in warehouses. These books have an uncertain future because no one can adequately predict how many copies will sell. Since print technologies have advanced significantly in the last decades, it makes sense that we only print books that have been ordered. We won’t have wasted copies yellowing in a forgotten corner of the warehouse, eventually needing to be trashed (and hopefully recycled).
We at Dire Wolf Books hope you will honor and share our commitment to the environment. We can all work to leave the world a better place for the future—for ourselves, for our children, and for their children.
