We’ve linked to stories about BookMooch – a website that allows book lovers to swap books free of charge – before, but here’s a more in-depth look at the site and its creator, the young high tech millionaire John Buckman.

From CNET.com:

Even though BookMooch is free to members, the site generates an estimated half-million dollars in annual book sales for Amazon because of a browser plug-in called the Moochbar, which matches members’ book wish lists to Amazon’s retail inventory. For every 25 books swapped on BookMooch, at least one person buys a new book on Amazon through the Moochbar. BookMooch collects 8.34 percent on each of those Amazon sales.

“We’re making money by accident,” said Buckman, who spoke recently at a technology luncheon near his home in Berkeley, Calif.

[…]

What’s more, within the next nine months, Buckman expects to have the inventory of books–distributed among its members–that would rival that of the largest book wholesaler in the United States. BookMooch now has an inventory of about 480,000 books among its 70,000 trading members, but at its growth rate it should rival Ingram Book Company’s 1 million books by early 2009, Buckman said.

As part of the U.K. publishing industry’s eco-kick, Dorling Kindersley has released a series of green books – greener than all those that have come before.

The four new titles are printed using non-toxic glue and vegetable inks on recycled card, and a tree is planted for every one pulped in the process. (And, for a limited time, David Suzuki comes free with every purchase.)

The Times Online notes, though, that while green publishing is certainly admirable, it’s not cheap, and until it becomes cheaper, it may not be sustainable financially:

Manufacturing the books will cost the publisher twice the usual price, largely because DK, part of the Penguin Group, is printing it in Europe instead of the Far East to cut down on unnecessary travel.

“We are launching the range at a bit of a loss leader to see how it goes,” said Gary June, DK’s chief executive.

“We are hoping to pass some of the cost on because people will pay for ethical goods. The demand is there.”

Most publishers are trying to go green. Hachette Livre’s Little, Brown imprint already uses nothing but Forest Stewardship Council-accredited paper, whereby a tree is planted for every one used. However, demand is outstripping supply.

June also aims to produce fewer books, cutting down on the number of unsold copies that are pulped.

New books are not particularly fragile. Everyone knows that. In fact, that’s one of the big reasons why paper-and-ink texts are still preferred by such a wide margin over breakable, expensive-to-replace e-books and e-readers.

So it’s a bit of a mystery why the vast majority of publishers choose to send out review copies and sample copies of books in bubble envelopes.

Here at Q&Q, we try, as much as we can, to re-use these envelopes, but there’s only so much we can do. Here’s a shot of just some of the envelopes that infest our offices:

We re-use them and give them away, but they just keep piling up. They’re like Tribbles. We’re certain the situation is the same, if not much worse, at other media outlets. The most likely result is that the majority of these envelopes – which are NOT recyclable – just end up in landfill.

And so we’re asking – pleading, really – that publishers switch to using strong paper or cardboard envelopes for review and sample copies. Most warehouses do this already. It’s the most sensible, economic, and eco-friendly thing to do.

David Leonard, the book campaigner for Markets Initiative, agrees. “Obviously, the biggest environmental footprint from the publishing industry comes from the paper that the books are printed on,” Leonard told Q&Q in an an e-mail, “but environmental action with integrity should incorporate all aspects of a company’s practices. A simple shift from non-recyclable bubble wrap envelopes to recycled and recyclable cardboard packaging is a fast and easy way for a publisher to reduce their footprint, and help reduce pressure on our forests.”

So please, if you won’t do it for your bottom line, or for the environment, do it for us. Trust us: the books won’t break.