In writing about her test-drive of the Sony Reader, Alvina at Blue Rose Girls offers a few frightening details about the environmental toll of a single promising manuscript — even one that a green-minded writer or agent submits via e-mail:

In the past, when I’ve received an emailed submission, I’ve forwarded it on to our receptionist to print out and log in. Apparently, each 400-page novel that we print out costs the company $7, not including the environmental impact. And this is such a waste, especially considering that the entire manuscript might not get read (for the record, I tend to give a novel at least 30 pages to pull me in, but if it doesn’t do it for me by then, I stop reading). Every time we bring a manuscript to our acquisitions meeting, we copy and distribute approximately 20 copies. That’s $140, and 8,000 sheets of paper (is my math correct?). That’s crazy.

Crazy, indeed. And that’s why, from now on, I’m writing only picture books, and I’m writing them in PowerPoint.