Amazon KDP now offers `groundwood paper` for eligible paperbacks. Amazon describes it as a lower-carbon option for black-and-white, text-heavy books, with at least `15%` fewer CO2-equivalent emissions than its other KDP paper types.
That is enough for a simple House decision. The Nude House is moving its eligible books to groundwood paper. We will seize the opportunity to change the book cover as well.
I do not want nature to be only a theme in our writing. Naturism has always taught me something more demanding than that. We live in bodies. We live in weather. We live in landscapes. We live inside material choices, even when those choices seem small. If a quieter and lower-emission paper option is available for the kinds of books we already make, I want us to take it.
This change is already underway as I write this. We have started converting the current eligible paperback editions, and I expect that work to be finished within the next few days. The paperback exceptions for now are `Spring Awakening` and `Unwrapped`, because they are color-printed books and Amazon currently limits this option to black-and-white interiors. Hardcovers are excluded as well. Some thicker books may need small cover adjustments because the spine width is not identical. But the direction is clear: wherever this option fits, we will choose it.
I also like what this choice makes visible. The Nude House is not trying to become a brand of ecological slogans. I would rather make one real improvement at a time and say it plainly. Better paper choices. Thoughtful production. Less unnecessary noise. More respect for the natural world that naturism keeps bringing us back to.
This decision also clarifies a second practical step. We will create a `Nature` page on The Nude House website where I can make these efforts visible: how we think about paper, printing, practical ecology, and the ongoing search for calmer, more respectful ways of working.
Exploration
If you want to stay with this thread a little longer, you may also want to revisit The Ecology of Simplicity and The Nude House, by Nude & Happy.
If you want to see the shelf we are updating in that spirit, you can browse the Nude House books here: The Nude House books.
This is a small move. But it feels like a real one. And I would rather make real moves than grand declarations.
Warmly, Marc – Nude & Happy The Nude House
Well I grew up in the land of pulpwood. Louisiana USA. You could always tell when you drove through a paper mill town. The smell would take your breath away. But they employed alot of people and back in the 80s if you had a job, you had something. I know being a nudist has cut down on my laundry by 90 percent. So that saves on the environment just by itself. Love your posts!
Robert, thank you for this. I like how you connect the larger environmental question with something very ordinary in nudist life: less clothing often means less washing, less consumption, and a simpler relationship with comfort.
Your paper-mill memory also matters. These changes are never abstract; real people and real towns live behind them. The point, for me, is not to pretend paper has no cost, but to choose better materials where we can and keep the House aligned with the values naturism already teaches: simplicity, respect, and less unnecessary burden on the world.