14.Feb.2011 | Jules Shapiro
Content snacking is yummy
Consumer response to our early titles was an immediate indicator that short form-useful content hit the sweet spot with mobile readers. Now we’re seeing that point of view reflected in the national media—check out this article from The New York Times that sports a Vook mention near the end. The writer says it’s been hard to gauge our traction, but we did have a recent rave article in The New York Times Magazine that highlights our success. We’ve had sales hits with our Pilates and JFK titles, and our goal to release a 1,000 titles this year means we’re feeling rosy about the future.
The jist of the article is that once the reporter downloads an e-book, she generally doesn’t make it past the first chapter. This conflicts with our personal experience of e-reading—one of us read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom entirely on his iPhone—but it’s definitely true that short form—what the industry calls “content snacking”—has a broad appeal on mobiles. If you look closely at our titles, you’ll see the efforts of a company constantly striving to master that space.
The author goes on to highlight some of the new digital ventures that have appeared this year, such as The Atavist, Push Pop Press and Cursor—all new players in the space who’ve definitely impressed us. The opportunity to enhance content, tell stories in new and interesting ways and reach new audiences is so clear and so present with the new tablet devices that we’re surprised that aren’t more enterprising startups jumping into the space.
We’re making the most of it, of course. We’re releasing a lot of shorter e-books this year, especially how-to guides with a focus on lifestyle content, and our TextVooks, which will present a short form educational experience. We encourage you to sign up for our e-mail list and follow us on Twitter (@vooktv) to stay aware of all of our new releases!
Feel free to share your input about what the kinds of digital content you enjoy reading by e-mailing me at jules@vook.com to see how we can integrate you better with your digital reading experience.
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