To those who think the magazine industry just doesn’t get it — and I know who you are, all 20 million of you — I direct your attention to this cool little thing vook’s Joel Burshem turned me on to: It’s a video ad stuck smack in the middle of an issue of good old fashioned Entertainment Weekly. As Joel said, it might scare the pants off you if you didn’t know it was there, but if the goal of Read more…
What would EL Doctorow, author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, and many other great novels have done if electronic books had been invented a century ago? He wouldn’t have had such a great topic for his latest novel, Homer and Langley, because there wouldn’t have been the great epic iconic story of the Collyer brothers, recluses who — as every baby boomer’s mother told every child — died under an avalanche of books and newspapers. “Clean up your room, Read more…
by Sabrina Jaszi Once Vook gets into the world, the potential for even unexpected industries to take advantage of it could be vast. Just look at how digital books are helping out the classical music industry. Classical musicians have been mourning the loss of establishments selling sheet music for a while. Stores like this once gave musicians the chance to mingle, and the opportunity to stumble upon music by composers great and unknown. Maybe the rent’s too steep (how much Read more…
Vook wasn’t the only e-book outfit at BEA, but we were one of the most visible, hanging around the floor and visiting lots of publishing folk to demonstrate our product. I’m a veteran of this book fair, but I have to say I have rarely encountered such enthusiasm, especially for a product that’s a little “out of the box.” For all the fretting that the book business is archaic and hidebound, there were dozens of “that’s cool”‘s and “I want Read more…