The Vook Blog Vook: Read it, Watch it.

The WSJ reports today that the world largest consumer book publisher Random House plans to reduce its office space at 1745 Broadway in New York City by as much as 250,000 square feet. The economy is somewhat to blame, for certain. But another force is at work; the digital book revolution is far exceeding most forecasts. Consumer acceptance, the explosion of new devices and technology innovation are driving the trend.

To fully participate in this revolution, book publishers must shake up their P&Ls, rethinking a tired cost structure that does not work in the digital innovation age. Vast real estate holdings are a big expense.  These costs are also a deterrent to innovation, preventing companies from investing in new digital technologies, platforms and products.

The challenge is explained in the classic 2026 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma. Disruptive technologies reshape the competitive landscape of markets. Often, traditional companies are slow to respond, as change engulfs them, and they continue to invest in legacy products.

As one literary agent explained, “the industry must invest in something that today represents only 5 percent of its revenue, that is tricky.”

Quickly unraveling the old cost structure is an important fist step.

Footnote: Vook, a tiny start-up, is looking for office space in NYC. Three thousand square feet shall suffice. A sub-lease would be perfect. We prefer Flatiron or Union Square, but we are flexible.

Vook welcomes Greg Bateman to Vook.

Greg will be driving Vook’s relationships with our distribution partners, including Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google and an array of retailers, etailers and device manufacturers.

A Columbia Business School graduate, he spent more than eight years crafting partnerships with display, ebook and handset manufacturers globally while he worked at E-Ink Corp. and XILNX Corp.

With a boom in Vook customers on the way, Greg will help greatly expand our relationship with the partners who can help us reach readers around the world.

“Greg has built global demand in Asia, South America and elsewhere,” said Vook CEO and founder Brad Inman. “Just this weekend, Vook sold 500 copies of one of our popular fitness titles in the UK alone – there is a global market for Vooks that Greg will help us tap into.”

“Technology providers have been demanding a novel way to light up digital content and captivate readers,” said Greg.  “Vook has the solution, and I’m extremely excited to forge channels that will enable a whole new generation of media.”

Greg will be based in New York City and can be reached at [email protected].

Vook is adding new team members at a rapid rate, and now, we’re looking for a stellar Product Manager to join us as we revolutionize the publishing industry. Details below.

Product Manager

Vook is recruiting for an exceptional Product Manager to join our team. As the leader in the digital publishing arena, this presents a great opportunity for someone interested in getting in on the ground floor of a company focused on leading the development in the exciting, fast moving area of digital publishing.

Overview

Vook is the leading mixed-media digital producer that lights up the world’s content and connects people around stories and ideas they love. A Vook unites words, videos, pictures and interactivity into new media experiences that allow users to engage with content the way they want. Vook publishes titles in a variety of genres, including lifestyle, business, entertainment, cooking, fiction and sports, working with authors such as Seth Godin, Deepak Chopra, Anne Rice, Gary Vaynerchuk, Slash of Guns N’ Roses and Karen Armstrong. Vook partners with industry leaders including Simon and Schuster, Penguin Group, Harvard Business Press, Harper Collins and Hachette Filipacchi. For more information about Vook, visit vook.com.

About the Job

The product manager will play a key role in working closely with the core internal cross functional team to identifying customer needs, market opportunities, and assure the successful execution of Vook’s mission through development and deployment of the company’s digital publishing and distribution platform as well as our web presence.

Location

New York, New York

Job Responsibilities

• Participate in creation and management of product vision and roadmap with a focus on delivering next generation digital publishing products and experiences
• Perform consumer needs analysis, market sizing, and competitive analysis to determine which online features will address key consumer opportunities
• Gather, synthesize and prioritize market needs and business requirements
• Transform those business requirements into detailed product requirements and lead cross-functional teams in product definition and design.
• Take ownership of a set of features and work closely with Design, Engineering, Acquisitions, Production and Distribution to map out the goals, vision and requirements for those features that will accomplish the business goals.
• Champion the consumers’ online experience, with a keen eye on developing a superior and differentiated user experience
• Create detailed product requirements that describe the products and features to be built.
• Manage tradeoffs and dependencies to make sure the end result is a great user experience that drives the business forward
• Partner with our Engineering team throughout the creative, build and implementation phases to ensure high quality, on time releases that balances consumer and business needs.
• Act as product evangelist and solicit feedback to quickly build consensus around decisions
• Ensure future product releases reflect experience gained from external market activities, customer discussions, usage analysis, competitive response and market research
• Analyze and articulate emerging technologies and market trends.
• Deliverables include page wireframes, market research documents, detailed product specifications and product roadmaps

What We’re Looking For

• Passion for building great innovative digital products and a strong aptitude for business strategy
• Startup management experience a plus
• Decisiveness and knowledge of when to ask tough questions about projects
• Ability to debate ideas with both business owners and technical counterparts
• Knowledge of when and when not to follow the latest trends
• A mix of intelligence, integrity, domain knowledge, communication skills, and diplomacy that will allow you to rapidly earn the respect of internal team, partners, and customers
• Minimum 3-5 years software or internet product management experience
• Consumer internet or digital publishing product development experience a plus
• Experience writing product requirements and communicating project details with project team (business owners, IA/Design, Technology)
• Experience working closely with engineering, marketing, operations and customer service teams.
• Extensive experience creating product strategy and roadmap
• Experience creating complete product/feature specification documents
• Solution and team oriented with the ability to build trust and influence others
• Self-motivated, able to proactively work toward a goal independently
• Energetic with a strong work ethic and drive to succeed
• Ability to work and lead direct and cross-functional teams
• Ability to adjust constantly, adapt and manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced Internet environment

Please send resumes to Amy (at) Vook (dot) com.

It’s time for you to stop making excuses and start exercising, because Vook is offering all four of our 15 Minute Everyday Pilates Vooks in all formats for $.99. That should be reason enough to start working out — but in case you need more encouragement, here are:

The Top Five Reasons to Buy the Everyday Pilates Vooks for $.99 This Weekend

5. Halloween is Sunday. You will tell yourself you’re not going to eat candy, but you will. Start burning off those mini Snickers bars, 15 minutes at a time.

4. Pilates helps you stand up straighter. Those extra few inches of height will help you see over everyone’s head if you’re watching the World Series in a crowded room.

3. Unlike most products that cost $.99, our Everyday Pilates series is not a low-quality generic version of a name-brand product. (In fact, it brings Alycea Ungaro, one of New York City’s most renowned and exclusive Pilates teachers, right to your home or office!)

2.  Thanksgiving is only three weeks away. If you do 15 minutes of Everyday Pilates for the next three weeks, you can put whipped cream on your pumpkin pie, and not feel guilty about it.

1. You can get all four apps for under $5. This is such a good deal, it’s not even funny.

***

Get the Everyday Pilates Vooks for iPhone here, for iPad here and for iBooks here.

As Democrats and Republicans, Tea Party patriots, left-wing liberals and Americans of every other political stripe head to the polls on Election Day, Vook  celebrates the mid-term elections with special deals on four Vooks that spotlight the diversity of American politicians and political thought, yesterday and today.

Special Election Day Vooks available beginning today include:

• “Visions of America: Photographing Democracy,” by Joseph Sohm. This epic photojournal spans Sohm’s 30-year quest to capture an image of democracy. It contains hundreds of photographs and several videos featuring the author discussing his passion for both his art and country.  Vook price: $6.99.  Available from iTunes here, or, for iPad users, at iBooks here.

• “Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America,” by author, political columnist and CNN commentator John Avlon (published in book form by Beast Books, a co-publishing venture with the Perseus Books Group).  Twelve chapters of text and a dozen videos offer insight into how far-left and far-right political extremists have come to dominate the country’s political dialogue and provide Avlon’s perspective on what can be done to return to a saner, smarter national conversation.  Available for $6.99 in all formats here.

• “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,” which can be downloaded for free (until the last vote is counted) here.

• “Lincoln Letters,” also available for free for a limited time only here. This rare compilation of four very personal letters penned by Abraham Lincoln provides powerful insight into the man himself.

“People tend to think of political expression in terms of words, but I tend to see and express democracy and politics in visual terms,” said Joseph Sohm.  “A Vook provides another image-rich medium through which writers and visual artists can express themselves or capture the magic of ideas.”

We are thrilled to share this mixed media mosaic of ideas with you this Election Day.

Nate Hoffelder, editor, The Digital Reader, wrote us today with this question,

“What the heck is Digital Serial Rights? Your press release never explains it.”

Our answer. (And we apologize for obfuscating.)

“Digital serial rights are a new way to think about the serialization rights that agents used to sell to magazines. These serialized portions of books would appear as a nice article styled piece of writing in the magazine, giving the magazine a great story, and provide the author with marketing exposure. Our version of this allows us to release a high quality experience of a portion of the book as a digital product that gives readers a taste of the final work, insight from the creator and links to buy the complete work.  Think of it as the ultimate marketing experience for books–not only are you giving people a sample, you’re providing a lot of additional content to put the work in a real context.”

Vook is excited to announce that Rahim Amiani has joined our executive team as Chief Product and Marketing Officer. Rahim brings more than a dozen years of experience building technology platforms and products in publishing and ecommerce. He was previously VP of Commercial Initiatives at NBC Universal, VP of Product Development at Weight Watchers, VP of Product Development at Orbitz and Director of Product Management at SideStep.

Welcome Rahim!

If you want to give Rahim your ideas on the Vook product or just wish him well, email him at [email protected].

Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated our one year anniversary and took stock of how much has changed since our launch in October, 2026. Things have moved faster than we could have anticipated, and it seems like every day marks a new development.

Today, we hit another great milestone with the release of our first title for the Amazon Kindle app, Anne Rice’s The Master of Rampling Gate. It took lots of hard work and dedication from the whole team at Vook, and we could not be more excited to be working with Amazon and sharing our content on this platform.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the past year is our mission: to light up the world’s content and connect people around the stories and ideas they love. Each new distribution channel enables us to share more great stories with more people – and we are continually working to expand on to new platforms so that soon everyone will be able to share in this exciting (r)evolution of the written word.

We’re honored to announce that Vook CEO Brad Inman has been invited to speak at the West Coast’s first digital book symposium: All About eBooks. This unique symposium will bring together a dynamic group of innovators from the digital publishing world. Get all the details from this guest post by event organizer, literary agent Laurie McLean:

The San Francisco Bay Area…It’s the second largest publishing center in America and the number one technology innovator in the world. It’s a magnet for change and a leader in new ways of thinking.  Why is this important? Because technology is evolving the publishing industry at the fastest pace since Gutenberg invented the printing press. And New York heads are spinning.

Considering the powerful emergence of eBooks and enhanced books, the agency pricing model, efficiencies of digital publishing and the opportunities of localized print on demand, the publishing world is simultaneously horrified and inspired to greatness. Everyone wants to know what to do.

How does this affect you as a writer, editor, publisher, content creator, agent, librarian or bookseller? I know a place where you can find out.

Come to the first digital publishing symposium of its kind on the West Coast: All About eBooks. Industry leaders Brad Inman of Vook, Mark Coker of Smashwords, Rob MacDonald of Scribd, Mark Wolf of GigaOM, Philippa Burgess of Studio Mythopoeia/Creative Convergence, David Marshall of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Jay Hartman of Untreed Reads, online marketing expert Stephanie Chandler and many others are going to join me at this one-day intensive mind-meld that will cover all aspects of the eBook phenomenon.

You’ll learn how to create and distribute your own eBooks for free and how to market them online. You’ll hear about the future of enhanced eBooks and transmedia.  Authors who’ve successfully sold eBooks will share their tales.  And industry professionals will give their perspectives. In one day you’ll dive deep into the pool of everything eBooks.

Here are the facts:
All About eBooks Symposium
Friday November 12th from 9 am to 6 pm
At the San Francisco Hilton-Financial: 750 Kearney at Washington
Cost: $199 (including all sessions, lunch and a cocktail reception)
Limited to 75 seats for an immersive learning experience

To learn more,  go to allaboutebooks.us. To register go to: sfwritingforchange.org and then click on ‘Register for All About eBooks’. Hope to see you there.

Laurie McLean is a literary agent with Larsen Pomada Literary Agents in San Francisco and Dean of the new San Francisco Writers University. She has been immersing herself in digital publishing news, trends and perspectives since 2026.

Just over a year ago we launched our first four titles with Simon and Schuster (tip o’ the pin to Atria’s marvelous Judith Curr), an undertaking that landed us on the front page of the New York Times and smack dab on the radar of critics and visionaries in publishing and beyond. Since then, we’ve released more than 80 titles—making us one of the world’s largest enhanced publishers. Every one of those titles has been the product of resourceful and diligent negotiations with publishers, authors and agents to secure great content, figure out a smart format, and build an excellent experience.

One of the keys to our success has been our acquisitions effort. Though it’s been exciting to work out inventive deals with a small, scrappy team, the company we’re becoming requires serious resources and individuals 100% devoted to landing great opportunities. To that end, we’re expanding our New York office on the business development front and staffing our acquisitions team to meet the challenge of turning every book (or at least every book that really wants it) into a Vook.

With that mission in mind, we’re extending a big welcome to our latest addition to the team, our new Acquisitions Manager Margaret Harrison. Margaret joins us from OverDrive, where she managed publisher relations and content acquisition. In her role there, Margaret oversaw relationships with hundreds of content suppliers. She also negotiated and closed deals with Random House, Macmillan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Group and TOKYOPOP. In her own words, Margaret “brings a particular passion for rich narrative” to our endeavor. We think she’s a star on the rise—and we’re looking for other bright spots like her who want to join forces and turn our digital publishing galaxy into an enhanced universe.

Margaret will be working under Matthew Cavnar, who will be heading up the acquisitions efforts at Vook, seeking to close large deals and build on the success of the great authors and titles we’ve secured so far.

If you’re interested in being a part of this adventure, write Matthew at [email protected]