The Vook Blog Vook: Read it, Watch it.

Are you interested in the many health benefits of yoga but don’t have the time or know how to start?

You can gain flexibility, build strength and ease stress without leaving your house– in fact, you don’t even have to get out of bed.

Our latest Vook, Yoga in Bed, guides you through a rich and rewarding yoga practice that takes only 15 minutes. It focuses on incorporating Yoga into your normal activities and can be done right from your home.

With 10 instructional videos, helpful photographs and essential insight from yoga teacher Naomi Call, Yoga in Bed will change your body and mind–without forcing to you change your schedule.

Start your transformation now! Get Yoga in Bed for your iPhone or iPad here.
And as an iBook here.

We’re on a hiring roll at Vook — and now we’re looking for someone who loves numbers, data, analysis and detail. We’re growing fast and we need someone to wrangle all the information pouring into the company, organize it, analyze it and figure out the best way to move into an incredible future. Details below.

A Vook Opportunity
Financial Analyst
Vook is looking for a financial professional who is passionate about being on the cutting edge of emerging platforms and rapidly changing industries while working with a talented and motivated team who can’t wait to come to work every day in a fun and fast paced environment.

About Vook
Vook is a Digital Producer with a platform that enables GREAT authors, creators, evangelists, gurus and teachers around the world to create new and exciting work. Our mission is to light up the world’s content, create new media experiences and connect people around stories and ideas they are passionate about. The opportunity is very large as ebooks take over the $24 billion physical book world, creating a big market for the leader in enhanced ebooks.

Vook is working with world-class authors such as Seth Godin, Tom Peters and Stephen Covey and our latest Vook is “Buy In” by Harvard Professor John Kotter in partnership with Harvard Business Review Press.

Vook is backed by a “Whos Who” of investors including Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Chris Dixon, Ken Lerer, Eric Paley and Steve Anderson, amongst others.

About the Job
Vook is seeking a financial analyst to own the company’s financial model, do forecasting and manage the company’s day to day dashboard. This is an exciting position at a fast growing start up based in New York City.

Duties include:

• Build budgets
• Manage the company’s financial model
• Forecasting
• Manage company dash board
• Data management

Skills and Experience

• High-level spread sheet skills (Excel)
• Understanding of financial modeling
• Experience with forecasting and budgets
• Research skills
• Understanding of metric dash boards

Education & Qualifications

• 2-3 years years banking, financial or consulting  experience
• BA required in finance or economics, MBA preferred

Send your inquiries to [email protected]

Tired of people shooting down your ideas? Learn how to get your point across to naysayers and your toughest critics.

In our latest Vook, Buy-In, John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead reveal the generic attack strategies that opponents deploy. Then, you’ll learn foolproof counter-attacks to ensure your idea is heard–and implemented.

Tap into their proven strategies for communicating effectively, getting people’s attention, and getting their buy-in for your project.

Save your good idea now–get Buy-In today on your iphone or ipad.

A Vook Opportunity

Director of Acquisition Marketing

Vook, the leading digital publisher that lights up the world’s content with its mixed-media reading experience, is looking to hire a Director of Acquisition Marketing for a cutting edge opportunity in a fast paced environment.

About Vook

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. Vook is based in Alameda, CA with offices in New York. For more information about Vook, visit vook.com.

About the Job

The Director or Marketing will be responsible for helping to craft and execute the firm’s marketing strategy — with a particular focus on digital channels.  They will work closely with multiple internal departments on the planning, progress, and reporting of marketing activities. They will also manage external partnerships, building strong relationships and  ensuring cross promotional opportunities are maximized.

Other duties include writing and proofreading marketing copy, e-blasts and all other external communications, working with the sales and sponsorship team on updating the media kits with current research, tracking circulation statistics, and charting specific industry trends or in house research results.

If interested in developing and executing a marketing strategy for brand new, innovative reading products in a true start up environment (small team, proven success, huge upside) then send us your info!

Duties include:

• Develop and execute customer acquisition programs principally through online marketing channels (SEM, SEO, affiliate, display, social media and email)
• Ability to generate profitable ideas; motivate direct-report team members and launch new products into acquisition channel
• Understand pricing yields and promotional offer relationship
• Accountable to revenue and profit goals
• Monitor and analyzing key business metrics (e.g., registrations, subscriptions, subscriber acquisition cost, lifetime value) on a campaign-by-campaign basis, and taking appropriate action based upon such analysis
• Lead both the internal marketing team and external agencies critical to Vook’s marketing success
• Incorporate cross-channel creative, message, media, offer testing and subsequent effectiveness measurement and rollout
• Manage the marketing creative development process to ensure the creative is constantly optimized
• Ability to forecast campaign results and manage to department budget to reach revenue objectives
• Budget management with proven ability to optimize the marketing mix across multiple channels
• Uncover new opportunities with existing publishing partners.
• Identify new ways that Vook can help publishers grow their business
• Engage business development team and management as appropriate to assist with deals
• Uncover opportunities with new and non-traditional content providers
• Develop and deliver compelling sales presentations
• Work with the product team to help deliver on a superior partner and customer experience
• Exceed customer expectations by going above and beyond
• Meet or exceed new title selection and revenue growth targets
• Manage negotiations and content delivery schedules with publishers and content providers.

Skills and Experience

• Understanding the dynamics of customer acquisition, publishing and media
• Previous business development experience
• Solid track record of developing successful relationships
• Proven record managing big and meaningful partnerships
• Previous experience in developing partnership opportunities with clear deal parameters
• Strong Internet background required

Education & Qualifications

• 5-8 years direct response acquisition marketing experience, in an online / internet / e-commerce environment
• Comfort interacting with a broad set of businesses and presenting both over the phone and in person
• BS/BA is required, preferably in advertising or marketing; advanced degree preferred
• Solid online customer marketing background – expertise in SEM, SEO, affiliate (CPA and non-search CPC), social media and display (CPM) advertising channels; retail/ecommerce customer website background a plus.
• Superior analytic skills, and the ability to compile, analyze and leverage performance data to both identify new opportunities and optimize current campaigns
• Experience with A/B and multivariate testing
• Experience managing, optimizing and growing multiple direct response online media campaigns and partnerships
• Demonstrated ability to meet and exceed acquisition targets and a desire to own and be accountable for the online acquisition funnel
• Deep knowledge of advertising creative development, including an understanding of how consumers engage with direct response media and the levers that drive performance
• Great written and oral communication skills
• Understand all online/offline evaluation and benchmark metrics: impressions, click-through rates, email open rates, conversion, and call volume
• Consistently organized with attention to detail
• Willing to work under strict deadlines
• Strong Microsoft Office Excel and PowerPoint skills
• Familiarity with web analytics tools such as Google Analytics and with business intelligence tools

Contact: [email protected]

Twelve months ago today, we launched four Vooks in partnership with Simon & Schuster. At the time, the idea of video combined with books seemed innovative but perhaps a tad crazy — even to our supporters. But just one year later, we’ve seen an explosion in enhanced books and mixed media (kudos to the Apple iPad). At Vook, all we can say is, “Wow!”  It’s been an exciting ride since that memorable date with great publishing partners, authors, agents, engineers, filmmakers, investors and so many supportive readers and users. With 100 Vooks published including 1,000 videos, more than 175,000 Vooks have been downloaded.

What we have learned:

1. How to make better Vooks. The secret sauce includes great authors, well-written text, and smartly integrated and relevant videos. Almost all of our new Vooks earn out in about two months and begin making everyone money very quickly.
2. How to  produce Vooks faster. Our first four Vooks took four months to create. In September, we created 30 new Vooks. Goodbye to the 18-month book publishing cycle.
3. Vooks have a long digital shelf life. One of the first Vooks that we created was “The 90 Second Fitness Solution” by Pete Cerqua, which continues to sell well every day. In just the last four months alone, Pete’s Vook has sold almost 1,500 copies.
4. The hottest categories. We love Business Inspiration, such as our vooks from Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin, Tom Peters and Steven Covey; Health, Fitness & Sports  is very popular with our new Pilates vooks with Alycea Ungaro and The 8-Step Golf Swing with Jim McLean ; Spirituality is hot with titles from Deepak Chopra and a series on Jesus Christ; and Entertainment is rocking with our Guns N’ Roses Vook. (That Vook was not as hot as Slash, but it burned up the charts for us!)
5. How to deliver what our readers want. They love our video, they want short-form text and they love to share.

What we are still striving to figure out:

1. Rights roadblocks. It represents a deterrent to innovation. We would rather hire more engineers, filmmakers and authors and hire fewer lawyers. But the legal landmines are holding back progress for all digital publishers. We have found collaboration works much better than confrontation.
2. The standards spaghetti. We have had great success with the Apple platform. But the new readers, devices and platforms have a myriad of different standards and make it difficult for all of us to get our creations in the hands of more consumers.
3. Meeting the needs of creators. We are paving new ground with creators of all kinds and they crave new digital platforms. The demand is overwhelming and we are working night and day to serve them, but it is a little daunting at times, even with our smart, agile and tenacious team.

In the end, this is so much fun that we can hardly contain ourselves — it’s the kind of experience you’d want to make a Vook about. As our founder Brad Inman likes to say, “We are like Lewis and Clark, stuck somewhere in Missouri, trying to figure out whether to carve a path this way or that. But we will get there!”

Want to lose weight without committing hours to exercising?

You can drop pounds and build muscle by spending just a few minutes completing the simple exercises in Pete Cerqua’s 90-Second Fitness Solution Vook.

You’ll learn the moves that Pete developed for his personal training clients and get the body you’ve always wanted without spending the time you don’t have.

The 90-Second Fitness Solution is now available in iBooks as well as all other formats.

Here’s another great opportunity we’re creating. We’re looking for a Director of Business Development who can focus on distribution deals. The Director will be working with the New York team, creating powerful partnerships and innovative new relationships with device creators, publishers, content owners and Websites.

Director of Business Development — Distribution

About the Job
Vook is seeking a Director of Business Development to develop new strategic partnerships, which will enable Vook to acquire more content and find new customers. This person will focus on partnerships with etailers such as Amazon, Google, Apple and Barnes & Noble and Web sites to sell Vooks and manufacturers who are producing devices; publishers who own content rights and other content holders who have intriguing distribution channels

This person is expected to be well connected and to be capable of developing strategic online partnerships that will drive acquisitions, sponsorships, traffic and build our brand. The successful candidate will use his/her knowledge of the Internet/e-commerce/media to prospect, cultivate and execute strategic partnerships and develop and manage ongoing relationship.
The individual must reside in  New York City.

Duties include:

• Develop strategic partnerships
• Manage the ongoing relationship with the partners
• Develop a business development plan and strategy
• Identify partnering and marketing opportunities
• Work with the product team to help deliver on a superior partner and customer experience

Skills and Experience

• Understanding the dynamics of customer acquisition, publishing and media
• Previous business development experience
• Solid track record of developing successful relationships
• Proven record managing big and meaningful partnerships
• Previous experience in developing partnership opportunities with clear deal parameters
• Strong Internet background required

Education & Qualifications

• 5-7 years business development experience, in an online / internet / e-commerce environment
• Experience in online advertising sales and advertising sales management
• MBA preferred

Send your inquiries to Amy Wong at [email protected].

Things are moving even faster at Vook — and we’ve got a lot of great new positions that we want to fill fast. We’ll be posting them to our blog — so keep an eye on this space.

A Vook Opportunity

Director of Business Development — Content Acquisition

As the leading digital publisher lighting up the world’s content with mixed-media, we’re seeing an explosion in business opportunities. Which is why we’re looking to hire a Director of Business Development who can join us in our adventure to transform digital publishing.

About the Job
Vook is seeking a Director of Business Development to acquire video, text and photo content from publishers, authors, studios and agents.

This person is expected to be well connected in the publishing and media worlds and to be capable of developing strategic partnerships that drives content acquisition. The content acquisition process is highly consultative and involves developing and managing long-term relationships with content providers, creating and delivering compelling presentations, analyzing data to uncover opportunities and create compelling value propositions, negotiating terms, developing detailed forecasts, and reporting weekly progress.

This position requires a creative, entrepreneurial, analytical, sales oriented person who enjoys pursuing large, complex deals, is self-motivated, and can keep momentum going throughout the sales cycle.

The individual must reside in New York City or the surrounding area.

Duties include:

• Meet or exceed new title selection and revenue growth targets
• Develop strategic partnerships
• Manage negotiations and content delivery schedules with publishers and content providers.
• Uncover new opportunities with existing publishing partners.
• Identify new ways that Vook can help publishers grow their business
• Engage business development team and management as appropriate to assist with deals
• Uncover opportunities with new and non-traditional content providers
• Develop and deliver compelling sales presentations
• Work with the product team to help deliver on a superior partner and customer experience
• Demonstrate appropriate sense of urgency for email response times and phone service levels
• Exceed customer expectations by going above and beyond

Skills and Experience

• Understanding the dynamics of customer acquisition, publishing and media
• Previous business development experience
• Solid track record of developing successful relationships
• Proven record managing big and meaningful partnerships
• Previous experience in developing partnership opportunities with clear deal parameters
• Strong Internet background required

Education & Qualifications

• 5-8 years business development experience, in an online / internet / e-commerce environment
• Demonstrated ability in project management, deal negotiation, closing the right opportunities quickly, and generation of revenue
• Strong analytical and communication skills
• Comfort interacting with a broad set of businesses and presenting both over the phone and in person
• BS/BA is required; advanced degree preferred

Send your inquiries to Amy Wong at [email protected].

Do you want to make millions of dollars while doing what you love?

You can, says business guru and online marketing trailblazer Gary Vaynerchuk in his Vook, Crush It. You just need to be prepared to work really, really hard.

In Crush It, you’ll get the essential tools you need to make your hard work pay off. Find out how to advertise for free, sell anything and expand your customer base every day. In these honest, witty and inspiring videos, you’ll learn how to live your dream–and grow your business.

You have the power to cash in on your passion. Start now with Crush It in iBooks, or get all other formats here.

Seems like everyone wants to know the answer to that question, given how popular the Reckless Road Vook has been since its launch in the iBookstore.

In the Vook, you’ll get the answer to that question, and many more gritty details about what life was like before Guns N’ Roses made it big–when they were living on the edge of greatness and chaos.

With 17 video interviews, band memorabilia, and a whole new format for the iBookstore, it’s no wonder it’s been such a hit.

So how did Axl and Slash meet? Find out here.