If you’re a blogger, you’re already putting out great content on a regular basis. You have readers who care about what you write and maybe even respond with thoughtful comments. Why would you ever need a book when you have all that? Well, we’ll give you a few reasons… It increases your credibility. Lavie Margolin found that publishing a book helped establish her as an expert, saying “I have been in over 40 media outlets since my book was published including Read more…
Brian Brushwood’s book Scam School Book 1 went from notes to a published, best-selling eBook in just six weeks. With a true success story like that we knew we had to get Brian to agree to share his secrets. Luckily, in addition to being able to “win free drinks, impress the girl, and become the center of the party,” he’s also a great guy and we got on the phone with him and his associate producer, Jon Tilton, to discuss Read more…
And Why You Should be Thinking About Digital Now by a Writer, for other Writers This past weekend saw the New Yorker Festival book signings at McNally-Jackson. Get ready for some serious name-dropping: Not only did Sarah McNally ring up my purchases, but Jennifer Egan shook my hand, Gary Shteyngart invited me to email him, and Jonathan Franzen asked that I call him “Jon.” After the 2-day festival concluded on Sunday, I went to Williamsburg to hear Alexander Chee and Read more…
It’s a fact: Vampires are back and bigger than ever. And while we certainly owe some of the resurgence to Twilight, there’s another vampire expert getting some serious attention right now: Anne Rice. Why? Because she took a plunge into the realm of mixed media and made a Vook — The Master of Rampling Gate. Now, as an early adopter of the Vook, her vampires are in the news in a big way. Even celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who hardly Read more…
We are thrilled to announce a tremendously successful week of downloads for our Sherlock Holmes Experience vook. With great support from Apple, picking our app as the #1 “Staff Favorite” for the holiday week, Sherlock received over 17,000 20,000 downloads in just a matter of a few days (Ed: we just got some NEW sales info, upping the numbers even higher!). 2024 was a great year for Vook—it was the year we launched and it was the year we saw Read more…
I hesitate to bring this project to wider public attention—both because I don’t want anyone to steal it and because I fear its creators might find some of way of afflicting the sinister, malevolent force at its center on me. But it’s just too blood-curdling a yarn not to share — though you wouldn’t guess it from the title: Marble Hornets. What is Marble Hornets? It appears to be some combination of ARG (Alternate Reality Game) and Blair Witch-esque horror Read more…
I’ve been doing some initial market testing with Facebook ads to figure out how to get people excited about Vook. I’ve run a bunch of different headlines – “See the Future of Books” “The New Way to Read” – but the ad that’s grabbed far and away the most attention is simply titled “Too Busy to Read?” Sure, I carefully targeted my ads so they’ll reach an audience that I think will enjoy Vook (and, in one instance, are also Read more…
I recently reread the Wall Street Journal article “The Digital Future of Books” by L. Gordon Crovitz. I was looking for guidelines to help me describe what a Vook is. Even though we’re building the product, it’s still tricky to articulate exactly what Vook is going to do for books — and someone has to do something for books. As a recent Onion piece joked, “90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles.” The Internet, with its trove of Read more…
We were pleased to see Vook’s editorial consultant Sara Nelson quoted in a USA Today article on young adult readers and book culture yesterday – and we couldn’t agree more with her point: kids are reading, they’re just not reading in a way we’re accustomed to seeing. I’ve been hearing this point from a lot of different experts in the educational and publishing world. Last year, I briefly worked with Alan Sitomer, a Teacher of the Year and published author, Read more…
Comics have pretty much lost their stigma as being just for kids and nerdy adults – even cute girls seem to have realized the geeks are onto something – and the Internet has been a huge player in making graphic storytelling more accessible. At Vook, graphic novels are a medium we’re really excited about, and not just because Watchmen did fairly well at the box office. Animation is definitely something we want to bring to Vook: charts, diagrams, even sharp Read more…
