Our VookMakers can do the work for you. Users call Vook “super easy-to-use,” but we get that not everyone’s into DIY publishing. So today we’re launching our VookMakers program. Our VookMakers are eBook experts who will build your eBook, send you review copies, incorporate your feedback, and realize your vision. Last week, a publisher contacted us with ten eBooks he didn’t have the resources to build himself. After we connected him to a VookMaker, he had eBooks to review in a day. Read more…
We surveyed our users last week—and hundreds of them rushed to tell us what they thought of Vook. A big thanks to all respondents; the winner of the free Professional account is our user Tonya Gupta (congrats Tonya!). When we reviewed the survey, two comments came up with stunning frequency: 1) Our users love our product. They call it “elegant” “easy to use” “incredibly well designed” and “so simple”. 2) Our users need more flexible pricing. A vast majority of Read more…
A funny paradox of the eBook revolution — it’s easier than ever to create digital books, but frustratingly complex to share them and difficult for readers to actually read them without the right device or application. eBooks have turned books into pieces of software and publishers into software companies. The very smart Peter Brantley first articulated this distinction for me in an email remark, but it’s a concept — a new kind of category and role for book makers to Read more…
So, you’ve written a great book. Now people will just automagically discover it and suddenly you’ll be a best selling author, right? Not surprisingly, it’s a bit more complicated than that. We wanted to give you a little advice, based on our experience working in digital publishing. Today, we’ll look at how to spread the word through social media. First of all, which networks should you be on? Most of our resources focus on Twitter and Facebook because that’s where Read more…
Our platform’s a work in progress—and it always will be. The only technology that’s ever ‘done’ is a technology that’s obsolete (insert lazy joke about the printing press here). As new file types (ePub3, KF8) emerge, we’ll be adapting Vook to produce them quickly, and we constantly adjust to keep track of changes and updates in devices and reader apps. Everyday, our engineers push new code to our platform that improves the experience. But sometimes we have a bigger push Read more…
Before posting more on cloud-based reading experiences, I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the Vook beta. Everyday, users are working in Vook and helping us identify issues we need to address. Our engineering queue is essentially a cue taken from our users — ha! (Like that? Wait til you read my Vook produced comic memoir!) Last week we fixed 48 issues that users caught — items ranging from Kindle file generation to adding the ability to delete projects. Read more…
As he probably did for many, T.S. Elliot inspired my love for poetry. Reading him twenty five years after struggling through the Wasteland in my parent’s copy of the Norton Anthology, I have new insight into his appeal. While some poets wrote about love or abstract art or the will or nature or romanticism, Eliot articulated a sensation everybody knows: Utter despair in the face of boredom. Before the oppressive office cubicle existed, Eliot wrote poems that instantly transported you Read more…
Reading Gregory Cowles’ review of [Sic], a memoir by the composer Joshua Cody concerning his experience with cancer, chemo, cocaine, destructive relationships and insanity, I was pleasantly struck by two observations—1) that Cowles describes Cody, at 34, as a “young” composer and 2) that Cowles wished, “the book came embedded with MP3s in addition to its photos and paintings and scrap-paper notes.” With his sympathetic view of multi-media and youth, Cowles is my kind of reviewer — I was about Read more…
We sent an update about Vook to our beta registrants yesterday (hi, all of you!) and the response was overwhellming. People are excited about getting into the platform! And we’re excited to give it to you! I’m getting back to the individual requests today and tomorrow, so I appreciate your patience if you wrote me. If you haven’t heard about what we’re up to, I’ll recap the highlights below. And if you haven’t joined the Vook beta, go do it Read more…
I am really excited here in Vook New York City as I start gearing up for Digital Book 2024 and Book Expo America next week — the largest trade show in North America, which is guaranteed to be a great time. Don’t be shy and make sure you stop by Kiosk 2311 in the Digital Zone to say “hi” and pick up some special download cards from me.
