A Look at a Vook Book

Jeffrey Deaver and 21 other best-selling thriller authors are collaborating with Vook, a company that has been at the forefront of integrating text and video. The result is Watchlist, a two-part vook series with 34 chapters, each written  by a different author, combined with 26 original videos and a manuscript reading by actor Alfred Molina. There are many experts in the biz who think this is the wave of the future in book publishing, a digital mixed-bag of video, text, images and social media combined into the adult version of a "pop up" book.

Whether the average person takes to this form of information overload in their reading experience remains to be seen; perhaps it will be another generational divide, with those under 40ish appreciating it a bit more than their elders. Or not. Personally, I think this type of multimedia format is ideal for nonfiction works, especially references and textbooks, but since fiction is where I can let my own imagination re-create the world the author has set in motion, I'm not sure the intrusion of someone else's concept will be something I embrace. That's what movie adaptations are for, n'est-ce pas? Fortunately, for us old fogies, there's a print version of the book by Vanguard Press.

Comments

[Matt Cavnar]

Thanks for the notice! This is Matt from Vook. We understand that the Vook treatment isn't always the best approach for everyone -- and we do agree that there's a lot of potential in the non fiction world: we've got lots of great titles there.

Still, you might want to check out Watchlist. The videos don't reproduce the fictional text -- they're insight from the authors on the process of creating this "round robin" style story. If you want a review copy email me at [email protected]

Best,

Matt Cavnar
Vook

[BV Lawson]

Hi, Matt! Thanks for dropping by. Mixed media has a lot of potential for books, and if it can help bring in more readers, then I'm all.for it. It may not be for everyone, but there is room for all sorts of book formats and delivery methods. As long as people keep.reading, it's a good thing...