Greetings Everyone,

Vook just returned from three days at Digital Book World – and we’ve got some exciting news that you may have caught in a recent Publisher’s Weekly blurb.

The first item in our string of great news is that Vook’s staff is expanding, and as the new Acquisitions B2B Marketing Manager @ Vook starting today, I am very excited to inform you about all the latest news and developments at the publishing industry’s leading digital publishing house.

As also stated in Publishers Weekly, Head of Acquisitions Matthew Cavnar unveiled MotherVook at Digital Book World this week—a new, innovative product that will allow publishing houses to create enhanced eBooks for every platform, including the Apple App Store, Apple iBookstore, and Amazon’s Kindle App. You’ll be able to also reach a lot of new distribution channels while retaining all intellectual property rights to your content. With the prediction of more than 15 million iPads to be sold this year alone, MotherVook will help you stay ahead of the competition in a growing market.

If you’re interested in learning more about MotherVook and how it can help enhance just plain text by giving them a life of their own, please contact Matthew@vook.com.

I look forward to blogging with you, and I welcome your comments.

Warm regards,

Jules

Acquisitions B2B Marketing Manager @ Vook

Following on our recent financing announcement, The Wall Street Journal asks: Are Vooks the Future of Book Publishing? in a profile today of Vook, its vision, technology platform and momentum.

We certainly think so!

The team at Vook strongly believes we’re creating a new path for traditional content creators – and the media is definitely catching on. (Two major media outlets in as many days have commented on how we’re helping content creators such as publishing companies, literary agents and authors transform their content into truly engaging reading experiences that readers LOVE.)

Check back on this blog from time to time as we discuss our vision, and how we can help content creators of all shapes, sizes and interest areas profit through new distribution channels.

And if you haven’t experienced a Vook firsthand, browse our catalog of 150+ Vooks, and share one with a friend! We love getting feedback on the user experience, how we can improve, and what subjects you think are ripe for a Vook.

Send me an email at mike [a] vook.com – let me know which Vook you bought, and whether you read it on the iPad, iPhone, or Amazon Kindle, and your great ideas for new titles.

Things are very sunny at Vook these days! We were featured in the New York Times Magazine, where the author, Virginia Heffernan, described our Vooks as “fantastic”. It was great to see her lend credence to Vook’s mission of lighting up the world’s content.

As if recognition from the press was not enough to put a smile on our faces, Vook is very pleased to announce that it has received $5.25MM in funding from some of the leading venture capital firms in the United States. We are using the round to accelerate our momentum with new partnerships and building new technology solutions that will allow us to create better titles in larger numbers and maximize our marketing efforts.

We’re very excited because our new and existing investors have recognized that Vook is a pioneer in creating engaging reading experiences for the exploding e-reader, smart phone and tablet space. (Watch for some amazing titles to be released in 2011!)

You can read the full press release, here.

If you’re a publisher, author, or agent and want to learn more about how we can help you create enhanced titles, click on the link above to view our new publisher portal, publish.vook.com.

And don’t forget to try some of the Vooks that the Times Magazine suggested, including “Louder Than Words” by Joe Navarro, JFK:50 Days by Terry Golway and Les Krantz, or Digital Photography: An Introduction.

I wanted to wish you all a successful 2011 and share some exciting news about Vook — we’re being featured in this Sunday’s issue of the New York Times Magazine in an article by Virginia Heffernan. You can read “Watch Me, Read Me” here. The article highlights the Pilates title we produced with author Alycea Ungaro and concludes nicely: “Vook has quietly found the right content, the right software and the right distribution system — and made a longstanding fantasy come true.”  Integrating text and video elegantly has always been our particular fantasy — it’s nice to see it’s a popular one.

Again, you can read the article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/magazine/16FOB-medium-t.html

We’ll be announcing this a little more formally soon, but I wanted to tip off any readers of the blog to a new service we’re offering at Vook. It’s an easy application process to get you or your authors signed up and in the funnel to start making Vooks with us. The site’s optimized for the main types of partners we work with (Authors, Agents, Publishers) — but we’re taking queries from any interested party with the right content (video, text and a strong message). This channel is going to help us really deliver on inbound questions and Vook creation requests. If you’ve written in the past and didn’t get any traction, go ahead and fill out the form we’ve provided and we’ll be in touch shortly. Anyone who’s looking to get started on their first Vook project should check out the site right away — it’s may be undergoing tweaks and changes but it’s up and working now.

Click here to start the process of publishing your own enhanced digital ebook with Vook.

If you have any comments on it, just email me at Matthew@vook.com.