We’re pleased with the reaction to our first vooks—and, as language lovers, we’re intrigued by how the word vook itself has entered the popular lexicon. In April, the word Vook appeared in a New York Times article as a proper noun referring to the company, “Vook,” but the article also employed capital-V Vook to designate a “Vook prototype.” An individual vook, then, remained a proper noun, as if the first book was a “Book.”  Then, on the day of our launch, The New York Times canonized our first releases as “vooks.” The distinction between making Vook a proper noun and making it a general one is critical: We’ve created an entirely new category of media and an entirely new word. Across the Web, vook is entering the lingua franca of digital book discussion. It’s as if the first automobiles were called “fords” instead of Model T’s or cars. We’d all be driving fords today and getting into ford crashes.

Right now, we’re the only ones making vooks. Though we’re happy about the spread of the word as an accepted moniker for every manner of digital book — in a nod to Ford, we’ll call it Vookism —  we’d like to point out that we’re the only ones taking the risk to make the thing itself. So get a vook and let us know what you think of our innovation. Unlike Ford we’re open to suggestion — and this could be your chance to influence media history . . .