I read Jonathan Franzen’s attack on ebooks with that pained internal wince I experience when a friend I respect dislikes an off-beat movie I thought was fantastic. Of course, Franzen’s not knocking one book or movie or thing but an entire technology I’m invested in — which makes the incident a little more piercing. In his comments at the Hay Festival in Colombia, Franzen seems to be opposing ebooks on the basis they’re ephemeral and easily tampered with—let’s say temptingly impermanent. He wants the solidity of books, the sense they’ll always exist, fixed, that malign powers can’t delete or adjust or update them at will.

His fears aren’t groundless. Human meddling aside, look at the degradation of the digital media that recorded the first Gulf War. But though it has its points, I still couldn’t disagree more with Franzen’s anti-ebook sentiment or with the implications of his concerns.

I love books, so it’s a little personally off-putting to hear Franzen opine that serious reader think a “sense of permanence has always been part of the experience.” I think I’m a serious reader (I too have read The Recognitions with pleasure!) but permanence has never been what I prize in reading. It’s the connection. I like the direct link to words and other minds that books provide, the way they can be totally transporting. Ebooks have vastly expanded the amount of words I can direct into my brain; they’re unleashing a firehose where previously I could access a trickle.

This weekend, I was reading about Kubrick and The Shining and a commenter who thought the cascade of blood from the elevator is a perfect metaphor for the horrors of the 20^th century. Maybe our century didn’t start so promisingly, but I’d like to think the flood we’re unleashing is one of content, an overwhelming tide of books and other media that will wash over and through everything, not in bloody chaos but in transformative, shimmering color. We’ll have to figure out how to adjust to a super-abundance, not how it might destroy us.

On a knottier level, Franzen’s talking about how human beings need permanence to have a just society. We need some things, he’s implying, to stay the same. But I’m convinced we have to give ourselves more of a challenge than that.

Recently, Internet users, from Redditors to Googlers, organized against SOPA and PIPA. They opposed fairly obscure pieces of legislation, popularized their dissent, and derailed the bills. They took responsibility and became actual digital citizens, advocating successfully for their point of view. And what motivated the SOPA/PIPA protestors? The thought that muckty-mucks we’re going to start controlling their content, their vision of the Web. They thought they had a responsibility to themselves and other members of the digital world — and they did something about it. If opening all books to digital experiences might lead to corruption and abuses of power, maybe we should have to deal with that threat instead of just leaving everything be. Instead of worrying about the destruction of permanence, we should see an opportunity to shape the future the way we want it. We should consider ourselves lucky — we’re getting the chance to to decide what we want books and freedom to mean. The challenge is to learn from what’s come before — that wave of books, many of which represent people trying extremely hard and patiently to tell us how to live better. Our job is to pay attention and make a world that rises up to match their vision.

If the printed word had brainstormed a go-to-market strategy to spread everywhere in the 16^th century, it couldn’t have done better than violent religious controversy. Luther’s 95 Theses and the invention of the printing press dovetailed to create what the Economist recently described as an early example of a viral marketing campaign that spread the Reformation — and, by extension, print culture.

The Economist is keen to highlight the similarities to social media (and multimedia content; woodcuts were the apps of the middle ages) — but don’t miss how Luther took advantage of three opportunities that have a nice corollary with digital publishing.

• Existing audience = Marketing
• Short form content  = Form
• Easy printing capabilities = Technology advancements

Technology and the content form make sense — broadsheets were the Middle Ages’ Kindle Singles and the printing press’s invention made them easy to scale.

But what about Marketing? Leaving the social spread aside, there’s an interesting perspective here. The pamphlet craze kicked off when the 95 Theses were nailed to the door of the Witenberg church. In the Middle Ages, churches were like the most popular Websites — everyone went there; they got the most traffic. Give that audience content that it just has to read (after all, everyone else is!) and you’ve got massive adoption.

The lesson for digital is what we keep saying at Vook: If you have a Website, if you have any kind of property that has a following, that has, if you will, church goers — then you’ve got a bookstore.

The authors, the technology, and the content exist — it’s the sites that need to turn their audiences into readers and give those readers what they want.

Here’s to digital publishing in 2012. More importantly, here’s to the church doors: May you share your own Theses with the world!

Our friends at CodeMeetPrint alerted us to an announcement that Amazon will be distributing the Queen’s Christmas address as a free Kindle eBook on December 25^th.

Thanks to a Wodehouse inspired youthful Anglophilia, I’m a casual fan of the royal holiday address, most particularly George’s VI’s eve-of-WWII 1939 broadcast which he concluded with the quote, “I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year / Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. . .” (always gives  a chill) – but for Vook, Amazon’s plan to release the eBook version is bigger than the Royal Family.

The bookification of the Queen’s speech is a royal-crest-in-the-ground and rampant flag for why eBooks will become such a prevalent content form in 2012 and beyond.

eBooks ship fast. You can create and inticingly package content like the Queen’s speech—and deliver it the same day. It’s what we’ve been saying for months, highlighting efforts like the LAT and NYT’s eBooks, free eBooks from daily email businesses and Vanity’s Fair titles. Now the Queen’s onboard: In 2012, everything can be an eBook. They’re the information rich packaged Web pages of the future — only easier to read on mobile devices.

And Vook’s going to be the Dreamweaver of eBooks — the interface that lets you make better and better experiences.

Here’s proof. While I’ll happily download Amazon’s speech eBook, I wish I could read it with the video or audio of the address included. It’s not like it’s hard to do — I just made my own eBook of the Queen’s first televised speech in 1957, and included the video. Consider it a holiday present from Vook—and a demonstration of where eBooks are going next year.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE EBOOK EPUB FILE.

If you click this link on your iOS device or Color Nook, the eBook will automatically download and open in your iBooks or Nook reader.

And for all of you who are or who want to create eBooks, may Vook be your code-free WISYWIG light in 2012 to guide you through the unknown of div classes, page breaks, ePub 3 and KF8!

I’ve been a long-time subscriber to food culture daily email Tasting Table (I think I was getting the test-sends) so I’m pleased to see their editorial team produce eBooks as expertly as they do short form emails – it’s like they’re now offering Lobster Thermidor in addition to excellent lobster rolls.

Their most recent eBook — the Sous Chef Series 2011 Recipe Collection — features 12 dishes from established chefs across the country, including the Slanted Door and Blue Hill. It’s a gorgeous title rendered in fixed lay-out for iOS devices and as a PDF. Design aside, it’s a great example of how non-traditional publishers can exploit the new medium of digital books, shipping product efficiently and at a lower cost without sacrificing aesthetics.

We saw three key lessons.

1) Existing Audience

TastingTable has an existing audience in their email subscriber list. Providing them additional value in the form of digital books inspires reader loyalty and establishes a brand, but it also means the book is more likely to be adopted — its audience is eagerly awaiting new content from the creators.

2) Excellent Content = Wider Appeal

The core audience will drive early adoption of the title. Strong content will then inspire strong reviews, encouraging others to try the book. Because you can insert links in digital books, TT can upsell readers to sign up for the email with a non-intrusive, editorially savvy, in-book call-to-action.

3) Strategic Pricing

Crucially, TT has made their eBooks free. They could drive revenue by selling these titles, but the company’s core business is email. Making the book free to drive more downloads, expand the brand, and reach new marketplaces and potential subscribers is a savvy move.

Tasting Table’s books are ePublishing-as-marketing done right.  It’s a great example for Web, media, news and other companies to consider when they’re thinking about approaches to digital publishing.

And the Autumn Whiskey Sour is a must try.

What is it with our Nicholas Carr fixation? Authors take note  –  mention us in print and you’re guaranteed Vook blog coverage. Today, I want to call your attention to a piece Mr. Carr wrote for the Nieman Journalism Lab on the coming appification of content. Carr’s predicting that newspapers in 2012 will monetize and engage readers increasingly through apps. It’s an area we’ve been thinking about as we find more and more content holders getting interested in eBooks.

Mr. Carr’s piece offers an apparently safe thesis—newspapers have profited from great apps. But when it comes to content delivery, the details are thorny.

Carr writes, “What’s an app store but a series of paywalls?” Well, it’s also, crucially, a marketplace you can only tap with the help of developers and one that imposes checkpoints and tech requirements that can be difficult to accomodate. Essentially:

1. A native app is expensive to build – if you really want to get it right
2. Content updating in apps can be difficult to maintain through a CMS
3. Updating and version changes = major headaches

CMS solutions for appstore delivery exist — and we love the work from Mag+, Adobe and others — and it does seem many newspapers already have an app. But production difficulties aside, the appstore also represents the centraliziation and primacy of a few big brands. A good example might be apps for local public radio stations  – many NPR and PRI affiliates have an app, but after my cursory survey of a selection, I’d be  surprised if any of them, or even all of them combined, approached the traction of the excellent NPR flagship app.

Jason Baptiste at OnSwipe would probably say we’re being too moderate in our perspective, but HTML 5 Web experiences also have a ways to go. They remain slow, clunky to load, and it can be hard for them to handle more complicated content.

So is there a solution? Probably long term a Web-based experience independent of native app confines — like Baptiste’s OnSwipe. In the interim, newspapers and news related content holders should look at monetizing their content across a spectrum of platforms, including eBooks.

Appification is going to help, but it’s still a hard way to make money (see: the Daily). The Project Triangle states that of the qualities Fast, Cheap and Good you must pick two. I’d tweak it and say the App Project Triangle is Slow, Expensive and Good. If you want Good, you pretty much have to take the other two as well.

We began onramping beta users on Tuesday—and the turn-out for online training reminds us of the end of “Ghostbusters.” We thought we had a lot of demand, but we were still surprised when a Mr. Staypuff sized colossus suddenly materialized.

But it did. And we’re kind of awed. Our users are hungry to make books. We’re moving fast to meet the demand. We’re instructing registrants in groups, walking them through the platform, then handing over the keys so they can build their own titles.

Want more evidence? Our company is growing to help us extend Vook far and wide. We’re hiring!

Specifically, we’re hiring a Lead Generation Marketing Manager and a Head of Sales. I’m not going to post the entire spec here — too much space — but click on either job title and you’ll see the requirements.

The early user feedback is confirming that we’re building something people need. Expect to see examples of user created books soon. And if you’re not in the beta, get ready to start creating your own books directly after that.

Turning an unknown author into a surprise bestseller is publishing at its finest—and a classic example of old fashioned interupption marketing.

The author toils in obscurity for years and emerges with a work that transfixes an audience that hadn’t previously existed.

That’s art. Great art, more often than not, finds an audience (even great-but-completely-insane art, a la Henry Darger). But it’s a hard task. You’re convincing people to pay attention to something new.

Stephen Elliot, who often reflects on art vs. commerce, being read vs. not being read, remarked that anyone is lucky their work’s read. No one owes you a reading.

Artists don’t build audiences. They make art. That art makes an audience, or it disappears. Or it disappears and returns a hundred years later, when its audience arrives.

But here’s the good news: Not everyone is an artist. Most people aren’t.

Which is excellent.

If you’re not an artist; if you’re a company or a Website or a person who works for a Website or runs a Website—if you’re anyone who has an audience: You’re already lucky.

You already have readers.

You don’t have to produce a stunning piece of art they never knew they needed.

You just have to give them what they come to you for — whether it be expertise on model train collecting or interior decorating— in an intelligent, thoughtful and well packaged format.

Give it to them in a digital book. That looks great. That reads cleanly. That shows what you do at your best.

Make it easy to buy on your Website. Offer the first one, two, three, even five eBooks for free.

More and more readers are carrying tablets — and tablets are just book covers that you can beam any kind of book into.

People want to beam in what they’re familiar with. If you’ve already done all the hard work of building a Website or a business or a brand, you’re lucky.

Dostoevsky remembered being told his first novel was accepted for publication as the finest moment in his life. The world probably didn’t know it wanted to read thousands of pages about the internal life of deeply troubled slavs. But apparently we did!

You don’t have to suffer to share your vision with the world. If you’ve got a Website with traffic, you know what people want.

Now all you have to do is write the book.

Your audience is waiting.

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 into one that did not have an exit and was made of gray carpet.

What does this have to do with digital publishing? Well — it’s the medium. Poetry can’t be rendered differently to make it more itself, but our reactions to it can be so varied they require other media to express. What Elliot’s poetry has made me feel I’ve always described as, “the feeling you get when you hear Eliot read it.”

Eliot made a few recordings of the Wasteland. His voice is thin, reedy, and forlorn sounding. He puts a wistfulness into the recording that reinforces its melancholy. Ever since, I’ve read the Wasteland in Eliot’s voice in my head—which makes lines such as “we stopped in the colonnade/And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten./ And drank coffee, and talked for an hour” sound like a pessimist’s summary of the emptiness of life.

I’ve always wanted to express this feeling to others and now I’m able to realize my dream with Vook: I’ve embedded audio of Elliot reading the Wasteland into an ePub of the poem, creating a read-along Wasteland experience in just a few minutes.

With Vook, it’s easy to create audio and video enhanced eBooks—which means you can spread your vision of literary despair far and wide, and finally share the little voice in your head with everyone else in the world.

See what I’m talking about: Get the free ePub here.

For those of you who aren’t gamers or don’t keep reddit open in a browser tab, Game of Thrones isn’t the only property turning television screens into Scandanvian Renaissance Festivals. Video game company Bethesda Software recently released Skyrim, an incredibly detailed, open world role playing game that shipped 3.4 million copies in 2 days and scored a 96 point overall average on review aggregator Metacritic.

It’s a definite blockbuster hit, but is it another reason for fantasy lovers to turn away from literature? Hardly. Skyrim’s littered with books — from romance novels to religious books to spell tomes to journals to straight fiction. You can pick up books, carry them around, deposit them in your house and read them in-game, paging through what’s estimated to be a thousand plus pages of actual text.  It’s that weird, possibly too potent perfect time-suck — a fantasy video game stocked with fantasy books that you read as a fantasy character you created.

Of course, it’s a self-limiting audience—even if we’re living post triumph of the nerds, most people are still adopting to digital books instead of actually fantastical digital books. But it’s interesting that Skyrim’s developers saw the potential to populate their world with books — a real life case of transmedia storytelling that doesn’t feel tacked on, but natural, even necessary.

Just a few days ago, I was discussing at Vook how video game companies – like Bethesda – could use Vook to produce eBook versions of their in-game lore. Sure, the audience is niche, but it’s an audience that’s committed. And when you make it as easy to create an eBook as Vook does, why would you skip the opportunity?

That’s the future of publishing. Or at least one path of the future. Companies who have rich, deep, intricate stories that don’t exist in “real-world” book form will start producing books independently. And if they have an audience they can reach digitally — they have a bookstore too.

We’re not the only ones with the idea. Metafilter today alerted me that the blogger behind capane.us had turned all of Skyrim’s in-game books into actual eBooks for the Mobi and ePub format.

It should send a message to video game and media companies everywhere: If your own users are hacking your content into book format, shouldn’t you put them together yourself? Email us at Vook today at Matthew@vook.com. Or just hang tight — we’ll be knocking on your door soon.

Everyday we get requests from people who want to build an eBook with Vook immediately. Everyday we look at what we’re building, what our users want and expect, and what we’ve committed to delivering. Our engineering team is working night and day (which isn’t hyperbole, I’ve interrupted them at 2 AM on our conference line in the past)—and the rest of us are constantly using and testing Vook, making sure it meets our standards.

On Thanksgiving, I’m not grateful for the elements we can control – our commitment, our resourcefulness, our smarts – I’m grateful for that harder to hit factor: What people want and what we’re building seem perfectly aligned.

I’m judging that interest by how many people sign up every day for our beta – and anecdotally by how many people have emailed me on Thanksgiving asking if they can use the platform while they have time off.

And we will ship to our beta users very soon. But today I wanted to share a segment of a clip I found on the Next Web’s Shareables site—a video of Steve Jobs brainstorming with the team at NeXT in the 80s about when they’re going to release their product.

Steve Jobs and NeXT UPDATE: You’ll want to start watching at the 8:00 minute mark for the relevant section.

The part I’m focused on starts 8:00 minutes into the video, during a brainstorm/debate/conversation between Steve and the team members, ranging from Product to Tech to Business. I’m not highlighting this clip to swoon over Job’s exceptionalism—but because it clearly shows how product innovation, consumer demands and the abilities of technology interact with and react to each other.

My favorite part? When Steve, slightly exasperated, says, “I can’t change the world.” Many people would consider that ironic – but I think Steve’s right. This clip shows it’s commitment,  intensity, and smart people pushing each other that make a difference.

Steve might have said, “I can’t change the world – but my company can.” And that’s the truth.