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Four ‘Vook’ titles from S&S: Videos mixed in with text
October 1, 2009 | 9:37 am
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By David Rothman
Four “Vooks” are out from Simon & Schuster—that is e-books with video mixed in with text. Readers click on icons to see the videos. This is S&S’s first use of the technology, and the four titles are:
–90 Second Fitness Solution, by Peter Cerqua
–Promises, a romantic novel by Jude Deveroux
–Return to Beauty: Old World Recipes for Great Radiant Skin, by Narina Nikogosian.
–Embassy, a thriller by Richard Doetsch.
You can view Vooks via a Web browser or on Phones/Touches.
So, gang, do you think this is a Good Thing or Bad for E-Books? As I’ve said before, I have mixed feelings.
On the positive side, Vooks are just the ticket for exercise manuals where seeing is everything. Same for beauty demos. I’m wildly in favor of video when it makes the reader grasp the subject matter more quickly.
But are we now going to see video steal attention away from text within fiction? Will Vooks soon displace regular books in some categories, including romance and thrillers? And what will this mean for innovation? Vooks are more expensive to produce than regular books. Will that hurt independent writers and small publishers and literary fiction that explores the insides of characters’ heads? Could The Great Gatsby have worked out as a Vook?
Further details—from PW: “The titles, priced at $6.99, feature between 13 and 17 videos each. The videos, which vary in length from a minute to two minutes, appear alongside the text and users can opt to play the content on a standalone screen or watch it within the existing print layout. (The vook format also lets users jump to specific videos.) In each case a single filmmaker worked on a book and, according to S&S, the authors and Atria’s editors coordinated closely on the creation and integration of the videos. Each vook also contains a page featuring social networking links, connecting to things like the author’s Twitter feed and Twitter/Facebook conversations about the title.”
The E Ink angle: Vooks aren’t the best news for the current generation of E Ink machines, which lack the power and features to deal with fast moving color video. On the other hand, Vooks would run well on most netbooks. Educational Vooks would be one more reason for schools to think long and hard before standardizing on Kindles.
For a different perspective: Curling up with hybrid books, videos included, by Motoko Rich, in the New York Times.
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Comments:
How much video per book? Are the videos really just ads for the book? I’m sure it isn’t a full movie. Can you try one and report please?
Hi, Richard. These are videos mixed in with the books themselves—not to be confused with mere trailers. PW has just published info on the amount of video content, and I’ve updated the story. If time allows, I’ll try one of the vooks, which I was tempted to do anyway. Otherwise I hope to hear from TeleRead community members.
Thanks,
David
What’s the difference between a vook and a web page it costs you $7 to look at?
For workout books, or recipe books, even certain kinds of nonfiction – I could see history books, maybe – these Vooks might work out nicely, though I remain skeptical.
For fiction, though, forget about it. They’ll merely be slicker versions of Unnatural States. Unreadable and unwatchable messes, in other words.
For some types of works — the exercise genre, for example — this hybrid is a perfect match. My wife frequently does her pilates exercises by watching a video, and stopping the video when needed, to refer to the companion book for details. Having both together would make it easier for her to concentrate on the exercises.
For romance novels and erotica, this Frankenstein monster opens up worlds of possibilites. Readers could choose a rating (“PG” or “R” or “X” or whatever) and then get the corresponding photos and videos to match the steamy text.
Hollywood is coming to your favorite love stories. First you choose your book title — say, Michael Pastore’s bodice-ripping romance novel: “At A Picnic in Italy I Found Rome-Ants” … and then you choose your stars for the accompanying photos and video: A) Paris Hilton; B) Britney Spears, C) Meryl Streep. And so on.
In her article (see the link in the TeleRead post above), Mokoto Rich hinted at all this, unintentionally of course, when she wrote:
“Flesh out the plot” — whatever it takes to capture the readers’ wandering attention — is the point of this entire enterprise. I won’t complain — too much — about this Brave New World of “reading”, as long as the publishers do not call these multimedia distractions “books.”
Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks
I see nothing wrong with mixing text and videos. But when you do, you have a Multimedia Presentation… not a book, or “vook,” or whatever odd-catchy name you want to throw at it.
“For some types of works — the exercise genre, for example — this hybrid is a perfect match.”
Nonsense. My money would be much better spent on an exercise video which gives me a full workout, probably more than one, and lets me use it anywhere. There’s no space in front of my computer to exercise, and why be tied to this spot? Plus, several two minutes videos is not a workout, it’s several brief demonstrations.
Videos are nice, but they’re not books. They’re videos. Watching a video is a DIFFERENT ACTIVITY than reading a book. We already have video books, they’re called M-O-V-I-E-S. Very popular, you’ve probably heard of them. There are also plenty of cooking shows and other instructional videos. There are lots of devices that will display videos too. Some portable, some not so much.
I think this is all an effort to get a person who hasn’t got the attention span necessary to read a book, to “read a book”. But watching videos isn’t reading, not even if you call it reading.
Oh, and it’s an effort to get our money. The day I spend $7 to see a web page will be the day someone I care about’s life depends on getting that information RIGHT NOW. Otherwise, forget it. There are plenty of websites where I can learn exercises for free.
As a reader, I don’t see much use for integrated video, and would probably find it more distracting than informative. Sure, there may a few cases of instructional or technical books were a short video clip might be used in lieu of illustrations or photographs, but the usefulness would probably be limited, if not entirely superficial.
I wouldn’t bother reading fiction with supplemental video. Already I dislike authors who write novels as if they were a movies, so extra video isn’t going to interest me.
Is it just me, or is the word “vook” rather unpleasant?
I agree about the word “vook” being unpleasant. I think the format will be useful for some types of non-fiction, but I can’t really see any use for it in novels. Anything that distracts me from the story is annoying, and I think that would include video. I do see a use for it in cookbooks and other instructional books.