From PW:
In an experiment testing consumers’ interest in integrated print and video content, Simon & Schuster has partnered with multimedia start-up Vook to create a quartet of titles that melds print and video. The fruits of the partnership are four vooks—titles the West Coast company describes as neither book nor e-book—available as apps via the iTunes store and as web-based editions at both simonandschuster.com/aboutvook and vook.com. [Read the full article here.]
The titles being offered fall into two categories – fiction, with Jude Deverauz’x Promises and Richard Doetsch’s short thriller Embassy, and how-to with Pete Cerqua’s The 90-Second Fitness and Narine Nikogosian’s make-up book Return to Beauty.
I think the most interesting thing about this idea is the titles S&S is trying to push. It’s very easy to see how-to books doing well with a video component – publishers and authors have been offering a similar service with exclusive online content for years. But integrating fiction with online media is still a new concept in mainstream publishing (though it appears to be working well for Scholastic, with their The 39 Clues series).
Will readers want integrated video content? S&S isn’t sure, but they’re looking to grow their list of Vook titles, and are already considering works from their other imprints (the current titles come via Atria). It’s an intriguing idea, but a worrying one, too.
It’s not that I’m anti-adaptation. I’ve watched my fair share of book adaptations and even loved a few of them. My concern is the safety of the story-reader relationship? While it’s true that most authors have a clear vision of their characters appearance, words leave much to the imagination, letting readers create characters and settings more relevant to themselves. The greatest authors manage to call upon our own experiences to help us fill in the gaps – something video content threatens to take away. And, if we watch someone else’s interpretation of a book while read it, will that change how we feel about it? I’m not sure I’d love Coraline so much if I’d been watching movie clips while reading it – not because the movie is bad, but because my connection to the story would be less active.
Are there any books you’d like to see released as vooks? Is this a natural next step in the evolution of literature?
I don’t think I’d want to watch a video in the middle of reading a book, especially if the characters in the video look nothing like how I pictured them. Might ruin the rest of the book for me actually. The social networking aspect could be cool though.
Probably I’d only want a video for a book that I find insanely boring.
Also, why videos? Why not just add illustrations/pictures? Adult books rarely have any.
Which would be better for “an insanely boring book” – a video, or just an audio book? I think I’d rather the audiobook, just because it lets me keep my vision of the characters &c. I’m not sure, though.
Vooks are probably far more cost-effective than photographs and illustrations. The publisher only has to produce one file for a vook, while an illustrated edition, which requires more specialised printing than a standard text, has to be reproduced on-press over and over again.