From the press release:
Vook, the leading digital publisher that lights up the world’s content with its mixed-media reading experience, today announced a digital serial rights program that provides authors and publishers with new opportunities for their books, e-books, audio books, and iPad and iPhone applications to reach new audiences and create new revenue streams.
Vook premieres this groundbreaking program with “Bernhard Schlink on The Weekend,” a new title from Schlink, the New York Times best-selling author of “The Reader.” Schlink’s new Vook offers four chapters of the new novel as well as a complete Schlink short story, “A Little Fling,” from his collection “Flights of Love.” The Vook is enhanced with video interviews.
“Our goal with this new initiative is to provide authors and publishers the opportunity to give readers a taste of their literary releases while creating a highly dynamic and engaging digital experience for readers,” said Matthew Cavnar, head of Acquisitions for Vook. “These Vooks bring readers closer to their favorite authors.”
The Vook integrates four compelling interviews with Schlink and features documentary vignettes and archival images representing historical aspects of “The Weekend.”
“Since we began working with Vook, they’ve pushed the envelope in terms of what’s possible with digital publishing. We are excited to be a part of yet another Vook breakthrough,” said Lynn Nesbit, literary agent and co-founder of Janklow & Nesbit, which represents Schlink. “Print opportunities for serial rights have been drying up, and Vook is offering authors like Bernhard Schlink an innovative way to reach existing and new fans in the digital age.”
But what does that mean?!?
I notice that Teleread’s all new singing and dancing web site has been absent for several weeks now .. and the site seems to have become dominated by hardware articles.
But really, do Press Releases by commercial enterprises now constitute “articles” worth reading and commenting on ? AEspecially immediately on top of a series of articles devoted to one single eReader ?
There is a plethora of alternative sites far better designed and orientated toward hardware and commercial promotion. Is Teleread heading in that direction ? I thought Teleread was a site devoted more to the process and the concepts of change from the old industry to the new.