Wednesday, October 28, 2009

From Publishers Lunch:

Harper Launches Vaynerchuk Vook--More Features, At 60% of Hardcover Price

Vook has partnered with Harper Studio and author Gary Vaynerchuk on their latest production, a version of the recently-published CRUSH IT! that may be the most natural pairing of book material and short videos. While the price point is higher than the inaugural Vooks released with Atria recently, at $11.99 the Vaynerchuk Vook offers the complete text of the book along with 17 videos for much less than the $19.99 book.

And video is Vaynerchuk's natural medium, from the Wine Library videos that built his reputation to his obscenity-sprinkled motivational presentations of his rise to success.Harper Studio associate publisher Debbie Stier notes in the release, "As soon as I heard about the vook, I knew I wanted to experiment, and the perfect author to start with was Gary Vaynerchuk. It was liberating to be able to expand out from the print book in areas where a video could enhance the written word. At the same time, it was a challenge to come up with video content that was fresh and unique from Gary, who's all over the Internet in video. I think the vook achieves what we set out to do."
Separately, Vook founder Brad Inman explains to PaidContent the business model that allows the creation of these enhanced products (one early story put the creation cost of Atria's Vooks at $100,000 per title): "I can't talk about the specific revenue split, but we do take care of the technology and video production costs up front. The publishers provide the text, and then we split the proceeds after factoring in the costs."



In another twist, tonight's CRUSH IT "special edition book launch party" in New York is free and opent to the public, at The Bell House in Brooklyn.

No comments: