Embassy Vook Cover

As a big proponent of the e-book and a fan of technology in general, I took a look at the Vook, the new e-book with embedded video.  I bought Embassy by Richard Doetsch for $4.99, downloaded it to my laptop, and then put it on my iPod Touch.

What I Like About the Vook

It hijacked my workout.  Typically I read RSS feeds, listen to podcasts, or watch videos on the elliptical. It’s no big deal to keep track of what the elliptical is doing while I read, listen, or watch.  The Vook, however, made me lose track of whether I was supposed to be pedaling backward or forward.

I also thought the price was decent. True, Amazon is arbitrarily setting their e-book prices at $9.99 and lower and many authors are offering e-books for free or almost free in their bids to garner new readers. Even though Embassy is 128 pages long, I thought the additional video and the new technology made it worth a try.

I liked the ability to change the font size and I also liked the mini table of contents for just the video.

I liked the extra video of an interview with the author. Although there’s a connect icon at the bottom of the Vook that leads to links to web sites and such, this video is the best way to connect with the author.

What I Dislike About the Vook

Let’s start with the biggie:  the video repeats the text.  Because I was so engrossed in the story, once it got moving, I skipped one of the videos.  I eventually went back to see what I had missed, but by that point in my reading/watching I had learned that the videos didn’t advance the plot or add new information. One of the reasons I read thrillers is because of the fast pace and the page turning.  If I’m going to have to take time to watch a video then I either want to know that (1) it advances the plot and I won’t be reading the same information or (2) that I’ll have the option of jumping back into the story at a point after the video information is given again.

Much of the time, as I’m reading, I’m wearing my earphones for no reason.  If I’m wearing earphones, I’d like the option of a music track, being able to choose something of my own, or even a choice of ambient sounds.

Navigation through the text was inconsistent. Although I could use a swipe motion to go through the pages within a chapter, the swipe would not take me to the next chapter.  Although a single click forward would go through the pages within a chapter and also go to the next chapter, a single click backward would skip back to the beginning of the previous chapter.

Another way to get to the next chapter is using the up and down arrows. You can also see where to change to the font size.

I liked being able to change the size of the text but I also wanted to reverse the text to white and the background to black.

The text portion of the Vook is not readable in landscape mode.

The embedded video isn’t truly embedded.  More than likely the Vook app is making a call to the iPod OS.  What does it mean to the reader?  The video is only in landscape mode.  Yes, the video is larger in landscape mode, but when I have to rotate my reader to see the video, I’m pulled out of the story. This drawback might be solved if I could read the text in landscape mode as well, but I’d rather have the option of  the video being smaller and being truly embedded so that I can just click on it and it plays right in that spot of the Vook.

The Video Link in the Text

The Video You See When You Click the Link

What I Wish They Had Done

I wish the video portions of the Vook had higher production values.  I was glad that there was music in the videos, and occasionally actors on screen who spoke lines, but it seemed like there weren’t any foley artists, i.e., no professional sound effects.  The first video in Embassy of the couple running down the street sounded like it was actually their shoes, which is virtually never how movie sound effects are done.

I wish they had placed some preferences for the Vook in the Settings area.  But mostly what I’d want to see there doesn’t appear to be available in the Vook yet (ambient sound, etc.).

I wish they had designed an icon. I couldn’t make out the thumbnail of the app, but it turns out it’s the cover of the book. It’s completely indistinguishable as an icon. Icon design isn’t easy, but I think it’s worth the effort.

The Vook Icon

I wish the videos told a sort of mini-story without the text.  One of the things I liked about the Vook was the mini table of contents just for the video segments.  It made me wish that, if I were to click on each of those videos in succession, that I’d have a mini-version of the story as well.

The Video Table of Contents

I wish there had been some still images.  Call me old fashioned, but if the video isn’t going to advance the story in a way that text doesn’t, then a still image would work for me.

Take Away

This is version 1.0 of the Vook and I’m encouraged. It’s a solid app and contains several features that I’ve come to expect from both e-books and videos, although the two together are not yet seamless. Five years from now Vooks will undoubtedly look very different. I think it’s possible that some of what I’ve highlighted above will come to pass. However, the best part of evolving technology, for me, is all the things I don’t see coming and haven’t got a clue about. I’m ready for version 2.0.

Has anybody else tried a Vook?

Is the non-fiction more successful in terms of content delivery?

Of course, the printers key has a more descriptive name and one that will actually help you locate it:  the number line.  So, if you flip open your book, you’ll see the back of the cover to the left and the title page to the right.  Turn the title page over and you’ll then see the copyright page.  Somewhere on the copyright page you’ll find the number line, strangely resembling, of all things, a line of numbers.  The lowest number – they aren’t always in order – is the number of the printing.  As the number of printings goes up, the printers key gets shorter.  For the second printing, for example, the number “1” will disappear, but all else will remain the same.

Copyright Page

So, in the example above, taken from Rites of Passage by Van Gennep, there is a red box around the printers key.  This is the 13th printing of that book and it was printed in 1996.

If you’re thinking that the whole thing smacks of something archaic, you’d be right.  This is a system that was born sometime after World War II, but more than that, it harkens back to the time of the Linotype slug.

Many people theorize that the numbers disappear because that’s the most foolproof way of amending the copyright page.  You’re less likely to have an error if you’re just removing a number rather than trying to add one.  While true, there is also the physical reality of the mechanism that was used to print books, starting in the late 1800s.

The Linotype machine (“line of type” machine) did exactly as the name suggests.  It produced a single, solid, metal line of type.  Each word in the line was assembled by an operator, using individual metal block letters and spacers, and then the machine would actually use molten metal to weld these pieces together into one single piece from which a single line of a book (or pamphlet or magazine or what have you) could be printed.  It’s a process also known as hot metal printing.

The shrinking number line scheme, while also less likely to introduce errors, makes the least amount of work for the publisher.  Instead of creating a new Linotype slug for the number line, the last (or outer) number in the existing line (the lowest number) could be filed off and the slug used again.  It’s a wonderfully economic system.  But I can’t help but wonder how the digital era of book publishing will change it.  There is still the argument that it’s a method less prone to error, but what about the cost savings in ink when you stop printing all the numbers in the line and just print one?