Yeah, you heard me right, that’s not a typo – it’s “Vook“. Strange name for a great overall concept and product that’s a harbinger of what’s to come. All you stodgy warthogs who think that it’s only about the printed page need a reality check. Most authors care about delivering their message and the printed word has been an amazing vehicle for that message for centuries. Going forward, however, new digital tools will enable much more direct communication between author and audience and Vooks are a really interesting first stab at the commercialization of that digital connection. While there will always be room for well-written and thought-provoking literary content, a significant percentage of that content, especially factual content, will be expressed and absorbed via multimedia and social engagement channels. This is undeniable and already happening. Vook is leading the charge.

So what’s a “Vook?”

A Vook is an online/digital book supplemented with additional material. In the case of “Crush It,” you get the full text of the book, a professionally produced video for each chapter of the book, and a “Connections” page hooking you into social media sharing channels and providing you supplementary links to follow should you desire to do so.

How does it all work?

Basically, you just navigate your way over to Vook.com, find a Vook title you want to buy, and decide on whether or not to buy the web version or the iphone version. In the case of “Crush It,” each version of the Vook is currently $11.99. (This is the most expensive Vook on the site. The other featured Vooks go for $4.99 on the iPhone version and $6.99 on the web version.)

So far, I’ve only utilized the web web version of Vook, and I’ll tell you straight up that it is WELL WORTH $11.99. Gary Vaynerchuk, the author of “Crush It,” was in Seattle promoting his book a couple weeks back and I spent $20 buying hardcover copy and getting it signed. Now don’t get me wrong, having the signed copy is pretty cool, I mean Gary V. had the chance to tell me personally to “Crush It.” Awesome. But if I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I’d much rather have bought the Vook. I would have received all the same base content plus a whole passel of vintage Gary video to go along with it. I would have gotten more for less.

And really, “Crush It” is ideally suited for the Vook medium. “Crush It” describes how Gary worked himself silly creating and then monetizing his personal brand and it has tons of simple tactical things you can do to follow the same path. It’s not a long book, but it’s well written and inspirational. It oozes Gary’s positivity from every pore and while that may not be for everybody, he had me at “How badly do you want to crush it?”

Strengths of the “Crush It” Vook

• Strong overall value proposition: The book retails for $19.99 and is currently being sold on Amazon for $11.47. Any way you slice it, $11.99 for the book and all that dynamic content is well worth it.
• The video content is well made and allows you to get that personal Gary V. vibe. If you haven’t been able to see Gary V. on tour, this is the next best thing.

Quibbles

• Why make me pay for two separate versions of the Vook if I want to access the same content in both places? That’s just outdated and silly. I can read my Kindle titles on both my Kindle and my iPhone (and soon on PC-based reader) at no additional charge. I paid $11.99 for the web version. I should have access to that optimized for my iPhone.
• The Vook video content had some minor audio clipping issues on my Mac.
• The “Connections” content is a bit weak. It’s mostly static links to sharing on Twitter, Facebook , etc. I’d love to see this area made into a real social gathering spot for the book. Why not host live uStreams with the author or feature ongoing forums for people that are into the book? This can and should be taken further than what’s there.

And now my questions for you guys out there are these:

What do you think of the Vook concept? What types of books will make the best Vooks? What’s keeping you from trying one out?

On Tuesday afternoon, I went over to Elliott Bay Books to check out Gary Vaynerchuk while he stopped by to talk about his new book, “Crush It.” As usual, his enthusiasm and positive energy was infectious. In fact, the first thing I did when I got home was read the entire book cover to cover and here’s what I learned: if you squeezed Gary until he became an oozing liquid, and then you sopped up his essence with a bunch blank pages, you’d end up with this book (and it would taste nice with a glass of Petit Verdot).

“Crush It” is like having Gary sit down and tell you that it’s time for you live what you love – that there is an unprecedented opportunity to establish your own personal brand and to make a good living at it. The book itself is a practical guide to the current state of content (video, audio and print) on the web, how to see whether you’ve chosen the right niche (do you have 50 posts you can do on it?), and then how to build your influence and audience as you scale out to be a known figure in your chosen space. While some of the tactical information near the end will probably seem very outdated within the next few years, most of the advice in the book is timeless. Gary talks about the importance of having an opinion and telling great stories but focuses even more on how you can build an audience by listening, caring and engaging with people. His life is a living example of each of these precepts and he uses all of the new social media tools at his disposal to find his audience wherever they happen to be.

The following is a recording of Gary’s talk at Elliott Bay Books from October 20th, 2009. It’s worth a listen if you’d like to get a sense of what makes this guy tick and you want some “No BS opinions” on where the internet is heading next. By the way, if you like this, please let me know by leaving some feedback in the comments. I’d be happy to post more author talks whenever I can get to them.