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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Vook Becomes Self-Publishing Platform

Update: Vook, re-launched as Pronoun,  was purchased by MacMillan in 2016. 18 months later, it shuttered the platform.

Amazon may be in for some competition from Vook.

Vook (founded in 2009) publishes digital books that combine text, video, links to the internet and social media. Vook’s publishing platform is used by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, and Thought Catalog. It has partnered with NBC Universal and Perseus Books, Charles River Editors and ABC News to produce ebooks that are distributed through Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Google, Kobo, and Blio.

With its contacts in major media, and its expansion into worldwide distribution, Vook may offer a serious challenge to Amazon, Smashwords, and Book Baby. It is hoping to attract Indie authors by offering 100% royalties, and a free self-publishing platform.
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Vook Pivots, Becomes Self-Pub Platform Pronoun

By Calvin Reid, May 19, 2015: Publisher's Weekly


After a year of acquisitions that included the online literary boutique Byliner and the e-book data analysis engine Booklr, e-book creator Vook has relaunched itself as Pronoun. The new company is a soup-to-nuts self-publishing platform comprising the combined technological tools of Byliner, Booklr and Vook. Declaring itself “a new model for authors,” Pronoun offers its services free of charge and gives authors a 100% royalty rate.

“Pronoun is committed to changing the publishing model by making it open, and by making it free,” said Josh Brody, Pronoun CEO. Brody said the new platform is the culmination of “a year of acquisitions and building a new team,” that will offer “a new kind of platform that empowers authors.”

Vook launched in 2009 as an e-book and interactive content production company. Vook has distributed over 6,000 titles via all the major e-book retailers. Booklr, a data analysis company, tracks millions of e-book sales around the world for individual authprs and major houses. And Byliner, an online literary imprint and e-book store, published original and backlist titles by bestselling authors such as Nick Horney and Jodi Poult.

Pronoun chief product officer Ben Zhuk said: “Our mission at Pronoun is to put authors first by building free digital tools that help them find and reach their audience for the lifetime of their books, not just at launch.”

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2 comments:

  1. This sounds amazing! Have tweeted it out. Do you know anyone who is using yet? Thanks for the heads up Erica!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pronoun has not gone live, so there is no feedback from authors. I'll be checking their site periodically for developments.

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