Anne Rice Will Release Vook

To me the whole concept has always sounded like a lot of sizzle for a steak that already exists. After all, we’ve had moving pictures for an awful long time, and interactive medium for long enough to be accepted and, in a lot of cases, expected. How is a video book anything other than excitement about something that, more or less, already exists? (There are real questions, BTW. If you have the answers, let me know.)

Meanwhile, this week, the mildly exciting Vook took on a whole new layer of cool when they announced that Interview of the Vampire author Anne Rice was going to give the video book form a whirl. Rice and Vook will collaborate on a multi-media edition of “The Master of Ramping Gate,” a short story -- complete with vampires -- that was initially published by Redbook back in 1984. From The Washington Post:

“Vook represents a very exciting combination of new technological elements, that I think is long overdo in publishing,” Rice said in a statement released Wednesday by Vook. “I’m excited that ‘The Master of Rampling Gate’ is going to have new life in this form, and cannot wait to see the finished product. I’m not sure that my mind can conceive of all the possibilities of this new form. I’m learning. And it feels good.”

Opinions are still mixed among publishers and authors about video books, or vooks, with some calling them a gimmick and others saying new formats are needed for the Internet age. The product integrates text, video and social networking.

The Washington Post story is here. We’ve written about Vook before, and that’s here. There are two different January Magazine interviews with Rice. They are here and here.