Tizra Blog

Drag-and-drop activity from one of G-W's Tizra-hosted digital textbooks shows how digital-first puts readers first. For most publishers moving to digital, the best strategy is usually to start with their existing print catalog.  Consultants may deride this as a “shovelware” approach (meaning you’re just shoveling print content online), but the truth is it’s the shortest path to getting live with a good quality product, and beginning the process of learning what works and doesn’t work for your readers. Once this is underway, however, it makes sense to start thinking more strategically about  digital first  content.  What do we mean by digital first? We think of digital first content as material that was born digital, i.e, developed from the outset to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by digital delivery, rather than tacking digital features on as an afterthought. Digital-first content enables publishers to do more for the customer.  For ex...

CCFCS curriculum materials hosted by Tizra are winning raves from teachers. After 44 years of empowering teachers with print materials that were aligned with key instructional goals, Texas Tech Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences (CCFCS) made the bold decision to go 100 percent digital using the Tizra digital publishing platform. At first, the task seemed daunting.  “We printed out a copy of each of the curricula and some of them were four inches thick,” says center director Patti Rambo.  In addition to a massive quantity of materials for its 33 courses with 300-350 teaching strategies per course, the school also needed to meet aggressive revenue goals and appeal to a diverse customer base. The Center’s search for solutions was exhaustive until they were directed to Tizra. “Tizra is flexible enough for us to make up the rules as we go along,” said Rambo. “We were able to design our pages so there’s less scrolling, and we were able to color code th...

In the print world, when you think about a reader’s user experience, you consider factors like the size and weight of a book, paper quality, typeface, layout and design.  Moving to digital, some of these factors still hold true, but others are replaced with concerns such as speed, intuitive controls, cross-platform compatibility, plus as with any human interface, a host of intangibles.  We’re always working to make the Tizra reading experience crisper, easier, and less distracting, because happier readers mean happier publishers. Tizra reader upgrade makes it easy to enhance content with interactive lightbox effects. The update builds on Tizra’s ability to provide usability and compatibility across all the most popular web browsers and viewing devices, and is now available to all Tizra customers. Enhancements include:   Speed -- e-reading should be as crisp, fast and simple as turning a page. Your readers are not going to tolerate delays waiting for cont...

What’s an ebook?   For many, the first thought is of a Kindle, Nook or similar device, designed for a single purpose and packed with texts downloaded from a single retailer.  However, it’s easy to forget just how new that notion of ebook publishing software is...or how quickly it’s changing. Vintage Rocket eBook (left) and SoftBook devices show how quickly the basic definition of an ebook can change.  (From the collection of Tizra founder David Durand.) As broadband connections and computing power become more pervasive, the idea of “books in browsers” or “books in the cloud” is gaining traction.  As has already happened in other media with services like Hulu, Netflix and Spotify, book publishers are starting to see the value in streaming content direct to users as they need it, rather than requiring them to download it to their own device before use. The Case for Books in Browsers: Delivering books or content in browsers is ideal for publishers that wan...