Tizra Blog

Launching today, THE DIGITAL EINSTEIN PAPERS is a publicly available website of the collected and translated papers of Albert Einstein that allows readers to explore the writings of the world’s most famous scientist as never before. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE [ PDF Version ] Princeton, NJ – December 5, 2014 – Princeton University Press, in partnership with Tizra, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and California Institute of Technology, announces the launch of THE DIGITAL EINSTEIN PAPERS ( http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu ). This unique, authoritative resource provides full public access to the translated and annotated writings of the most influential scientist of the twentieth century: Albert Einstein. “Princeton University Press has a long history of publishing books by and about Albert Einstein, including the incredible work found in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein,” said Peter Dougherty, director of Princeton University Press. “We are delighted to make these t...

A while back, we announced a partnership with ReadSpeaker, a leading provider of text-to-speech software. We're really excited to see how our customers have been using the capability to make their ebooks and other content more accessible to users with vision impairments and other handicaps… as well as more engaging for all kinds of users. Check out what Gibbs Smith is doing with their history textbooks in the video below, and request a demo if you'd like to learn more about how they did it.

Tizra makes books—and book fairs—easier to navigate. Along with much of the publishing world, we are excitedly preparing for the annual Frankfurt Book Fair next week.  275,000 participants are expected, more than the population of Tizra's home city of Providence. If you're like us, you'll want all the help you can get navigating the maze of pavilions and events, so we've posted web versions of the show's handy A-to-Z quick reference guide on the Tizra demo site, in English and Deutsch .  Hope you find it useful...and that we see you among the 275,000!

Helping readers maintain the kind of contextual awareness and quick navigation that print books naturally afford has been a perennial challenge in designing digital reading interfaces. Our new thumbnail browsing option helps by displaying a row of small page images below the main reading area. Readers can quickly skim back and forth to spot the page layouts and illustrations they're looking for. It's especially helpful with educational, reference and illustrated texts, where ability to home in fast on the right page is key. [ TRY IT NOW ] If you're a Tizra customer and you'd like the feature activated, just drop us a line .

We recently took a closer look at the analytics for publications delivered through Tizra , and were not surprised to see that mobile usage continues to rise sharply. But what did surprise us was just how quickly one particular mobile device—the iPad—is driving a fundamental change in the way people consume content. Apple's iOS mobile operating system is now second only to Windows in popularity , mostly because of the rapid rise in iPad use. Compared to a year ago, iPad traffic is up 277 percent , and now represents 21 percent of total user sessions on Tizra-powered sites. It's hard to think of a better opportunity for publishers of eBooks and other long-form content.  If you'd like to know more about how publishers like the  International Association for the Study of Pain , LAB-AIDS and others are working with Tizra, please drop us a line .

We have talked about three of the 10 Factors to Consider when Developing your Digital Publishing Strategy , including audience , selling direct , and monetization . Today, we tackle discovery. The way readers discover new books and content is changing and this is happening not just in the consumer trade publishing business. Discovery is moving from bookstores and face-to-face conversations to online discovery and referrals through social networks, and, as a recent study from Bowker Market Research shows, this is true even of ebooks.  In fact, O'Reilly Tools of Change published findings in 2013 to show that 39 percent of their sample discovered books online, 27 percent through an online publication, and 14 percent through social media.  So what does this mean for publishers? It means rethinking your marketing strategy to focus more on online discovery. Here are 5 Strategies for Improving your Online Ebook Discovery: 1. Search Engine Optimization - a tric...

An email from one of our customers this morning reminded me that sometimes it’s best to just get out of the way and let them do the talking.  Following is unedited text from John Weatherby, Director of Product Line Management, at LAB-AIDS  (and an umpire in his spare time), on why he recommends Tizra to his colleagues...                 Reliability of TIZRA – we have experienced very little downtime during the course of our relationship and that is critical, especially to teachers that rely on access during class time                 Cross platform Capabilities – This is key in my mind as the diversity of the products teachers and students are using to access TIZRA is an issue. To develop something in-house that would work across all platforms would be fairly complicated                 Technical Support – You guys have done a great job supporting us and tr...

Targeted promotions and content bundle upsells are two ideas to test in optimizing sales. This is the third in a series of blog posts based on our webcast,  "10 Factors to Consider when Developing your Digital Publishing Strategy."  You can still watch it in its entirety here: So far we have talked about the importance of understanding your   audience  and whether or not to sell direct . Today, we investigate the various monetization strategies publishers utilize.  The entire publishing industry has been experimenting with pricing and delivery models, from the Netflix-like subscription services offered by Oyster and Scribd, to bundling of ebooks with print editions, to chapter-at-a-time sales and more. Yet no single pricing model has emerged.  What does that tell publishers? It means that you need the flexibility to experiment with your pricing strategy and adapt quickly to market fluctuations and demands. You will need a commerce and delivery...

"We needed to find a way to keep all our of customers together on the same site," --Melanie Jeffs, Director of Digital Products, Orca Book Publishers Orca, a Canadian-based publisher of award-winning books for children, teens and reluctant readers, used to maintain separate websites and e-commerce platforms for its various digital offerings. The company had its free teaching resources under its own domain, separate e-commerce stores for the U.S. and Candian booklists, and a third site supporting paid subscriptions to its Text2Reader language arts resources. Maintaining these disparate platforms was a headache and didn't provide a smooth customer experience. "We needed to find a way to keep all our of customers together on the same site," said Melanie Jeffs, Director of Digital Products at Orca. After closely examining a number of different e-commerce solutions, Orca selected the Tizra Digital Publishing Platform because it offered: The ability...

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the International Association for the Study of Pain launched eBook sites on Tizra almost simultaneously. Site launch announcements tend to be a bit like high school football coverage in small-town papers: The only people who pay attention are the players and their families. We think today's news is a little different, though. It involves two very prestigious organizations with similar goals going live on Tizra almost simultaneously, and as a result, serves to emphatically highlight some trends of broad interest in professional publishing. Why did both the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the International Association for the Study of Pain choose now to go-live with eBook portals on Tizra? Each had their reasons, but a few common threads... Both view delivering value to, and building relationships with, members as mission critical, and therefore wanted a digital publishing platform that would help the...

While the opportunities in digital publishing keep growing, so do the challenges. It's no longer enough to get your content online and figure out how to market and sell it. The digital audience is getting broader and more diverse, which means you need to adapt to new ways of consuming content. Helping publishers meet these challenges is Tizra's mission, as demonstrated in recent enhancements like improved mobile support ,  enhanced online reading , and better ways to deliver digital first-content . Now we're going a step farther, and adding text-to-speech capabilities through a partnership with ReadSpeaker , the worldwide leader in this area since 1999. Soon, you'll not only be able to reach users across a wide range of devices and platforms through Tizra, but will also be able to reach all levels of reading ability, different learning styles, and users with visual and other disabilities. This partnership is a great fit not only because ReadSpeaker's commitmen...

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) provides leadership in public and information policy to 125 research and academic libraries in the U.S. and Canada. A few years ago, in an effort to increase community engagement and reduce costs, ARL made the move from print to digital publications using the Tizra platform. "Our goal was not just to go e-only, but to get there with enhanced functionality," said Publications Program Officer Lee Anne George. When evaluating digital publishing platforms, ARL had some critical requirements including: Support for existing publication formats A full e-commerce platform supporting both free and paid content, as well as password- and IP-authenticated access for individual users or entire organizations Mobile responsive design support Full-text searching including relevancy ranking and linking to specific pages in search and social sharing Support for ARL's digital accessibility mandates After extensive testing, incl...

This is the second in a series of blog posts based on our recent webcast,  "10 Factors to Consider when Developing your Digital Publishing Strategy."  If you weren't able to attend, you can still watch it in its entirety, including the interactive question and answer session here.  In the first post of  this series, we talked about the importance of understanding your audience . Today, we turn our attention to another of the most important decisions a digital publisher can make: whether or not to sell direct. As you may have recently read, many large publishers such as HarperCollins, Sourcebooks, and F+W Media, have begun selling digital content direct to consumers through dedicated websites, such as Narnia.com and Pottermore.com, or branded mobile applications. Others are waiting in the wings, but starting to establish direct relationships with consumers through direct marketing and social media. Of course there are trade-offs to be made, do you cede control ...

"We were most comfortable with Tizra because of their personal approach. As a small company, we wanted a close relationship with a company that provides the same level of support we deliver to our customers."  -- Curtis R. Vouwie, President and Publisher, OEM Health Information, Inc. OEM Health Information, Inc. is a small company with an outsized presence in its field.  They have been publishing books on occupational and environmental health topics for over thirty years, and their books are relied on by doctors and nurses who need to be able to access information in a wide range of settings, and have no time for tech hassles.  "We needed an ebook solution that provided simple, reliable access from the clinic or from the road," says President and Publisher Curtis Vouwie. With a small staff, Vouwie knew he needed outside help in choosing the right digital publishing platform.  He partnered with Laura Fillmore at Open Book Systems  (OBS), a publi...

It's a sign of the times that this will be the first year Tizra exhibits at the Digital Book World Conference , now in its fifth year in New York City.  Traditionally, DBW has been all about trade publishing, and trade publishing has been all about selling through traditional retail channels, i.e., bookstores increasingly dominated by Amazon. Tizra, on the other hand, has long been the choice of publishers who want to reach their readers directly.  Some because they feel that reader communities are the lifeblood of their business.  Others because they want to build their own brands.  Others because they don't want to put more than 30% of their revenue into someone else's pockets...particularly if that someone's long-term interests aren't necessarily aligned with theirs. So why are we exhibiting this year?  Partly because the Tools of Change Conference, which we've attended since 2007 , is no longer being held.  But also because there are signs that tr...