Skip to main content

Meet us at Digital Book World, Jan 13-15

Digital Book World 2014
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 trade publishers are starting to see direct reader relationships really are key to the future of their businesses, just as many educational and professional publishers have realized for some time now.  Maybe both reasons are part of a larger trend toward a more mature, practical and independent approach to digital publishing throughout the industry.

We'll see.  In any case, we're excited to be meeting friends and colleagues in NYC, and hope to see you there!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Using XML to Create a Better Online Reading Experience for the American Payroll Association

Congrats to the American Payroll Association on their recent launch of XML-based publications on Tizra!  Thanks to this collaboration, APA's authoritative books for payroll professionals are now available in crisp, reflowable HTML, creating a user experience that feels like a truly digital native product, rather than a conversion from print. XML-based publishing also creates a better mobile reading experience, supports more precise search and navigation, and opens the door to better accessibility for users with low vision and other disabilities. Our partners at  Scribe  did a great job supporting APA through the process of producing the XML for loading into Tizra, and we’d definitely recommend them to anyone interested in such a transition. It’s hard to overstate what a big step forward this is for Tizra as a platform and a company. XML has long been planned for in the product's architecture, but now for the first time, we have a working example that demonstrates t...

FEB 11: Catch our Lightning Demo at Tools of Change

When the first Agile PDF sites launched recently, we promised we'd be saying more soon about how the sites were built. Well, the first public demo is coming up at the O'Reilly Tools of Change Conference in NYC: The Five-minute Publication Site —Part of the TOC Lightning Demos Series, February 11, 7:30-8:30pm, Broadway Ballroom As the name suggests, we'll be showing just how quickly a publisher can move from PDF files to a flexible, customizable website selling digital content. And of course, if you've got a bit more than five minutes, we'd be happy to answer any questions. We'll be exhibiting immediately after the demos at the TOC Faire , and happy to talk at any point during the rest of the conference. Drop us a note at info@tizra.com .

Slater Invests in Tizra

This is a big one for us. Rhode Island's Slater Technology Fund is betting $500,000 that Tizra will "really open the floodgates for book-based content from thousands of publishers." Their investment caps a year in which we've gone from four people , two dogs and an idea to a company that someone besides us and our friends and families believe will set online publishing on its ear. We even have our very own Forbes article . Thanks to the folks at Slater for being great advisors as well as investors, and to the many friends and family members who preceded them!