At
the Bookseller's FutureBook blog,
Molly Flatt does an excellent job of summing up the incredible advantages and
opportunities that browser-based books offer over books as apps and ebooks.
The post
is definitely worth a read. In it, Flatt argues that books as apps lead to an
unpleasant experience for readers, due to both the barrier of entry of
downloading and the inconvenience and disruption of leaving the "walled
garden" each time one clicks on a link.
Tizra's
publisher clients would most likely agree with Flatt that apps are equally if
not more painful for publishers: "From a publisher’s point of view,
producing and distributing content via an app is a total pain - from
creating complex InDesign files to working with frustrating external
shopfronts such as the Apple Store. And it’s useless for SEO."
Noting the
advances by leaps and bounds that web design has made in recent years, Flatt
states plainly that the web now "better caters for long-form
storytelling".
Flatt then
takes the argument for browser-based books beyond apps, to ebooks - which we
concur are aptly described as "those clunky, unattractive, digital-but-not-native
things that run within low-grade apps...Those things that have been crying out
for a rethink for at least a decade...".
As Flatt
comments, "truly native browser books, redesigned fresh each time, offer
exciting possibilites to authors and publishers in terms of
design, interactive extras, data gathering and SEO". We at Tizra
couldn't agree more!
Tizra's
digital publishing software was built to allow publishers to easily create
"books in browsers" from within their own websites. Publishers can
control access to their content; optimize it for discoverability, sharing and
sales; unbundle and remix it for new products; and incorporate
multimedia. Plus, Tizra can easily be integrated into existing systems,
offers automatic mobile content optimization, and provides built-in agile
ecommerce tools.
For Tizra,
books as websites have proven worth well beyond just a thought - and resulted
in successful business models for our client publishers! To learn how Tizra can
put your books into browsers, drop us a note, or sign up for a demo.
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