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Books That Are Websites - Worth More Than a Thought

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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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