Skip to main content

Books That Are Websites - Worth More Than a Thought

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Case Study: Orca Book Publishers Unifies its Digital Offerings Using the Tizra Platform

"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...

See Tizra at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Guten Tag! If you are attending the Frankfurt Book Fair and thinking about your digital publishing strategy, we’d like to meet with you to tell you about all the great things happening at Tizra including: Our recent partnership with HighWire to power their Folio ebook platform (see below) How Goodheart-Willcox uses Tizra to create digital first content Exciting new features such as an improved e-reading experience , new mobile responsive design templates , and new APIs for faster uploading and better design integration Plus, some big news we can't tell you about until the show! Find Tizra at: The American Collective Stand Hall 8.0 S31 or email us at carlos.martinez@tizra.com to arrange a meeting. Please join us in congratulating HighWire on the launch of Folio! Built on the HighWire Open Platform and leveraging Tizra for ebook integration, Folio is a flexible, scalable, ebook solution, providing a user-friendly, intuitive reading experience t...

Tizra Upgrade Provides a Crisper, More Interactive E-Reading Experience

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...