Tizra Blog

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...

"The Tizra architecture gives us confidence in our digital products, even with tens of thousands of students logging in." —Lawrence Frank, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, LAB-AIDS LAB-AIDS is in the business of delivering mission-critical education content, reliably and on a large scale.  For over 50 years, the company has developed, manufactured, and published science education materials for middle- and high-school students, and for teachers across the United States.  In that time, the company has built a reputation for delivering activity-based materials that go beyond the textbook. These materials need to be available to students and teachers at all times — especially during the after-school crunch time when students are doing homework. "Reliability and scalability are crucial to our business," says LAB-AIDS Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Lawrence Frank. "The Tizra architecture gives us confidence in our digital products, e...

This is the first 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. We start with the very core of your publishing business —  audience. Audience drives both sides of your publishing business.  On the product side, it should be the touchstone that guides your editorial and content development efforts.  Book publishers need to make sure their organizations are structured so that the voice of the audience is heard clearly and with authority.  Traditionally in magazine publishing, this role has been served by the editor-in-chief.  Most book publishers don't have comparable structures, and creating them is one of the great challenges of successful online brand building. Your audience impacts where you promote and sell your content — big box reta...

For years Tizra has focused on giving publishers the power of custom software, without the expense of building it themselves. We're tremendously proud of how this approach has empowered many small- to medium-sized publishers to take control of their futures and build digital publishing programs in ways that would otherwise have been beyond their reach.   But what about larger organizations who may already have strong development teams in-house, or who have already built or bought their own software? We hear you, too, and have now rolled out a series of APIs that will enable you to take advantage of the power of Tizra in ways that extend, and integrate with, what you already have. HighWire Press is taking advantage of Tizra's new APIs to generate complex pages for Duke University Press, combining data from multiple sources and platforms. Choosing Open Web Standards Obviously, we're software developers ourselves, so it was important to us to take with an app...

Everyone is thinking about digital publishing, but are you ready to make it a strategic part of your publishing business? According to the Pew Research Center , 23 percent of Americans 16 and older read ebooks within the last year. With more and more content being consumed online, publishers are going beyond tactical one-offs, and taking a serious strategic look at the transition to digital publishing as a core part of their business. In this free webinar hosted by Digital Book World , we will review the 10 most important factors publishers need to consider. The webcast will feature a presentation by Stanford University’s HighWire Press , the technology partner and platform to 150 scholarly publishers, on the decision process they went through when selecting a strategic partner to enhance their ebooks product offering. Join Digital Book World, Tizra, and HighWire on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 at 12pm ET to get the inside scoop on what to consider in building your digital b...