The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) has announced a new cooperative venture with e-publishing service provider Tizra, Inc., US. Through this agreement, AAUP members will be eligible for discounted access to the Tizra Publisher platform.
The Tizra Publisher platform is a web-based application for distributing and selling electronic books and similar content. Publishers signing up for the service will get their own customised ebook websites, and retain complete control over the presentation, organisation and sales terms of their content through an easy-to-use web control panel. MIT Press recently launched an ebook site providing an example of the capabilities at http://cisnet.mit.edu.
The AAUP-Tizra discount programme is particularly well-suited to presses with staff who are taking on more responsibilities as they balance print and electronic format publishing. The non-exclusive agreement provides discounted subscription rates at all product tiers to AAUP members, modest revenue back to the association, and the opportunity for presses of any size to move into the electronic sale and delivery of content collections with very little technology expertise needed.
AAUP will begin arranging webinars with Tizra for interested members in the first week of October. Tizra will be inviting participating presses to sign up for the first, free tier of their hosted platform's service, and will be ready to answer any questions AAUP members have about the service or the new discount programme.
