The book publishing industry has evolved significantly since the 1990s, yet many traditional practices still limit the rewards authors can reap from their work.
Book.io is building the future of book ownership. It is at the forefront of changing this by leveraging blockchain technology to revolutionize how books are published and distributed thereby changing the game for its authors and owners.
As one of the pioneering NFT projects on the Cardano network, Book.io has demonstrated the power and potential of decentralized publishing.
Notably, they were among the earliest adopters of NMKR’s NFT minting platform, showcasing a new frontier for digital assets in the literary world.
Let’s discuss how this partnership has brought unique value to book authors and owners.
What’s Book.io?
Book.io is an NFT project using the Cardano blockchain network to decentralize books and knowledge. It achieves this by enabling books to never deteriorate while at the same time being able to be sold or transferred across the globe in seconds without permission.
According to its website:
“In 2017, Cofounders Joshua Stone and Ben Illian were brainstorming about the future of digital books and media. Then, Josh asked a question that would chase them until the launch of Book.io on July 22, 2022: ‘What if we truly owned our digital books? What if we owned our eBooks and Audiobooks like we owned our physical books?’ At the time, it was just a question, but one they returned to often. By 2021, it became a daily discussion that turned into an obsession. This was a problem that needed to be fixed.”
In the current digital book distribution model, an e-book is not owned by the person who buys it. The platform is the owner of the media and it extends a license to the final user. It means that those who purchase an e-book do not completely own the book, but rather have access to read it as they wish. As it stands, there are several middlemen involved in the process from book authorship to viewership.
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Book.io uses the power of the distributed ledger to change this dynamic. It gives authors control over their creations and also empowers buyers to truly own their e-book purchases and be able to sell them to others. There is much more of a direct link between authors and readers with fewer middlemen involved.
To do this, Book.io publishes digital books as NFTs using the NMKR platform. Not only is the cover of the book represented as an NFT, but the whole e-book is part of the token.
As a result, e-book owners can freely use their NFTs. After they are done reading the book, the NFT can be resold on the open market. In some cases, the price can be higher than the original one.
How is this new NFT model better for authors?
By using NFTs, authors can maintain full ownership of their work before any sale.
This contrasts with traditional distribution models where digital publishers often control key aspects such as the timing of the book’s release, its visibility, and even pricing. This leaves authors with limited control over their creations.
However, with Book.io’s model, authors can retain the majority of the sale proceeds and have the autonomy to set their own retail prices, giving them far greater control over their work’s distribution and value.
This also opens up new potential strategies for those aspiring to be writers.
Traditionally, used book sales have been a point of contention between publishers and authors, as these sales don’t typically generate royalties for the writers. As a result, many authors have been hesitant to engage with the used book market.
With Book.io’s model, however, authors can earn royalties even on secondary sales, bridging the gap between primary sales and the used book market, and providing authors with ongoing revenue streams from their work.
Authors can utilize innovative strategies to promote their books through Book.io. For instance, they can create special edition covers as rare NFTs, which can be sold at a higher price. These unique editions can not only attract more interest in secondary markets but also result in potentially higher royalties for the author, providing an additional revenue stream and increasing the value of their work.
NMKR and Book.io
NMKR is an NFT and tokenization service built on the Cardano blockchain. In their quest to tokenize and sell e-books, Book partnered with NMKR to use its API and harness the power of the Cardano blockchain.
To date, Book.io has successfully sold hundreds of thousands of NFTs and released more than 70 titles, showcasing its ability to revolutionize the digital book industry, create true ownership for readers, and a new distribution model for authors.
The tokens are not public NFT images of book covers but are fully Decentralized Encrypted Assets (DEAs). This means the token itself is the entire book, fully decentralized and living on-chain in the Cardano network.
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Disclaimer
You should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained herein shall constitute a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by EMURGO to invest.
