Authors need to take the NFT concept out of their minds and consider it as the limited digital distribution of your book. An autographed copy of a printed book, before its wide release, could go along with your NFT sales.
A book can be an NFT. NFTs are tokens exchanged using cryptocurrency that represent real property. So the ownership of a token corresponds to the ownership of an asset. NFTs can both come in the form of books and represent ownership of books. However, the advantage of a book NFT is questionable.
One idea is to make a unique, physical copy of your book to go with your NFT copy. For example, you might want to sell an NFT for $100-$500 for digital copies of the first to 50th copies of your new book, then send out the special edition, signed, physical copies.
These NFTs would essentially show you owned a unique digital copy of your book, which you were free to sell to whoever wanted it. For this post, the key thing to know is that you can apply this unique feature (of physically signed books) to the digital copies of your books, creating one or more NFTs for them.
Books Are Natural Items for NFT Representation
The movement makes the NFT books feel much more like unique digital assets, the same way that buying the first printing of a printed book, or having the author signing copies, does. Scarcity is critical Whereas an e-book is considered to be a consumable product, with little to no value beyond the Kindle or Kobo reader on which you are viewing it, an NFT book can be considered as a digital asset, one you can hold on to or exchange, much in the same way that a first edition printed book is.
Whereas an ebook is considered an unrestricted asset with virtually no value outside of the reader you view it on, authors can produce (or mint, in NFT parlance) a finite number of NFT books, making them scarce.
Once you have stamped your book with the NFT, it belongs to you; that means you can market it independently from the publisher. Selling an NFT book is not the same as using publishers in terms of publishing a digital and print book. An NFT is a way of selling a digital book and literary paraphernalia in a way that maximizes the author’s income.
How NFTs Empower Authors
NFTs enable authors to build new kinds of products within the digital realm. Online platforms selling NFTs, such as OpenSea or Mirror, let artists write into the terms of their NFTs that they receive a share of second-hand sales, akin to traditional book royalties. Doing this allows authors and filmmakers to potentially triple down on their investments while continuing to receive royalties from the shares of their NFT sold in the secondary market forever.
The primary difference making NFTs game-changers is that one can take a cut from a resale of an NFT in the secondary market (in perpetuity). Resale is where the digital edge over print books comes into play when using an NFT, as authors and other parties get to keep making a small percentage royalty from these resales for all eternity.
Instead of getting just 70%, which is what most digital services give authors, the author can get something more like 90% and then get royalties over again when this digital book is sold and resold. Unlike with publishing platforms, where an author has to wait weeks and sometimes months before they get royalties from their books, you are immediately repaid when you sell an NFT book.
The most obvious advantage is that an author (or publisher, depending on who holds the rights) can immediately put an item up for sale at auction after NFT books (s) are mint, without paying for the platform’s fees or sales, like those charged by Amazon (30-65%). If a startup were to offer a selling NFT service where all copies of a particular author’s book will be sold on a blockchain, this service might be providing a service not offered by Amazon at this point.
For instance, some authors might wish to release only a single NFT of their book — for the NFT to be a collectible. Or, taking an entirely different perspective, Bookvolt has had authors express an interest in creating an NFT-only release of their works (meaning that the books would never be published physically nor sold on e-book platforms). In this scenario, authors are creating thousands of NFTs for their books, with only the holders of NFTs being able to read their books.
The Advantages Conferred by NFT Books
It is not like the function of an NFT is weirdly different than that of print; an NFT wrote down is like an early-edition book or an uncommon copy. The format of an NFT book is ideal for independent authors: the core tenet of an NFT is that it builds a greater affinity between the creator and collector.
NFT books allow you to add additional files, including written book content that you can read, as well as original art from the text, maps, or even video interviews with the author. A Digital First Edition could be filled with potential extras not available elsewhere, including bonus chapters, introductions, glossaries, audio and video content, author interviews, maps, illustrations, and more.
This is what makes an NFT book a digital-first edition, and authors can use it to improve their books in ways they have never been able to. Authors can get creative and explore new media: For instance, different types of content can be embedded into the NFT book, ranging from video interviews with authors to interactive maps and even links to 1-on-1 Zoom calls with authors.
Because the objects represented by the NFT are not stored in the Ethereum Blockchain, authors can tailor how the selling of their writings is defined in NFTs. While e-books exist as downloadable files anyone can buy through online ebook retailers, an NFT book can be purchased from a blockchain-only marketplace, shifting the book’s ownership from seller to buyer — copyright is not included. You cannot create an NFT for your book at a lower price. Otherwise, fees would strangle you.