In this episode, we talk about the creative and innovative ways that authors can take control and increase their income by using NFTs to sell their books and associated products.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Flyfish Club – https://www.flyfishclub.com/
Bookchain.ca – https://www.bookchain.ca/
Dent – https://www.dent.global/

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Gary Vaynerchuk – https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/
Rory Sutherland – https://twitter.com/rorysutherland

EPISODES TO RESEARCH
What is the Flyfish Club – https://www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk/what-is-the-flyfish-club/

We hope you enjoyed the show and it helped you to gain more clarity and give you lots of ideas as to how you can use NFTs as an author.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE
This podcast is for entertainment and education purposes only. We do not give any investment or financial advice and we strongly recommend you always DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Episode Transcript

Cheryl00:03

Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. I am Cheryl

Angela00:07

Hello. I am Angela Harkness. We have been and are still on a journey to discover the Metaverse with 3.0 NFTs and anything that we are required to know to join this world

Cheryl00:20

from. From this podcast, we will help you to unlock how the manifest is going to impact your brand.

Your business and even your personal life.

Angela00:30

Join us as we take the mystery out of this new digital universe.

Welcome to Women of the Manifest. In this episode, we are talking about how authors can use NFTs to create a better experience and make more sales. We have talked in many different episodes about the power of using NFTs in your business. We have really started to highlight innovative companies and projects that are using NFTs in very creative ways, such as Gary Chu’s Venture, the Fly Fish Club. Go and listen to that episode. It’s a good one. It’s a really good one. It, Yeah. In this episode, we will be talking about how authors can use NFTs to sell their books and associated merchandise. We are specifically talking about authors as opposed to those of you who create digital courses or templates, However, Every conversation we have about NFTs, the blockchains and smart contracts is an opportunity for you to gain some new ideas, and also we will, in a later episode, create a specific one for digital content.

Yeah.

Cheryl01:43

So yeah, definitely. Just because you may not have a book doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna get ideas from this episode.

Angela01:50

And I’m really excited about this one cuz this was another one where we went, Oh, what are we gonna write? There’s not gonna be anything to write. And then when you delve into it, like, Oh God, there’s so much here.

So your time, I know this is a good one.

Cheryl02:03

I think there was a period of time when people panicked about the book industry because of the invention of the Kindle and other reading devices. According to some, when this happened, the world of publishing was doomed. Doomed, . Those among us who tend to look at the negative side suggested that bookshops would close, or authors would lose out and the book world would collapse.

We exaggerate, but it is an example of people being fearful of change. The truth of the matter is that in the way in which people read books has increased. If you ever watched Book Talk on TikTok, you’ll see that people are most definitely still buying books, and in fact, physical book sales have increased since the pandemic, but people are also reading on digital devices and audio sales have increased, especially since the launch of Audio Audible.

It’s become a common place for authors to record audio versions of their

Angela03:11

books. Did you ever go into Waterstones on Piccadilly and it not be packed in there? All the time. All the time. When people, when people say, Oh, I loved that place cuz you had a great ca Oh yeah, great cafe. Loved it. And it was like how many floors?

Like four floors of books. Yeah. And it was always just to the brim with people.

Cheryl03:35

Absolutely. And only stopped going because Well

Angela03:39

pre for the Pandemic. Pandemic. That’s it. Yeah, but I loved it. It was a great place. So for authors, the choices are greater. It’s, I mean, it’s still tough to get a book publishing deal and when you do, the rewards are not necessarily great.

But there are now a larger number of smaller publishers, and there is also the self-publishing route with Print on Demand, which I think is brilliant through Amazon, which has increased the number of people who write books and publish books. We know a few, I know quite a few people now have got books.

Cheryl04:12

I think everyone’s got a book.

I mean,

Angela04:13

all of my except us 

Cheryl04:16

I’m really not, um, in a place to be writing a book. I don’t wanna spend a year writing a book.

Angela04:25

No, but it’s, But it is part of Daniel Priestly’s key personal influence. Yes. Which

Cheryl04:30

is now called d. Yes, they do encourage you to be an author. Yeah, Which is fantastic because I did do a lot of covers and a lot of websites as a result of Daniel Priestley, so thank you very

Angela04:45

much.

Good for you, . Yeah, Good for you. What is, and has always been difficult for authors though, compared to other artists, is the royalty and protecting their ip. So traditionally, authors only receive royalty on the first sale of the book. Then they have to watch others making money, selling their books on the secondhand market, or even seeing them lend to friends.

Can you imagine? Oh no, I’ve got it. Youre the author. No, I brought it. I’ll lend it too. And the authors just like, Yeah, the authors just sitting there thinking, I’m not getting any money for this. Go and buy a copy. This is where NFTs and selling books on the blockchain and smart contracts create a way to allow authors and publishers to control book sales to a great extent so that when copies of the books are sold, the author and or the publishing house continue to receive revenue, but also be creative in the ways to generate other streams of.

In its simplest form by publishing a digital version of a book on the blockchain, it immediately registers the true author of the book. And then when someone purchases that book, it registers who has a right to read it?

Cheryl06:01

And if this is a tiny bit confusing, then do go back to our blockchain episodes.

Angela06:06

Yes.

Episode seven. I think that was good memory. No, I had to look it up to

Cheryl06:15

Book chain.ca is a perfect example of

Angela06:19

this. It’s a genius name for a company, right? Book chain genius. Totally.

Cheryl06:25

And again, it will make more sense if you, if you know all about the blockchain. Yes. It’s a Canadian company that has been set up purely to help offers and publishers to sell their books on the blockchain.

So unlike most of the other projects, And companies that we’ve talked about in the previous episodes. The beauty of this is that you can purchase these books on the blockchain without having a cryptocurrency wallet. You can also read the book on any device that has access, access to the browser, the smart contract that is set up when the book is published, and the blockchain determines everything, what price the book is sold.

What royalties the offer and publishing house receive for each sale? It can even determine who receives estate royalties. So an office estate continues to receive royalties even after they’ve passed away and anything else. For example, if you wanted to pay a certain amount of royalties to a charity, then that can be written into the smart tract.

Angela07:28

I love this. It’s, it’s so genius. It’s no brainer. Yeah, it’s excellent.

Cheryl07:33

And of course we think it’s the future. So Angela,

Angela07:35

tell us more. Okay, so on top of this, the blockchain is also connected to the ISBN data. Which, as you know, all books are sold with an ISB number. So even if you self-publish, you have to buy an isb, which is actually quite expensive.

I, I actually didn’t know this, so

Cheryl07:54

I learned that Yeah. On this,

Angela07:56

uh, research. So there’s no gap for the author between the physical books sold and the digital copy sold on the blockchain, so all royalties are registered. So it, it sort of, it does connect, not only does it create the rules around the purchase of which.

But it helps to protect authors from digital piracy, which apparently is a really genuine problem. I, I wasn’t aware of that until we, we did our research, but it is a big problem that authors face with their digital content, their digital books, but authors also, the control is so much greater because it is so much easier to self-publish.

You can write, upload, and start selling your book as soon as you. As we have said, you control the royalties and also you don’t have to wait for royalties to come through, which for physical cells through a publishing house, can take quite a lot of time. The beauty of NFTs is it now gives you much more opportunities to be creative, not just in the way your book is released and sold, but also in what else you release as part of it.

So this is cuz that the book. Gives you just instructions and you literally upload it connected to the blockchain and then you start selling. Whereas if you go through a published chain house, sometimes it’s six, nine months before from the end of the writing to when the book is Yeah. Is released.

Cheryl09:22

I mean, they, they always have a step by step process.

I’m finding with all these web three crypto.

Angela09:30

Yes, website. So it sounds complex. Yeah, you’re right. It sounds complex, but actually if you go onto these websites, the process is really laid out for you. Yeah, it’s really quite Easy’s.

Cheryl09:41

Very good. So we’ve talked in previous episodes where certain offers, such as Gary Vanner, Chuck, instead of charging a speakers fee, he would ask for a certain number of books to be sold.

This could now be done via an nft. The smart contract could state you purchase a thousand physical copies and sell a further 1000 digital copies. Then I will speak at your conference. You could not only create a collectible piece from the nft, but you could create additional revenue through the second hand sale.

Those digital copies, the smart contract could also state that if you sell a further certain number of sales, I will. Certain clients a lunch or I know

Angela10:29

a workbook private or a private with me. Private reading, I mean, just an example, but limitless in what you could do really and what you could offer.

Cheryl10:38

First. Editions have always been desirable. You could make a first edition even more of a collectible item by releasing them as an nft. There is a threefold effect on this. The physical copy becomes desirable. The digital first edition sold in a small release who could become a collector’s item, and then the NFT itself.

You could also create scarcity in the first edition by only releasing a small number. The Wutang clan did this by releasing 36 copies of a book that contains over 300 pages of unreleased photos weighing 400 pounds. On its own. It would’ve been a much sought after book, but by using this brilliant marketing tactic, they created scarcity and desirability.

Angela11:28

I love all of this. I love all of these ideas because it just, it just creates so many different avenues for an author to do it. Just think different up, isn’t it? Yeah, totally. You know what I was thinking about today when I was thinking about us recording this? Have you seen that? Um, woman, she’s a young woman on TikTok and she, she paints the sort of bindings of the book.

Yes, I have seen that. The pages and just so intricate and brilliant. I see. If you commissioned her to create, say, five of those, That you then sold as the first edition copy through an NFT that she also then created. It’s things like that that you could do that just make it so much more unique and original and add value to it.

Cheryl12:20

Absolutely. Isn’t this like, um, what we spoke about in the episode before with Rory, What’s

Angela12:25

his name? Sutherland? Yes. Southern. Yeah. Got to do something outside the box. Yes. Don’t follow the crowd. There you goes.

Cheryl12:33

That’s free. One from Angela there,

Angela12:36

, whatever idea. My wise words. Yeah, absolutely. What

Cheryl12:39

other idea

Angela12:39

is Angela?

Okay, so as we were just saying, you create art pieces along with the publication of a book that can be sold as separate NFTs. This is a brilliant way to market the book, but it also is a way to spur people to buy and collect, especially if you plan to release a series of books. Imagine if you’re an author and illustrator of a children’s book, for example, and you start to release illustrations from the book as collections of NFTs.

As each book in the series is released, you release more NFTs. Not only is there a potential then to generate potential book sales, but you will also receive continued income from any NFTs that are sold on the secondhand market. You could even create original pieces of art that are not illustrations in the book.

So then again, you are growing a fan base from the book, but you are also potentially creating a market for investors of the NFTs on their own. You could release additional content that is not in the physical books, maybe additional chapters or, I don’t know, different endings or clues. That’s a great idea.

Yeah. Or puzzles that need to be sold. All of this adds the to the collectibility. And then there are collaborations. So we talked about that amazing artist on TikTok. You could do, um, NFTs that play, um, a part in any games that you create. If you have characters, for example. Or even you could maybe create NFTs.

That people could use to finance the films from your book or create a screenplay, and then the NFT owners then have a share in that. That’s a massive one. But that potentially in the future is how films could be financed. Yeah, and depend. Depending on the type of book you write, you could create a personal video.

So if you are, for example, doing a children’s book, you could do some readings. For the book where you changed the name of the character to that of the child, for example, as a gift. Then there are the physical assets that you could create, such as characters from a film or trading cards or, I don’t know, you could even come to read as school or do a private reading for a book club.

I mean, the ideas are just endless, aren’t they?

Cheryl15:05

Absolutely. Imagine if Harry Potter did all. Oh my God. Obviously JK Roland is absolutely rolling in it anyway, but if she released NFTs for each character of

Angela15:17

the book, Yeah, that would be incredible. You know what I keep thinking about is Mr. Men, That

Cheryl15:23

keeps coming.

I’ve got feeling that’s actually already started. Aren’t

Angela15:27

I imagined? I did. I think you’re right because I dunno why it keeps coming. Into my head. But the MR. Men would just make great nfps wouldn’t they? Absolutely would.

Cheryl15:37

Yeah. And I think they brought out some new ones.

Angela15:40

Yes. I think you’re right. . Yeah. That keeps going through my head anyway.

Publishing a book for such a long time has had such a traditional route with the, but with the ability. And the control, the NFTs, the blockchain as smart contracts allow every author, maybe for the first time, really has the ability to gain their fair share from their books that they have never seen before.

Cheryl16:07

So we hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and given you a new perspective of how NFTs can make a massive advantage to your, your book, or your new book. Or maybe now you have, you are even more encouraged to release that book, and would you consider this route? We would love to know. Join us next week as we continue our journey into the Metaverse.

See you then.

Angela16:35

Bye for.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Women of the Metaverse.

Cheryl16:44

You can find all information, links and people we talked about in the show notes on our website.

Angela16:50

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please comment and subscribe.

Cheryl16:54

Join us again in the next episode as we continue this exciting metaverse journey.