In 1436 Johannes Gutenburg began working on his printing press. As an experienced professional goldsmith, Gutenberg skilfully used the knowledge he obtained as a craftsman. The revolutionary use of alloy, lead and antimony in combination with a special matrix enabled him to produce high quality printed books, that changed the publishing industry for good. Currently the publishing industry might undergo another innovative change, even though the impact of the invention of the printing press might not be matched, it will have a substantial influence on the development of publishing in the years to come.
In the past year we have seen the slow but steady rise of the e-book as a new technology in the publishing industry. In the last couple of years it has become painfully clear that this technological change would have far-reaching consequences for publishers as well, as this article shows: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/more-publishers-fail-as-e-books-rise-a6753931.html . Furthermore, the publishing industry has seen a trend of self-publishing, US barcode provider Bowker says it saw an ISBN registration growth rate of 21% between 2014 and 2015 for print and ebooks combined and self-published titles have soared by more than 375% since 2010, climbing from 152,978 ISBNs to 727,125 ISBNs. For a variety of reasons, such as the loss of creative control, the slow process rates and the low set royalties, authors have left the traditional publishing route for self-publishing.
Although self-publishing has become an increasingly popular option, the authors that went down this road still face some major issues. For instance the enormous amount of low quality books produced, often lacking professional editing or illustration. To solve this issue, and many others, Josef Marc has launched Publica: a decentralised publishing platform on blockchain technology that enables authors to raise capital in a crowdfunding manner. Smart contract technology will allow readers to buy access to the novel on the platform directly from the author, without further intermediaries, after which they obtain irrevocable ownership of the book.
The problem
First of all, the traditional publishing industry has an oligopoly like market structure. The ‘Big Five’, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Macmillan Publishers, Pinguin Random House and Simon and Schuster dominate the market, leaving little space for authors to resort to other publishers that might offer a higher percentage of the sales revenues.
Moreover, these major players are mainly focussed on the traditional paper printing, which can be seen as part of a larger problem within conventional publishing: conformism. A publisher has to deal with a great amount of stakeholders, such as employees and stockholders, and is therefore risk averse. Publishers generally choose paper printing, because it is familiar and it has been successful in the past. Even if publishers do support e-books, their marketing is often unsatisfactory and especially lacking adequate advertising on social media. This conformism may also lead to a conservative attitude towards unknown writers, as these riskier ventures might go south, which would leave the publisher with insufficient funds to cope with fixed expenses.
Another crucial constraint for the traditional publishing industry is that they are inevitably working with limited financial resources. Although bigger publishers are generally sufficiently funded to launch large scale media campaigns, they have to divide their budget between many projects and are therefore confined in what they can spend on an individual novel. Especially in regard to less notable authors, this might be a enormous restriction. On the Publica platform authors will be able to raise capital in a crowdfunding manner and although authors are able to set a hard cap, this inherently offers the opportunity to raise plentiful capital.
Furthermore self-publishers often complain about the loss of creative freedom. Even if the author is ecstatic about chosen titles, covers and marketing angles, publishers may judge otherwise. Given up on such a fundamental artistic liberty is often considered unacceptable, and thus has been a often heard reason for authors going the indie route.
Doesn’t self-publishing, through online e-book retailers like Amazon solve all of these problems? Sadly, the answer is no. Publishing through e-book retailers like Amazon also means paying for their online retail services and therefore evaporating sales revenues. E-books priced over $9.99 receive as little as 35% in royalties according to the Amazon’s Direct Publishing Terms and Conditions. In addition, the marketing of this book and quality control however, are still the responsibility of the author.
All in all, the current state of affairs in the publishing industry is undesirable for authors and a radical change might be necessary to change this system. This is when Publica comes in.
The solution
Publica is introducing the blockchain revolution to the publishing industry, using smartcontracts to offer acces to literary works, payments and intellectual property rights revenue distribution between authors, third parties and the platform. As CEO Josef Marc puts it in an interview: “Publica is a disruptive service that creates a whole new ecosystem that mixes elements from different media and creates a new infrastructure for all types of media”.
To tackle the problems previously mentioned, Publica has set up a platform with the following characteristics:
- Crowfunding, on the Publica platform readers can use Pebbels (PBL tokens) to purchase a READ token. Using Smart contract technology, the READ token is used as an access key for the novel. This system enables the author to raise capital for writing the book, and also for funding proofreading, editing, professional illustration and so on.
- Elemination of intermediaries, the Publica platform is structured in such as way that no middleman are required. It allows for direct payments between author and reader, that’s the beauty of the blockchain technology.
- Marketing possibilities, contrary to the situation where the traditional publishers are responsible for promoting books, the author itself can take matters into own hands. And where self-publishers often cope with modest marketing budget, the crowdfunding option facilitates a possibility to raise sufficient funds for a decent marketing campaign.
- Freedom to sell without geographic restrictions, over the past years many e-book buyers and especially US citizens trying to buy e-books published in de European Union, have faced difficulties regarding territorial restrictions. Where publishers often use a system of territorial rights, Publica empowers authors to sell ‘to the whole world without fear of chargebacks, errors, or cheating’.
Not to mention numerous other advantages such as the immutable and long-lasting storage of works, and the transparency of sales ledgers. With regard to the detailed technical application of the platform, it is highly advisory to take a low at the proof of concept available on Publica.io and Youtube.
Scepticism
As always, revolutionary ideas face potential obstacles and challenges. Since the Publica platform is still developing, the extent to which these will prove to be problematic is merely guesswork , nevertheless certain questions come to mind:
1. How does the market recognize quality by itself without the ‘visionary intelligence’ of the publisher? Can blockchain technology provide such knowledge of future, yet to discover, quality?
It is generally agreed upon that one of the tasks of publishers is to discover potentially great writers. This often yet quite known writers are given a possibility to publish there work. In the system that Publica will bring into being, this task lies solely with the people, or the consumer so to say. This might leave some writing talent undiscovered. On the other hand, it could be said that because of the risk averse ‘playing safe’ mentality that some publishers might have, they are less prone to regularly give unknown authors a chance. While authors on Publica, can show the first chapter (or chapters) of their work to get attention regardless of status and previous success.
2. How can an individual writer attract the editorial expertise that currently rests with the publishers? How does this blockchain technology attract such expertise to ensure the quality of the works?
In the time-honoured structure, editors are often employed by publishers to ensure the level of quality of the delivered works. Publishers often have an extensive network of editors that play a crucial role in the process, as editors often have a decisive influence in the final version of a work. A famous example is the close collaboration between Harper Lee and Tay Hohoff, the editor who worked with Ms. Lee as her novel went from a dark tale to a redemptive one. Self-publishers don’t always have the experience or network to find a editor that can take their work to a higher level. Nevertheless, this might prove to be only a minor hurdle. Using the unlimited source of information that the internet provides, one easily finds the ‘Editorial Freelancers Association’, that offers legion different editors that could just be fit for the project. Additionally, there are many writers communities such as WritersCafe.org where authors can find a seal of approval from colleagues.
The team and advisors
Unsurprisingly, there is a remarkable experienced and qualified team behind this ambitious plan. Some of the most eye-catching figures include:
- Josef Marc (CEO) is the leader of the Publica team and is undoubtedly one of the most competent CEO’s in this field of work. Having fulfilled managing roles in multimillion companies such as Sony, and having entrepreneurial success before this man might just be the right man on the right place. Similar to Johannes Gutenburg actually, Josef Marc had a whole different career before, although not as a goldsmith but as a musician, where he first learned how publishing and self-publishing worked.
- Arne Krokan is an advisor of Publica. Arne is a Professor of Technology, Communication, Organization and Management at the Department of Sociology and Political Science at NTNU Norway. He is a sought-after keynote speaker, government advisor, and has writer several books on social economics and digital marketing.
- Antons Sapriko (COO) is responsible for the operational management in Publica. Antons has experience in setting up workflows for enterprise-grade delivery to companies such as Walmart, Jaguar, Land Rover, The New York Times, Peugeot and many other brands. He also has experience leading Scandiweb, a vertically integrated service provider with the largest Magento development team in Europe and US, which he evolved from a local agency to one of the largest ecommerce service providers.
Conclusion
Publica offers a platform that is trying to revolutionize the publishing industry. It aspires to solve an substantive problem that authors face, through an modern and innovative platform. Considering the low market capacity of the PBL token, the attention that this project is starting to draw and the capability of the team behind the product, a rapid increase in value of the PBL token would definitely not be shocking.