How to create your Book ICO?
In this post we are going to explain the steps required to create your Book ICO, as well as to describe different scenarios and possibilities that authors may face.
To start your Book ICO — create an account on Publica’s Book ICO platform and start building your campaign.
Preparing to launch the Book ICO campaign
The preparation for launching the Book ICO campaign consist of three parts — you will need to fill in the following sections:
Step 1: Complete the ‘Author profile’.
Step 2: Complete the ‘Book teaser’ block by entering details about your upcoming book.
Step 3: Select your Book ICO campaign’s details in the ‘Funding goal’.
Note, you will have to start with your author’s profile and only after filling in all required fields, you will be able to proceed to the next section.
Funding goal or Book ICO campaign details
When you have successfully completed the first two steps, it is time to set up your Book ICO campaign according to your preferences. It is very important to understand the key elements of this section since after launching the campaign you will not be able to make changes in this section — the campaign’s details that you will choose will be automatically embedded to the smart contract and will be recorded and logged onto the the blockchain forever.
But don’t worry, it is not complicated at all! In fact, you will be able to preview your campaign page anytime before you go-live (before clicking the “Start ICO” button). In case you need to change something, you can make unlimited amount of changes before launching the campaign!
Let’s break down the key elements of the Book ICO campaign.
Key Dates
In this section you are required to choose your book campaign’s start date, campaign’s duration and insert planned book publishing date (just for reference, so that your supporters know when they can expect your book).
There’s one important thing about the Book ICO start date — in this field you are not choosing when to make your book’s campaign page visible to the audience, but you are choosing the date when you will start collecting money and selling BOOK tokens.
Think carefully when you want to launch your campaign. Usually, every campaign needs time for promotional and marketing activities in order to be a success. For example, you can select your Book ICO’s launch date in two weeks after the launch of the campaign itself (you can launch campaign page anytime you want), in this case your Book ICO campaign’s page will be live and available for visitors, but there will be a countdown that will indicate the date and time when users will be able to contribute.
Think carefully when you want to launch your campaign. Usually, every campaign needs time for promotional and marketing activities in order to be a success.
As already mentioned, it is totally up to you how to design your campaign. Some authors will like to launch a campaign straight away, in this case it is important to pay attention to the Book ICO’s duration.
While the minimum Book ICO duration is 1 day, we strongly recommend to think twice before selecting the campaign’s duration — the longer you will run your campaign, the more time you will have for promotion.
This will give you time to reach out to your fanbase, readers and supporters to let them know about your campaign and to get them engaged and involved as early as possible. This will also help to create momentum for your campaign. At the same time, authors will get funds only at the end of the Book ICO campaign, so you will have to find a balance here.
Think of your ultimate goals and the community you can rely on. How likely you will close the deal based on your existing reader support? Will you need extra time for your next book’s promotion? Did you add some extra days to change the marketing strategy if needed? Like any successful book launch, you will need to think about the marketing and promotional aspects you will build into the campaign and bring your crowd to your book ICO page.
The maximum Book ICO duration is 90 days.
Remember, you can only create one Book ICO per account, so plan your campaign ahead!
Here’s an example:
In this example if the campaign is launched today, the landing page will be available instantly and the author will have a couple of weeks to promote the Book ICO campaign. The Book ICO itself will be active on 08/15/2018. The Book ICO campaign will be active for 40 days.
Book pricing and supply
Another important element of the Book ICO campaign is the pricing and supply of BOOK tokens.
Book price
Authors are required to specify the book’s price during the ICO period, as well as the books price after the ICO.
The general practice for all initial coin offerings is that you sell the tokens for a lower price during the ICO and after it ends they go to the regular/higher price so to provide an incentive for people to invest early. The system will not allow you to put the price during ICO higher that the price after the ICO since this is not correlating with the essence of initial coin offerings.
You can specify the same price for ICO and post-ICO period, but keep in mind, your readers will not have additional motivation to support you during the crowdfunding period if they can get the same book for the same price after the campaign. You as the author need to incentivise your crowd to want to invest in your book early. For example, you can price the book at a discount or have an exclusive book with limited supply on sale during the ICO. Think about what incentives you can give to your early readers and investors.
You as the author need to incentivise your crowd to want to invest in your book early.
Amount of books
Here you can specify how many book copies (one BOOK token equals one book copy) will be sold during the Book ICO and what will be the minimum and maximum supply.
Just as with the previous example, you are free to design your campaign based on your own business model.
There are no universal rules as to how to set up you Book ICO campaign best, every author must answer these main questions for themselves:
What is my ultimate goal?
How much funding do I really need to produce a book?
Do I already have a strong community to support my campaign?
When I realistically be ready to deliver a book?
Based on your answers to these simple but vital questions, every author can define their own business model. What is working for one author may not necessarily work for another and vice-versa.
Minimum amount (soft cap)
This field defines how many BOOK tokens you must sell in order to consider your Book ICO campaign as successful. While there are no restrictions, choose your Soft Cap carefully — if you set your Soft Cap too small, you have more chances to succeed but at the same time you will have to deliver a book with less funds available. By setting a soft cap too big you are risking not succeeding with the ICO.
Maximum amount (hard cap)
This field is very important, but not as crucial as the Soft Cap. The Hard Cap indicates how many books can be sold during the Book ICO.
Same as with the previous example, you need to plan ahead. By setting a lower hard cap you can expect that your ICO will end faster, at the same time you can miss some sales if you have a strong demand for your book.
By setting a higher hard cap, you can earn more funds during the Book ICO for the production of your book, although setting the hard cap too high can be less attractive for readers (read here how the number of book copies during the Book ICO can affect the demand for your book sales).
Total number of book copies offered through Publica including those sold in the Book ICO
This number indicates how many books will be available for sale on the Publica platform. Unless you have a specific strategy in mind, make it enough copies (ten thousand, for example). This will guarantee that there are always “enough books in the inventory”.
There can be another strategy, though. By setting a limited amount of tokens available for sale, you can create some scarcity and set a higher price since the demand will be bigger because of the fear of missing out.
To sum up, you must make a strategic decision as to how much funds you really need to write and produce your book. Then, you need to decide how many books you want to sell with a discount for early contributors and how many book copies you want to be available for sale on the platform.
Wallet address
Enter your wallet address (in case you don’t have a wallet yet, check our tutorial on how to create a cryptocurrency wallet). Make sure you double-check if your Ethereum wallet address is entered correctly.
Never use a wallet address from an exchange (in case you are not sure if the address is entered correctly, feel free to contact us for assistance).
Launching your Book ICO
Remember, you can preview your Book ICO campaign any time by clicking the “Your page” button.
The Book ICO campaign’s preview page will open in the new tab and only you will be able to see it.
When the last step is completed, if you are happy with your page and strategy, you can make it publicly visible and launch your Book ICO by clicking “Start ICO”.
Keep in mind, you still can make changes in your Book ICO campaign, however it only possible to change the details in the “Funding goal” block before your ICO is launched (for example, you can postpone your Book ICO start date).
Once the Book ICO is started you will no longer be able to make adjustments in the “Funding goal” section since the Smart Contract will be deployed.
Remember, you can only create one Book ICO per account, so we recommend contacting Publica team and asking for feedback before starting your Book ICO.
We recommend contacting Publica team and asking for feedback before starting your Book ICO
Support during and after Book ICO
The platform is still in its early days so we ask that you approach it with patience and it is very important that you don’t spare any questions and ask straight away!
Feel free to contact Publica team or use the chat box to shoot us a message. We’ll be happy to help!
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