Pirate-speak like you mean it. (Anniversary Edition.)
Novelist Molly Flatt of The Bookseller put her own title on a Publica profile I wrote.
At first I was horrified because I don’t like talking about Amazon. Then I realized she’s a very good writer and she got it right. I should have had the guts to give it that title myself. Thanks Molly.
I don’t know if she knows or not, but my first blog post set the cut of our sails exactly one year ago. It’s the port we sailed away from, intentionally and explicitly.
As the old saying goes, Don’t hide your light under a bushel. As the hippies said when I was a young man, Let your freak flags fly. As Sam Conniff Allende recently wrote a whole book about, Be More Pirate.
In two days I return to the stage of FutureBook. Last year, on my birthday, I announced Publica to the bookselling industry. We were officially two weeks old. I was cheeky, giddy with excitement. We actually get to do this thing!
It’s no secret that most of my pirate courage comes from Seth Godin. I’m in his online Launch Party now, meeting and connecting with his students and fans. I’m in my second reading of his new book, This Is Marketing. (Correct, that link goes to his publisher, Penguin Random House, and NOT to Amazon.)
In a typically strange twist of fate, Seth and Sam are the keynote speakers at this year’s FutureBook. I didn’t know that when I wrote my speech (below). I won’t be so cheeky or giddy this year. But I’m more pirate than ever.
This ship is sailing before the winds of Web 3.0. We see Tim Berners-Lee at the helm of a fellow pirate ship and we’re both sailing by the starlight of respect for online fairness, security and privacy.
On a deep sea of love for books, authors and booksellers.
Creative entrepreneur Sukhi Jutla will live-tweet during my speeches so Hey Pirates and Publicans, let your own flags fly. She’ll stand up for your voices there.
#futurebook18
Here’s what I’m gonna say, with the fresh sea breeze in my hair.
You’ll hear the influence of Teacher Seth and Pirate Sam. As I told the professor who asked me if this blockchain thing is real, or too soon, or already over — The ship has sailed but it’s not too late to jump aboard.
Ahoy, mateys!
Publica at FutureBook 2018
What did Publica make? Why? For whom?
We made an e-reader and e-library app with a private digital wallet in it. We made that for you book lovers of course. Why? So you can feel like you own your books. So you can feel independent. So no platform can tell you what your rights are — or aren’t. There’s no End User License Agreement to worry about “What does it mean if I click on this?” Now we make it better, we tinker with it, while listening to you book lovers telling us what you want it to do for you.
We made a book uploader that writes a smart contract on the blockchain. We made that for you authors of course. Why? So you can feel like you’re in charge of your own book sales. You can set your own price, your own dates, and give your own explanation of why you’re doing it, who it’s for, and generally tell your own story. That’s why Publica’s tag line is Tell Your Story. Directly to your readers. Now we make it better, we tinker with it, while listening to you authors telling us what you want it to do for you.
We made a book catalog that appears in the reader app and the web shop. We made that for you authors, booksellers and publishers of course. Why? So you can feel like you’re in charge of your own e-book sales. You set your own prices, and when book lovers pay, their money goes straight to your wallets through your smart contract on the blockchain. We think of it like a vending machine on the internet. Buyer’s money goes in and they get a book token back, just like the receipt they get at a traditional bookstore. Their money goes straight through to your wallet. A small portion of the money goes to Publica’s wallet called the Publica Treasury. We use it to pay for operational costs, and that small portion is transparently on the blockchain where anyone — especially you — can read it. We call that Publish Your Way. Now we make it better, we tinker with it, while listening to your readers, and you authors, booksellers and publishers telling us what you want it to do for you.
We made a partnership with Morgan James Publishing. Why? To demonstrate how Publica is a publisher’s friend and partner. So they can feel in charge of their own business model. Morgan James publishes books the regular way. Salespeople visit bookstores and take orders. They have the regular kind of paper books and return-policy that bookstores want. They have the regular kind of ship-to-my-house that book lovers want. They have copy editors and illustrators and the regular kind of help that authors want. They’re going to use Publica their way, the way they want to. Now we make our partnership better by listening to them, giving them the information they want, without invading or risking anyone’s online privacy or security. Especially not yours.
We didn’t make Publica for everybody. For example, Publica has no way of preventing anyone on Earth (or in space, for that matter) from buying or reading a book based on the borders around them — or around you! We don’t detect their location when they buy or when they read. We don’t detect your location when you sell. We call this Books Without Borders and we think it’s the right thing to do. Some people may disagree. That’s OK, they can sell somewhere else. We’re confident that book lovers like it.
We don’t intend to lock anyone in to anything, not even our shop, because your customers are not our customers. And that defines what we’re doing next. We call this Powered by Publica. It means you can put a Publica-buy-button on your own store, in your own app. Everything works the regular way except it’s your store, your way, your direct relationship with your readers. Except their money goes direct to your wallet, through your internet vending machine. We think that’s how Web 3.0 is going to work. We think that’s how you want it to work.
The word blockchain can be confusing. There’s as much fake news about blockchain as anything else. It’s really not that complicated. By analogy, there’s a lot of technical stuff to learn about internet protocols if you’re a programmer. If you’re not a programmer, you just use email and blogs the regular way.
Blockchain is also a few protocols, and here’s all you need to know about them if you’re a book lover, an author, a bookseller or a publisher. It’s triple-entry accounting with security and privacy built in. Triple-entry accounting is what makes it so popular in the other supranational industries. Double-entry accounting is what you’ve always done, and it works, but it requires you to trust that everyone doing business with you gets it right. Supranational trust can be hard to come by.
Triple-entry accounting is a major invention because everybody doing business with you, across any and all borders, can trust the blockchain to get it right. So you can have privacy and security and still get the money transactions done, and count the book sales objectively, transparently. Do you want a blockchain-proven bestseller list? Or trustworthy evidence of what you sold or bought? Because that’s what we built for you and for everyone who wants in on this blockchain evolution.
A simple idea that goes a long way.
