Publica — Why We’re Doing It.

Publishers play a finite zero-sum game of quarterly results and taking fixed-pie market share from each other. Authors play an infinite game of delighting their fans. That’s an inherent source of conflict.

Publica is playing an infinite game. We have our own fans to delight.

We believe profit is a fuel, not a purpose. Our purpose is to explore the multi-sided economy of publishing to find out where trust and freedom can make it a more trustworthy, more frictionless economy.

When we talk about

• Blockchains, we’re talking about a technology for trust and freedom. They’re the foundation for human welfare and prosperity.
• Smart contracts, we’re talking about codifying trust so machines can work for us. Publica means “the people” so that means you.
• Rights, we’re talking about what our constituents — you plural — can trust each other with.
• Tokens and cryptocurrency, we’re talking about a trusted, stable economy in our sphere of influence. You can, and will, exchange them for other currencies when and where you choose.
• Platforms and models, we’re talking about flexibility. Most of you are creative in more ways than one. Our purpose is to facilitate your creativity in the publishing economy.

Why do we care?

Because publishing is how humanity helps itself. Teaching is publishing and vice versa. Science, art, know-how, crafts, even technology itself, we all benefit from the publications of those who explore before us.

We want to inspire you-the-people to new heights, to create new ways of doing business, to make the old ways of doing business easier and ever more trustworthy and efficient for all in a multi-sided publishing economy.

Publica.

Tell your story.

Publica will be a platform for authors, readers, books of all kinds and the people who make them. And for smart contracts to carry all kinds of transactions and exchanges for the publishing economy.

We call our organization Publica in honor of the vocative declension of the Latin word publicum, meaning a person or thing of the people. Derived from populus, people. In some languages like Spanish and Urdu publica means the act of publishing. In others like Arabic it’s more evocative of a republic or democracy versus a king or caliphate. In English it’s the beginning of publication and in Russian it means the people.

When the lines blur between publishers large and small, authors and self-publishers, readers and crowdfunders, artists and scholars, teachers and students, and everyone else interested in books and what becomes of them, of the people emerges as a final, immutable line of distinction.

So we are Publica.