How Literary NFTs Are Helping Writers Enter Web3

 

In January 2021, Blake Butler didn’t even consider publishing Decade. The novel was written in 2008, but due to its complicated structure, complex language, and experimental form, it was considered unmarketable. It was completely unpublishable, basically.

During that time, NFT mania was just starting. Everyone from The Times to The Wall Street Journal was talking about how people made millions selling digital art and music. That February, Butler had an epiphany – turn the novel into a GUF and mint it as a non-fungible token.

Upon buying the NFT, the owner would own the GIF as well as the manuscript. Just a day after the novel was minted, a stranger bought it for 5 ETH, equivalent to $7,569 at the time. And that’s just one example of how literary NFTs are benefiting writers.

What Are Literary NFTs?

While the traditional publishing industry has been going steady for quite some time – it earns $700 million per year from printed book sales alone – the need for a more decentralized and open publishing system has been growing. This is where literary NFTs come in.

Literary NFTs are digital literary works – poems, articles, and books – minted directly onto the Blockchain. That means the work is stored on a decentralized network of computers, making it censorship-resistant. It also means that the work can’t be taken down or changed without the author’s permission.

One of the most popular platforms for literary NFTs is Ethereum.

Popular Literary NFTs

Although the NFT literary scene has been around for less than two years, many popular and well-known writers have started minting their work as NFTs. Here are a few examples of Literary NFTs that made some noise online:

EtherPoems – One of the first poetry collections released on the BlockchainTheVerseVerse – A site that regularly mints the work of crypto-native poetsLIT Project One – The first major decentralized book by Neil StraussKalen Iwamoto – Possibly the first intersection between crypto writing and artCreatokia – Marketplace for creators, authors, and publishers interested in NFTs

With projects like these, it’s clear that the literary world is starting to take notice of NFTs.