Exploring NFT Collectibles for Authors
A key thesis, substantiated by many others in the industry, is that digital collectibles, through non-fungible tokens (NFTs), can reinvent the creative economy. It’s subverting the creative work: make it as accessible as possible and sell digital collectibles related to the creative work. Thus: instead of trying to restrain or restrict creative works, it’s more valuable if it’s more freely available and accessible. It’s a holy grail for content.
This is also substantiated by Mike Shinoda’s recent tweetstorm on his song/art on Zora.
However, many questions still remain with this thesis:
How granular should these new collectibles be? An NFT per paragraph or NFT per essay? NFT per chapter? NFT per album? NFT per song? NFT per sample?
What format should it be? Must it contain additional utility or aesthetics? Are 1 of 1 editions ideal? Or multiple editions? Should editions be restricted by time or size?
Will the long-tail benefit? What’s the ceiling of this potential market?
Now is the right time to experiment to answer some of these questions, so I did.
Fiction Merchandising
I have a belief that we can create more stories by changing the way value is exchanged into this format. Stories should be freely accessible in any formats, and the authors earn through selling various collectibles related to the story. Their top 100 fans will allow them to earn a living that is not possible through existing publication and distribution channels.
For example: selling digital wands for Harry Potter to collectible clues in a murder mystery. It could be simple or complex: from having it merely be a separate collectible, or to the collectible potentially influencing the story itself.
For my debut novel, Hope Runners of Gridlock, I created two collectible experiments:
Excerpts of Gridlock
https://excerpts.ofgridlock.com
This is an experiment in directly cutting out excerpts from the novel: paragraphs I’m proud of and paragraphs others resonated with.
These 15 excerpts sold for $275 in total. For reference, I’ve made roughly $1,317 from selling my novel on Gumroad + Amazon thus far.
Aesthetic Audio-Visual Experience Collab with Metsa
Great fiction makes you feel something, and I wanted to create an audio-visual experience that made me feel what I wrote. When I first discovered the amazing work by Maxwell, I knew that it was the feeling I was looking for.
https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/what-do-we-leave-behind-15264
So. We decided to collab. Maxwell used his creative vision to create a truly stellar re-imagining of the city of Gridlock. https://superrare.co/artwork-v2/a-hope-runner-19155 . It also contains a remix of music from the moodboard EP I created for the novel.
It sold for $2,529 on SuperRare.
I feel these experiments are important steps forward to allow authors re-imagine how they earn from their creative works. To look beyond publishing, self-publishing, or subscription revenue. I hope this is merely the beginning.
Future experiments:
What this could look like in the future is uncertain, but I feel there are clues one can take away from what works in traditional fiction merchandising, and what is working currently in digital art collectibles on Ethereum.
Traditional meets Generative
In traditional merchandising, let’s say, lightsabers, most of them are create as editions or ‘runs’. If it sells, more is created, perhaps either the same, or bumped for a new release. eg, selling Luke’s lightsaber, but changing the wrapping from The Last Jedi to Rise of Skywalker.
A format here that could succeed is to create such collectibles, but have a time limit on their creation. Each minted version has a slight, unique variation (taking cues from generative art), but they all form part of the same edition. In this manner, any reader or fan can buy a collectible from the fictional universe until a certain period (6 months after release).
There-after, the smart contract automatically halts new sales. If it was successful, the author can choose to do a new run, either with the same metrics, or with some modifications. Or, with a sequel they could redo the first novel’s edition + created a new collectible set (eg, lightsabers vs mandalorian armour sets).
This format mimics what works about traditional merchandise collecting: most fans can get a copy/version, but it also entices true, serious collectors to find versions of the collectibles from specific editions. It also being generative means that each collector can hold something unique, which isn’t as readily accessible in traditional merchandising.
To give a full example of this using lightsabers.
For Empire Strikes Back, a smart contract sells various collectible, digital Sith lightsabers upon release of the film. Each newly minted lightsaber has a unique feature: different hilt, slightly different shade of red in the blade. There’s also rare traits with some having a cross-bar, or double blades! After 6 months post-launch of the film, the smart contract automatically stops anyone from creating new Sith lightsabers and the edition is complete. It’s a hit, with 100,000 fans each buying a $10 digital Sith lightsaber! Afterwards, fans still continue to buy and sell these collectible Sith lightsabers from each other (but no new ones can be created).
With Return of the Jedi, Lucasfilm creates a new edition, but this time, with Jedi hilts and colours! Various shades of green and blue lightsabers. It’s an even bigger success, selling 200,000 lightsabers to fans at $10 each. Given newfound interest, the first edition of Sith lightsabers also become sought after and the value of various lightsabers increase in value.
So you can see: it’s a model that blends two worlds, allowing authors to potentially earn new kinds of revenue from their creative work. With some of the platforms out there, you can even guarantee that any subsequent sales of these collectibles, the authors could earn, say 2%, from each sale. The authors just keep earning from the upside and success of their stories.
Conclusion
Merging fiction and collectibles that allows authors to tell more stories is a world I would love to see. I’m happy to experiment with this and hope to see more authors play with these new possibilities. If you are an author that wants to experiment with digital collectibles, please get in touch!
PS. I can’t write these articles without always hat-tipping one of the original projects that had the right ideas all along for this. https://twitter.com/cellarius2084. Worth checking what they did before the project went into stasis.
