How This Can Be Delivered

To date, technological change in the industry has been iterative, rather than innovative. And it is this predictable and incremental change that has prevented the industry from breaking free of the mould that has shaped it over the last few centuries. If we’re serious about a renaissance, we need more than a shinier same; we need something new. For this, we must turn to technology.

Two recent but well-established technologies hold the key to the future of publishing. The first is blockchain technology. It works on the principle of decentralisation; moving control from the few to the many and delivering a fairer and more equitable platform on which to trade. It’s already being used to make banking more efficient and cheaper, and it’s being touted as the technology that will ultimately save the US from its debt crisis. In terms of publishing, blockchain can bring the producers of value and their customers together. It can execute an immediate and completely trustworthy transaction between the two, and then distribute the royalties to the right place immediately. What’s more, an effective tokenomics model can create a platform that delivers mutual benefit to all members of the community.

A blockchain platform could largely solve the problems of piracy in the industry by issuing a non-fungible token to every story. This would also mean that a reader physically owned any eBook they bought, which is not strictly the case in the current market.

Blockchain platforms are also largely not-for-profit. And that’s huge news for the publishing industry. Once extreme profits are removed from the equation, there will be an awful lot more money to share around.

By bringing a blockchain platform to the publishing industry, we can:

• Increase the royalties going to those who add value to a story.

• Bring the writer and reader together in a trusted and transparent relationship.

• Distribute royalties through user-defined smart contracts, immediately.

• Reward everyone for their actions.

The second technology is Artificial Intelligence. AI has the power to change the publishing world forever. Right now, the fear is that it will replace the very writers on whom the industry relies. But that can only happen if we allow it to. Instead of fearing AI, we need to embrace its strengths and enable it to transform the industry.

What AI can deliver to the platform is its sheer capacity for work. It has the ‘man’ power to free publishers from their role as gatekeeper and open the market to any manuscript that meets a quality threshold. It can also control and adjust the prices of books based on predetermined criteria.

In addition, AI has the ability to change the way readers find books in the marketplace. Rather than relying on promotional levers, AI can learn to bring readers the books they want. This has massive potential in giving every story a fair chance of being read.

By using artificial intelligence, we can:

• Take over the role of gatekeeper by assessing the quality of a piece of work objectively.

• Price books to respond to demand while retaining the creators’ value.

• Create a fair way to discover books in the marketplace.