Blockchain, Books, and Bezos: How Publica is disrupting publishing and why Amazon should be worried.

Jeff Bezos?

Killer or Genius?

I heard he was one of the anointed ones early on. Princeton Graduate and with a cool $300,000 loan from his dad he built Amazon. Everybody loves Amazon pretty much. And how could you not? Prime is legit. Kindle was a big deal. Auto delivery of detergent was a big deal as well.Jeff has not only transformed e-commerce for ever, but he transformed himself. I mean check out his latest picture:

Ok. We get it bro. You have protein on auto-delivery.

Jeff started with books, then became a machine. Now machines run Amazon building smart factories where robots do work, while humans supervise.

Smart robots powering Amazon’s globally expanding company.

So… Amazon is a big deal. Jeff is arguably even a bigger deal. What does this mean for Authors though? You know, the ones who built Amazon when he was slinging books through packages back in ‘97.

Remember when the internet looked like this? Terrible.

That brings us to today.. how do authors make money at Amazon? Well, it’s complicated. But Amazon self-publishers can upload their manuscript and depending on how they price their book their royalty rates can change.

A lot of authors complain about royalty rates on Amazon and their lack of options when it comes to pricing options, so we are seeing a lot of authors looking for other platforms recently.You can make the argument that Amazon has helped more authors over the past 5 years than any other platform out there, but what does the future of publishing look like?

If you have been following the huge push for decentralized platforms (DPLs) over the past few years then you would think it might be on one. What does the future of DPLs for authors look like? And how can it help authors make more money? Or have more control? It might look like Publica. Let’s see what Publica looks like.

> Publica is a coin which operational protocol layer is built in Solidity and uses Ethereum network computing power. It enables decentralisation of direct transactions in protocol currency between readers and authors in order to purchase access keys for the literary works of the later. (reddit)

Direct transactions, using the Ethereum network? Sounds cool.. What does that even mean though?

> In todays situation, if you write a book you need to go to a publisher who will take 85%. Most publisher also do not like e-books because they do not understand how to do the marketing on these books.

> Publica think that they can fix these problems in the market by using blockchain technology and smart contracts. This will have the following benefits: — Lower revenue taking by publishers — Trust amongst writers and helpers — Higher quality books — A platform, that means self-marketing by using the platform — Easy and fast payments for everyone in the world They have a short video where they explain the idea. (reddit)

Ok Publica is aiming to be the next big thing? Who runs it, and is it a good time to get in? Let’s first checkout their roadmap over the next few months.

Some pretty big releases coming up. What does this mean for authors? To the best of my knowledge it means authors have a lot of benefits, let me explain a few:

- Authors can host Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) on the Publica Platform, which allows them to raise funds or advances for upcoming books.

- Authors will be able to promote and market their books in the Publica platform, allowing themselves to engage with an highly active readership community

- Authors with existing literary works will be able to bring their work onto the platform to sell more content.

- Authors will be able to make more money in secondary markets, since the content is powered by smart contracts you receive funds when the ebook is resold.

Ok cool. So what now? Well, before investing in any blockchain organization you should make sure the leadership and dev team are super legitWho runs Publica and do we like the team? Let’s dive in a little.

Josef Marc, CEO

Josef Marc leads the Publica team. Although he didn’t originate the Publica idea in its earliest form, he volunteered to write the white paper that thought it through to its logical ends, and decided to help bring it to fruition.

His experience leading teams in the launch of DirecTV, 500 channels of fully-automated digital satellite television, and the launch of Verizon FIOS TV, national cable television on a telephone system backbone, prepared him for Publica because we too are launching something that hasn’t been done before. Also part technology, part operations, marshalling hundreds of people in multimillion-dollar budgets, in the public eye.

He’s comfortable with technology on the leading edge, learning it and explaining it so others can understand it from their own perspectives. As a longtime member of the Society for Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) he authored four technical papers, presented them to critical audiences at SMPTE’s annual conventions, and contributed steadily to standards committees.

Josef’s first career was in music and that’s when he first learned how publishing and self-publishing work. He and a partner wrote, recorded, printed, sold and shipped their own music on vinyl records until the manager of The Police, a superstar group, signed them to a publishing deal for his company. He’s a constant reader, always interested in the economics of publishing. He studied in the pre-law curriculum at the University of San Diego.

Ok so Josef obviously has the background in not only leadership at Fortune 500 companies, but in self-publishing.After speaking to Josef I can tell he is very passionate about Publica and has the acumen to lead the Publica Organization. The next big question in any Blockchain Organization is who the dev team leaders are.

Yuri Pimenov, CTO

A pioneer in Bitcoin trading technology and systems, Yuri Pimenov knows the blockchain revolution extremely well. His experience as the head of research & development for Latvia’s top brand and most popular website besides Google led him through the technical challenges in machine learning, robotics, and high-load Internet technologies. Yuri is one of the few industry professionals who can be counted on to connect a grand vision with a real-life technical solution.

Yuri is a longtime contributor to the blockchain community with his blog and his Russian translation of the seminal book “Mastering Blockchain” by Andreas Antonopoulos. Before Publica, he was the CTO of a leading Bitcoin exchange. Other work experience includes peer-to-peer lending platform development, a national email server, automated magazine publishing, and Internet radio.

Yuri earned his Master’s Degree at Riga Technical University.

Strong background in development and a background in being a CTO at a leading Bitcoin exchange? I like it.

Lastly who is in charge of operations?

Antons Sapriko, COO

The blockchain revolution and its demand for experienced high-quality services is sure to grow exponentially and that’s where Antons Sapriko comes in. Antons grew a company of two people to a hundred times that size and an industry leader serving the very top retail companies. He brings highly adaptive and growth-oriented business management strategies into Publica’s fold.

Antons is responsible for operational management in Publica. His experience leading Scandiweb from a local agency to becoming the largest ecommerce services provider on the Magento platform will help Publica take care of business. He will bootstrap Publica’s roles for marketing, HR, development, quality assurance, creative infrastructure, and technology services for all Internet-connected platforms.

Publica benefits from Antons’ experience in setting up workflows for enterprise-grade delivery to Walmart, Jaguar, Land Rover, The New York Times, Peugeot and many other brands and startups since 2003.

Antons comes from a technology background. His father made the first-ever dial-up connection in his country in 1986. Antons learned to code at 14 and won top places in Math Olympiads on the national level. He earned a Bachelor degree in Business Administration at Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, a top-20 business school and started Master of Science at the IT University of Copenhagen.

Ok, so your dad made the first-ever dial-up connection in his native country? I’m sold! But seriously these three guys have the background to do great things clearly.Let’s get to the nitty gritty now.How much is a Publica token? What is their market cap?

As of writing this article we can see that Publica has a 38M market cap with a token cost of $2.09. When I first followed Publica they were priced at around $0.80 per token. Do I see huge growth ahead for Publica? Absolutely. You should always read the white paper of any blockchain organization and you can read their Whitepaper here. 

Lastly let’s do a little competitor analysis.

In my opinion Po.et seems to be their strongest competitor right now, at-least in name recognition. Which is a big deal in the Crypto Sphere.You can draw you own conclusions from the chart above, but I know with the CEO Josef Marc going on a huge speak tour this year to author and book conventions — the name recognition will only increase. Check out Publica’s own view of their Strengths/Weaknesses against the competition.

Will Publica win this battle? Can there be multiple DPLs for authors and content creators, I think so.. But for now my money is on Publica. Let’s see how the next chapter ;) unfolds.