How Blockchain Empowering Book Publishing

by Fauzan Anandika

Books have accompanied us for centuries. Give us so much information, stories, and knowledge. Books give writers, designers, even photographers the to show their skill and creation to more people. With books, an idea can spread across the nation. Books give us so many benefit in our lives. For a writer, books give publicity and also money for their creation. For a reader, books give knowledge and information. Up until now, books still give us an advantage in many ways.

At the beginning of the digital era, when books turn into digital format, every writer deal with a copyright problem. Books piracy not only happens in a hardcopy format but also in a digital format. Book with various content becomes easy to share in one hand, but create a larger space for piracy. A condition that makes determining royalty and handling piracy become harder to do. Digital content becomes easier to access and copied that lowering the writer’s potential income. A book writer also can’t access their bookselling status, how many books are sold, where it gets the most impression, and sometimes they’re on the dark side in royalty compensation. This piracy also affects book publishers. When they need to pay a royalty to a writer, on the other hand, they lost their income and facing illegal books at a lower price.

In the book’s publishing, traceability and transparency surely become an essential role. Both of these factors are blockchain technology excellences. Its decentralized data and irreversible format could solve problems in book industries. Four sectors could improve when applying blockchain in book publishing and selling.

1. Publishing with a lower price
   By using a smart contract, it will lower administrative work during the publishing process that makes a transaction using blockchain is cheaper. A writer also can sell their creation in a peer-to-peer format, which will remove the middleman to lowering the production cost.
2. Easy to trace
   Tracing the writer creation is not only for payment receive purpose but also to get the detail on market condition. Comprehensive data use for creating a publishing strategy to replace the old one. Nobody will survive without improvement. For the writer, tracing their creation means they get transparent information about their royalty payment and preventing piracy. Any books selling will be recorded, and it will be lasting on the blockchain system.
3. Empowering book publishing
   With blockchain, distributing printed books become easier. Everyone in the distribution channel gets an actual status about inventory, selling, and market absorption at the sales point. This information is used for inventory management to advance production and shipment processes that will reduce inventory costs.
4. Faster payment
   Publishing and distributing books involve partners to work together in a supply chain. All of them need to pay quickly right after they finish their duty. With knowing the actual progress, every invoice can be proceeding faster.

Writers no need to worry anymore about piracy and distributing their idea in books. Blockchain technology will ensure the transaction and distribution process faster and safer.