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March 21, 2022

GM Frens,

I literally just walked in the door after a nine hour flight from Houston that actually started in Austin four hours before that. I’m always so happy to be back in Honolulu – but man, after the weather in Austin at South by Southwest – it really feels a little muggy and humid. I’m not sure if the humidity is higher than usual or I just got used zero humidity.

In any event, it was great to get away, great to experience a new place I’ve always wanted to visit (you can read my love letter to Austin here) and to meet so many metaverse friends IRL – and you know what this proves – which I was pretty sure would be the case but I wasn’t 100% sure of before – it proves that if you connect with someone in the metaverse and the vibes are all good – then you will almost certainly have that same experience IRL when you meet. My experience in Austin with that was 100%.

I can’t begin to explain how cool it was to finally hangout with some of my PageDAO cofounders as well as friends from Travel Toucans, WVRPS, PizzaDAO, and a whole bunch of new friends too. I’m just a wee bit jet-lagged so I’m going to leave it there for now.

I’m going to skip the news for now since I haven’t taken the time to catch up on it yet – but I wanted to bring you the Literary Beat by our friend Greg since he has it ready to go!

One thing all the NFT, Crypto, and Metaverse stuff really brought home to me was that we need to have an event that is focused on those things here in Hawaii. What I’d like to see is a festival that is dedicated to the following Books, Travel, Music, Fashion, Film and the places where they intersect in blockchain, crypto, and NFTs. It feels like that should be doable. I just don’t want it to turn into a Lord of the Flies Fest – so it will bear some thinking and need some support before it goes any further.

Hope you all had a great weekend and your Monday is strong – now I’m going to unpack and have a shower.

~CD

*Today’s cover, by the way is a sketch I did on the plane. I’m in awe of those who are standing up and fighting to preserve their way of life in Ukraine. They are firmly saying no, nyet, and uni-uh to totalitarianism and dictatorship at great cost.

Literary NFT Beat

(Updated Mondays by Greg R. Fishbone, Publisher of Cryptoversal Books – Find the latest at https://vagobond.com/literary-nft-beat/)

March 21, 2022

 

Listings are not an endorsement of books or services.

Someone Needs to Explain Publica to Me

NFTBooks has been on our radar for a while. They’ve issued a token they’ve been using to raise funds for an upcoming NFT book platform but we’ve held off on listing them in the directory until their plans were more solid. We’re adding a new “Bubbling Up” category for such projects starting this week.

Recently NFTBooks seems to have started their outreach to authors and results are mixed, to go by an interaction one author documented in a Twitter thread:

https://twitter.com/TLHBooks/status/1503914393297461250?s=20&t=npTqPrPoMfw0py5TIpA5vQ

Piracy, plagiarism, and copyright infringement exist in the traditional print and eBook world and have been rampant in the NFT art space. The issue will have to be addressed in NFT books, hopefully in a way that will provide better compassion, understanding, and service than were displayed here.

NFT Bookstore Development Continues

On Facebook and in the Discord, Cryptoversal authors are discussing the upcoming launch of the NFT Bookstore. We won’t yet have the ability to publish NFT books at launch, but we will make it possible for authors to issue pre-launch tokens for future NFT book releases, NFT authentication tokens tied to printed copies, and text-on-image tokenizations and NFT poems.

We’re proud to report that the NFT Bookstore on Polygon will be able to accept fiat credit and debit card payments and that we’ve purchased enough carbon offsets pre-launch to ensure that all store transactions will be carbon-negative. The NFT Bookstore on Polygram will launch officially on April 30th. The NFT Bookstore on Ethereum is waiting on Ethereum to phase in its more energy-efficient form.

https://twitter.com/Cryptoversalbks/status/1505621819788775424?s=20&t=npTqPrPoMfw0py5TIpA5vQ

—GRF

Lit NFT Organizations:

So many formats, so many blockchains, so many promising experiments…

Alexandria Labs (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Literary NFT publisher and marketplace. Enabling NFT annotations.

Annie’s Bookshop (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Publisher of generative NFT books in MP4 animation format.

The Atheneum Project (Website | Twitter | Discord) – AI-generated poetry creation tool and literary NFT publisher.

Barewords (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Publisher of NFT poetry in text-on-image format.

BookCoin (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Publisher and marketplace for books “tokenized” into NFT text-on-image format. Token: $BKCN (anticipated Q3 2022, Allow List Open)

BooksGoSocial (Website) – Publisher of centralized NFT books on the Wax blockchain with downloadable content stored in ZIP files on DropBox.

Cosmia (Website | Facebook) – Italian-based women’s literary NFT publisher and DAO on the NEAR blockchain.

Creatokia (Wesbite | Twitter | Discord) – Literary NFT publisher and marketplace from the parent company of book producer and distributor Bookwire. Token: $NFTBS

Crypto Poetry (Wesbite | Twitter | Discord) – Curated community of NFT poets with links to their works.

Cryptoversal Books (Website | Twitter | Facebook | Discord) – Author community and publisher of author-centric, marketplace-portable, carbon-neutral, NFT-first smart-books.

Jenkins the Valet (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Multimedia studio creating content, including literary NFTs, from licensed characters from the BAYC and MAYC collections and from an upcoming collection of original PFPs.

KOTA (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Literary NFT minter, marketplace, and mobile app planned to deploy on a blockchain being developed through the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure project of the EU’s European Blockchain Partnership.

LIT DAO (ICO | Twitter | Discord | Telegram) – A cultural DAO including literary, artistic, musical, and fashion NFTs. Token: $LIT

Medusa Writer’s Studio (Website | Discord) – A community-directed space for holders of the Medusa Collection to direct the creation of an original novel and collection lore.

Mirror (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Literary web publisher and NFT minter and marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain with an integrated crowdsource funding platform. Token: $WRITE

Nuclear Nerds (Website | Twitter | Discord) – A lore generation project integrated into a generative NFT art collection. Holders respond to prompts about their character to build the story world.

PageDAO (Website | Twitter | Discord) – A DAO for authors innovating the formats and accessibility of NFT books. Minter on Polygon blockchain now open to DAO members. Token: $PAGE

Readl (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Literary NFT minter and marketplace on Moonriver blockchain. Beta marketplace now open. Token: Rumored by End of Year 2022.

Soltype (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Literary NFT minter and marketplace on Solana blockchain. Beta minter and marketplace now open.

sonnet/work (Website | Twitter | Discord) – NFT Poetry platform on Polygon blockchain.

TimeWriter (Website | Twitter | Discord) – A collaborative writing experiment starting at the midpoint of a story that expands forward and backward in matching steps.

Token Literary (Discord) – Focused on helping creators with marketing, logistics, and tokenomics.

The VerseVerse (Website | Twitter | Instagram) – Community of NFT Poets with links to their curated works.

WIP Publishing (Website) – The publishing arm of PageDAO.

Zang (Website | Twitter | Discord) – NFT Poetry minter on Polygon blockchain.

Literary NFT Podcasts and Discussions:

🆕 The Creative Penn (Website | Spotify | Apple) – Hosted by Joanna Penn, covering multiple aspects of writing but often including valuable information about NFT publishing.

Creatokia: Blockchain for Publishers (Creatokia: Spotify | Apple) – Hosted by John Ruhrmann, Jens Klingelhöfer, and Videl Bar-Kar of Bookwire.

Crypto Writer Talks (Crypto Writers: Spotify | Apple) – Hosted by members of the Crypto Writers Discord.

Soltype Podcast (Soltype: Youtube) – Hosted by Paco Puylaert, Juan Pablo Briceno, and Donald Frederick of Soltype.

Literary NFT Format Guide:

Animated: The cover or content of the NFT includes animated elements.

Audiobook: The NFT includes voice narration.

Centralized: Content stored and accessed from a hard drive, cloud server, or other single-point system.

Decentralized: Content stored and accessed from a network of hundreds or thousands of nodes, designed as a more durable, secure, and tamper-proof system.

ERC-20: A digital token representing an asset that is fungible, or identical to others of its kind, and which may be used to purchase or unlock content, establish governance rights in an organization, or qualify recipients of airdropped content. ERC-20 tokens that operate as the native currency of a blockchain can also be called coins.

ERC-721: A digital token representing an asset that is non-fungible, or unique, describing a digital file or physical object to which it is linked. ERC-721 tokens are one type of NFT.

ERC-1155: A digital token representing an asset that may be either fungible or non-fungible describing a digital file or physical object to which it is linked. ERC-1155 tokens are considered NFTs even in fungible implementations.

Gated Reader: The NFT can be read by the holder through a token-gated website or marketplace feature.

Generative: The title, content, and/or design of the work includes randomly generated traits within a collection of unique works.

Integrated Reader: The NFT can be openly read in the marketplace.

Interactive: The user’s actions or choices affect the reading experience.

Print on Demand: Holders can have a physical copy shipped to their address.

Text-on-Image: A poem or book excerpt presented in a visual format, often with a complementary background.

Unlockable Content: Holders unlock textual content in the metadata of the NFT.

Unlockable Downloadable: Holders unlock an access code, discount code, or instructions for accessing content from a centralized source.

NFT Textbooks/Guides:

Tim Boucher, NFT Books: Publishing & Promotion Guide (Lost Books: OpenSea) – Unlockable downloadable NFT book on the Polygon blockchain, providing guidance to authors on using blockchain technology to produce and promote their works.

Gary K. Michelson, et al., Copyright Basics (PageDAO: OpenSea) – NFT textbook chapter with integrated reader on Polygon blockchain.

Neil Strauss, Survive All Apocalypses (LIT DAO: OpenSea) – NFT survival guide in integrated reader on Ethereum blockchain, notable for assigning copyright interests to a randomly selected holder.

NFT Scripture:

1455 Gutenberg Bible (PageDAO/OpenSea) – NFT scripture with integrated reader on Polygon blockchain.

1611 KJV Book of Genesis (PageDAO/OpenSea) – NFT scripture with integrated reader on Polygon blockchain.

Vagobond, Holy Bjble–AB Edition (PageDAO/OpenSea) – NFT scripture with integrated reader on Polygon blockchain.

NFT Poetry Books:

Indefatigable, Peace of Mind (PageDAO/OpenSea) – NFT spoken poetry collection with integrated reader on Polygon blockchain.

wordstobecrossroad, puff (Soltype) – Genesis NFT poetry collection with integrated reader on Solana blockchain.

NFT Novels:

Dazerine, T. Dylan Daniel, SpartTwain, White Chocolate, The Mask of Ganymede (PageDao/NFT Book Bazaar) – NFT book and audiobook in gated reader with print-on-demand feature on Ethereum blockchain.

Brian Toups, Drifter (OpenSea) – NFT book in integrated reader on Ethereum blockchain.

Literary NFT Collections:

Greg R. Fishbone, “Mad Messages” Collection (OpenSea) – Unlockable content NFT book chapters of Galaxy Games series book The Mad Messenger on Polygon blockchain.

Saami Heyes, “Night Creatures” Collection (Objkt) – Text-on-image NFT poetry on Tezos blockchain.

Saami Heyes, “Saami’s Journal” Collection (Foundation) – Text-on-image NFT poetry on Ethereum blockchain.

Mark Manson, “The Subtle Art…” Collection (BookCoin | OpenSea) – Text-on-image NFT tokenization of NYT bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck on Ethereum blockchain.

OddWritings, “Oddness 2022” Collection (OpenSea) – Text-on-image NFT poetry on Polygon blockchain.

OddWritings, “EmergentPoems” Collection (OpenSea) – Text-on-image NFT poetry on Ethereum blockchain.

Enzo Chul Ortega, “Tales from the Blockchain” Collection (OpenSea) – Unlockable content NFT short stories on Polygon blockchain.

Various, “Barewords” Collection (Barewords/OpenSea) – Text-on-image NFT poetry on Polygon blockchain.

Various, “Genesis” Collection (WIP Publishing/OpenSea) – NFT books in an integrated reader on Ethereum blockchain.

Various, “Genesis v2” Collection (WIP Publishing/OpenSea) – NFT books in an integrated reader on Polygon blockchain.

Various, “Limited First NFT Ebook Edition” Collection (Winehouse Publishing: OpenSea) – nearly 100 public domain classics presented as unlockable content links to decentralized ePub files in NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. Each book has its own ISBN.

Various, “Readme” Collection (PageDAO/OpenSea) – NFT books in integrated reader on Polygon blockchain.

Literary NFTs (Anticipated):

Neil Struass, Jenkins the Valet (Jenkins the Valet) –Holders may choose to burn or stake the book for rewards. Anticipated April-ish.

Literary NFT Collections (Anticipated):

Bailey Bridgewater, Various Titles (Annie’s Bookshop) – 1,984 unique generative titles of animated MP4 books in the Crime genre. Currently pre-sale.

Mary Esther Farnstrom, Various Titles (Annie’s Bookshop) – 1,984 unique generative titles of animated MP4 books in the Horror genre. Currently pre-sale.

Patrick Garrett, Various Titles (Annie’s Bookshop) – 1,984 unique generative titles of animated MP4 books in the Post-Apocalyptic genre. Currently pre-sale.

Alicia Suastika, Various Titles (Annie’s Bookshop) – 1,984 unique generative titles of animated MP4 books in the Romance genre. Currently pre-sale.

Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity and There Is Never Anything But the Present (BookCoin) – Anticipated Q1 2022.

Shawn Whitney, Various Titles (Annie’s Bookshop) – 1,984 unique generative titles of animated MP4 books in the Sci-Fi genre. Currently in a pre-sale phase.

Lit NFT Projects in Hibernation:

Organizations with no apparent activity in over six months.

Bookchain (Website | Twitter | Facebook) – Literary NFT bookseller offering ERC-20 tokens linked to ebooks.

Publica (Website | Twitter | Facebook) – Early pioneer in blockchain publishing, issuing ERC-20 tokens on a proprietary exchange to unlock content in a proprietary wallet.

Winehouse Publishing (Website | Twitter | Facebook) – Sweden-based traditional-crypto hybrid multilingual publisher of public domain classics on the Ethereum blockchain. Each book has its own ISBN. The collection represents a great investment in work, but no sales or new listings since June 2021.

Bubbling Up:

Organizations with potential to enter the space.

NFTBooks (Website | Twitter | Telegram) – Upcoming literary NFT publisher and marketplace. Token: $NFTBS

 


The First NFT/Metaverse Religion- Bald Jesusism 

March Holidays

The March full moon is the ‘Sugar Moon’ on this day (March 17th in Hawaii) we share sweet treats with kids and the people we love and also – take the day off work if you can. Enjoy yourself. March 14th is world Pi Day. On this day we celebrate math and eat pie. Sharing pie with math lovers is a very Bald Jesus thing to do. If you are baking pies, cut the pi symbol in the top of your pie! The big one for March though is Garden Day aka Spring Equinox – Generally around March 21st. Do some gardening, get outside, feel the soil under your bare feet. Review your goals and aspirations for the year. Meditate on happiness. Gather with friends.

https://www.baldjesus.com | Bald Jesus Twitter | Holy Bjble Twitter

https://www.baldjesusdrinkingclub.com – Minting Now!- for Bald Jesus Drinking Club

.05 ETH limited to 777 total

Holy Bjble – AB version – Readable on OS! Only .001 ETH on Polygon so no gas

Bald Jesus is Your Bro! Don’t Be a Dick

 


Useful Info

I periodically move all of this to the NFT 101 page on Vagobond.com https://vagobond.com/nft-101/

 

Watchlist for upcoming projects:

Art Heads

Mefaverse

Evmos Punks

 

Great Projects I’m Not In or Following:

aka projects I missed and am salty about. There are too many – see the whole list at:

https://vagobond.com/nft-101/great-nft-projects-ive-missed/

Missed in March: Cyber Brokers

 


Tokens & Staking

These are the tokens and crypto/defi projects that NFTs have led me to. Bizarre when you think about it. See the full list at here

Cult Daohttps://app.cultdao.io/  | Manifesto

 


These are projects that I wanted to believe in that simply seem like they are dead. I bought into many of these instead of the winning projects above. Take that as a warning. I sincerely hope that they resurrect – but when I put them here, it means that I’ve stopped believing and looking. I hope to someday have a section at the top called ‘Resurrections’ for when projects in the Graveyard manage to rise up again. As time goes on, I have no doubt this will be the biggest section of this newsletter and I will let it keep growing so that those who care to look can understand that the majority of projects fail and investors lose money. Pick wisely, my friends, and good luck!

Newly Buried: See the huge full list at https://vagobond.com/nft-101/nft-project-graveyard/

 


Daily Features – Just click on the image to read the latest

Daily Features – Just click on the image to read the latest!

 

 

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