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2/21/2022
GM!
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that there are other blockchains besides Ethereum. Yesterday I delved into two of them – Harmony One which has a pretty robust p2e gaming community as well as some very interesting NFT projects that are not p2e – and also the OSMO blockchain which is aligned with COSMOS/ATOM. Super interesting and something that should have much more than a lazy Sunday afternoon devoted to it.
I’m also experimenting with distribution. Yesterday I skipped posting in all the Discord servers where I usually promote this morning briefing – I was curious how much traffic came from that. Traffic dropped by about 1/3. I’m not sure if that was because it was Sunday of a holiday weekend in the US or something else. I’ll repeat the experiment in a few days and see if the results are similar.
We (you and I) are building something together here. You are a very important part of it. Web3 enables a more intimate and tangible connection between writers and readers – just as Web2 changed that experience by introducing blogs and social media. The difference now is that readers are a part of the entire process of creation, distribution, ownership, and more.
Good luck with Monday. Here’s how mine is going so far: I woke up early (as usual) to do a little yoga and get this ready – just as I sat down at my computer, my 10 year old daughter burst out of her bedroom projectile vomiting bright green vomit all over the carpet. She’s fine, we’re keeping an eye on her – but the next half hour was spent cleaning bright green vomit from the carpet. Happy Monday!
~CD Vagobond
News
* ALPHA * – The Vagobond Discord is one of the best free alpha servers around. You might see it in this briefing, but you’ll definitely see it in the Alpha channel of our discord first.
- NFTs Elevate Digital Art https://nftnow.com/art/james-jean-nfts-elevate-digital-art-to-the-same-status-as-paintings/
- Is Crypto Winter Coming? Crypto winter 2022: Here’s what crypto industry veterans expect
- El Salvador Encouraging Bitcoin Citizenship Pro-Bitcoin president of El Salvador to offer citizenship for foreign investors
- NFT Markets are Booming – ETH, not so much despite-shaky-ethereum-the-nft-market-is-booming
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck mints as NFT tomorrow https://help.bookcoin.com/collection-faqs/keFW6X286EYG31Su72oWQt/mint-details/9s1isBHa6tQCuBGVof5n8H
- Cofounder of Huoboi Exchange says next Bitcoin Bullrun not until 2024
- Andrew Yang (US Presidential Candidate) is dropping an NFT project next Monday
Literary NFT Beat
(Updated Mondays by Greg R. Fishbone, Publisher of Cryptoversal Books – Find the latest at https://vagobond.com/literary-nft-beat/)
This is a place for NFT book creators to learn, connect, support each other, and advance the state of our craft and our industry. Everyone here right now is early to the party, which makes us the current and future leaders of the NFT book industry.
#MONTHLY STATE OF NFT BOOKS:
It’s February 2022, the second month in what may prove to be the year of the NFT book. In the past month, additional minters and marketplaces have come online with others chugging toward release, creating a choice of publishing platforms, blockchains, and formats.
There are now two New York Times bestselling authors with literary NFT projects as longtime blockchain evangelist Neil Strauss is joined Mark Manson, whose “tokenized” edition of excerpts from The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is set for release this week.
Big names, familiar titles, and fan favorites will eventually bring mainstream readers into the NFT space, but current attempts at blockbuster literary NFT projects so far seem targeted at existing NFT investors, emulating the models of successful NFT art projects in terms of scarcity, price, blockchain selection, visual appeal, collectability, and marketing strategy. Rare editions on Ethereum may go to the Moon, but casual readers just want a good story at a reasonable price on an environmentally friendly blockchain.
Creators are finding that literary NFTs require visual appeal to stand out, and some are finding innovative ways to blend multimedia elements. We’re seeing books with animated covers. We’re seeing poems with spoken word narration. We’re seeing partnerships between artists and authors. We’re seeing books with generative design. All of these hint at exciting innovations yet to come.
One disturbing trend that came to light this month was a project in which authors are receiving a much lower than standard royalty rate while giving up ownership rights in their work. Publishers and authors are free to negotiate whatever terms they like, of course, but our hope is that a decentralized and democratized space will level the worst of traditional publishing’s iniquities.
Cryptoversal authors are discussing the formation of a DAO. Members have access to beta minters and are sharing advice for publishing their works to other venues. We’re also sharing best practices for running a Writer’s Studio project using the Medusa Writer’s Studio as a model.
We now have a Discord server available for discussions as well as our Facebook group.
Lit NFT Directory:
Listings are informative and do not constitute endorsement of books or services.
Annie’s Bookshop (Website | Twitter | Discord) – Publisher of generative NFT books in MP4 animation format.
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)
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
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.
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.
WIP Publishing (Website) – The publishing arm of PageDAO.
NFT Textbooks:
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 on Solana blockchain.
NFT Novels:
Brian Toups, Drifter (OpenSea) – NFT book in integrated reader on Ethereum blockchain.
Literary NFT Collections:
Saami Heyes, “Night Creatures” Collection (Objkt) – Text-on-image NFT poetry on Tezos 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, “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.
Saami Heyes, “Saami’s Journal” Collection (Foundation) – Text-on-image NFT poetry.
Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (BookCoin) – A NYT bestseller “fractionalized” into an 1,111-piece collection of text-themed NFT art. Greenlist open, minting begins 22-Feb-22.
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.
Vagobond’s New Acquisitions
You can find my NFT buying methodology and more at https://vagobond.com/nft-101/
- Parallel Alpha Card from faucet (free with gas) https://opensea.io/assets/0x76be3b62873462d2142405439777e971754e8e77/10493
- Punk Mambo from Valiant Comics https://opensea.io/assets/0x027f175473f544f22b436a692d248df8c099a627/296
- Two Bit Bears Gen 2 (from breeding two gen 1 with honey) and Gen 3 https://opensea.io/assets/0x488c057cf3dee9ee2e386112e08f2c6d8e58cdfb/1507 https://opensea.io/assets/0x279f1abb8649ea5af64afacc6511cb41f512bec1/432
- Rebels in Disguise #578 (from redemption of RiD coin) https://opensea.io/assets/0x1ca1f5dc13f3204088993df413c81561dce72cfc/578
- Harmony Punk (on Harmony One Blockchain) https://nftkey.app/collections/harmonyonepunks/token-details/?tokenId=7118
This morning’s cover (on Vagobond) is Rebels in Disguise #578
Daily Features – Just click on the image to read the latest!
NFT & Metaverse Religion & Sprituality
The First NFT/Metaverse Religion- Bald Jesusism Bald Jesus – BJ is Your Bro
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
Cult Dao– https://app.cultdao.io/ | Manifesto
I bought some of this. I staked it. I’m not sure what will happen with it, but I like the ideology which is more like an anarchist cult than a religious cult.
Useful Info
I periodically move all of this to the NFT 101 page on Vagobond.com https://vagobond.com/nft-101/
Watchlist:
Moonlings – Metahero derivitive project by PVFD – https://discord.gg/cXjPutEu4h
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 February: Generative Dungeons, Heroes, Mfers
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
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/