PageDAO: A Revolution in Literary Technology

March 21st, 2022

Human beings have always wanted to preserve their culture and transmit their beliefs and knowledge. Our story begins when writing was invented. From hieroglyphic writing to NFTBooks, the way stories have been told has changed a lot, but not their value.

It was the Sumerians, around the year 4000 BC, who invented writing. They impressed the first symbols with a pointed tool on a clay tablet. Although writing and literature are not synonymous, they are closely related. It was centuries later and through the invention of new writing techniques (papyrus, parchment, wax tablets) that literature became popular. Its rise came with the invention of the printing press. As this technique was improved, the literature reached more people and the knowledge spread. With paperbacks in 1501, many gentlemen read books on the go.

Another milestone in literature would come in 1970 when Project Gutenberg gave birth to the first electronic books. During the early years, digital books should archive works in the public domain. It was from the year 2000 when the writers published in digital format. Stephen King’s novel Riding the Ticket pointed the way forward, selling 400,000 copies in just one day. Years later, in 2007, Amazon launched Kindle, the first electronic book reader.

Mobile phones have become part of our lives and being able to access millions of books with just a couple of clicks would have been magical years ago.

With the 21st century, we have seen the use of some technologies such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence or Cloud Computing. Of all of them, the one that most promises to affect all markets is blockchain. Basically, blockchain is a set of technologies that allow keeping a secure, decentralized, synchronized and distributed record of digital operations, with no third-party intermediation.

We reach the year 2020 and a pandemic shakes the world, and while millions of people in the world suffer from restrictions, a technology that everyone talks about, NFTs, emerges. Either they love them or they hate them, and that makes me think that human beings are sometimes too passionate. NFTs are non-fungible tokens registered on the blockchain, that’s all. Blockchain will be integrated into the internet, it does not come to replace it. Web3.0 is here to stay.

WHAT IS WEB3?

Web3 is a decentralized web built on a blockchain structure, the same technology that is behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. To understand what web3 is, you need to know what web1 and web2 are.

The web1.0, also called static web. It was the first era of the internet. Users did not interact and only a few created content. Project Gutenberg was launched in web1. At the end of the 90’s appeared the web2.0, also called the social web. Thanks to JavaScript and html5, they increase the interaction. Users could create content and distribute it easily. It is the age of Amazon Kindle and blogs. During these years mobile phones became an indispensable accessory for millions of people. Web2 implemented countless improvements but also had certain drawbacks: centralization of profits and power, surveillance and data selling, and aggressive advertising. This is where web3 comes into play. Also called semantic web, which is committed to being more open, intelligent, democratic and transparent than the previous generation.

At the beginning of the internet, you had to put in your email and password, then you connected through Google or Twitter, and now you will do it through your digital wallet.

“Blockchain is a concept and Bitcoin is the implementation of that concept.” The possibilities that blockchain offers are not limited to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In blockchain, the data is distributed through different servers and its management does not depend on a central “entity” (they are decentralized), they are not modifiable a priori (they are immutable) and they are cryptographically protected (they are secure).

NFTs can store any type of file, from videos, photos, books, movies, resumes, employment contracts, etc.

DAOs irruption

DAOs are decentralized autonomous organizations that are governed by code, are based on smart contracts, and mostly run on the Ethereum Network. The rules on which the DAO will be based will depend on the code that is inserted in those smart contracts.

DAOs, roughly speaking, are a group of people with common goals who use blockchain technology to interact with each other. These people are organized in a transparent, democratic manner, without hierarchy and with open access. The absence of authority in a DAO sustains its success in deciding through member votes. Nobody will modify the smart contract without the approval of the others.

To carry out these votes, DAOs usually have governance tokens, which are given to members in different ways. By holding those tokens, users gain voting power within the DAO. Although the latter is the participation modality that is most commonly seen among DAOs, it is not the only one that exists. Other organizations use a system based on shares that cannot be purchased directly, but permission must be requested to join through a specific proposal.

To better understand how a DAO works, I recommend watching this illustrative video.

The possibilities offered by DAOs are enormous. Never has it been so easy to collaborate with people from different countries. Through decentralization, users with cryptocurrencies do not depend on a bank to transact with each other, nor on platforms like Google or Facebook to publish their content. Once you understand the significant change that web3, NFTs and blockchain entail, you realize we are facing a true technological revolution.

Finally, PageDAO

Like almost all DAOs, PageDAO arose from the collaboration of people with the same philosophy of life and with a common mission, to decentralize book publishing. A small group of writers began a journey full of hope and motivation.

WIP Publishing Company was founded first. Whose priority is to democratize access to literature. WIP Publishing came about after a year of conversations between a group of readers and writers who wanted a better experience. Initially, the idea was an online magazine unlockable via NFT. Now the shared goal of this growing group of people is to build a Library of Alexandria no one could burn down on the blockchain.

The first NFTBook was minted in January 2021. The pdf book reader was embedded in an HTML page hosted by IPFS (decentralized cloud file storage for Web3). As of fall 2021, there were more than a dozen NFTBooks in the OpenSea “Genesis” collection.

It was then that they launched a token so that the decisions of the project would fall on all the members. They created PageDAO, whose mission is, like WIP Publishing, to promote creative literary activities on the blockchain, the metaverse and beyond. In its attempt to democratize book publishing, the $PAGE governance token was born.

The PAGE token is a token with books at its heart. Our $PAGE utility token serves as a currency within the DAO to reward literary creatives and supporters for their contributions.

PageDAO will provide more transparency into book performance while minimizing costs for authors and publishers through NFTbooks.

What are NFTbooks?

NFTBooks comprise hidden files stored in IPFS that are sent to a dApp that is rendered in a web browser, allowing the user to access the content. Each NFTBook is a digital certificate of ownership that tracks and values the content of the work and has the property of digital scarcity, allowing the set of innovations to be described in this document. NFTBooks contain an amazing feature that many NFTs have, the ability to earn royalties on the secondary market. In addition, a book can now have múltiple authors/collaborators and the profits can be received in a multi-sig wallet. NFTsBooks can contain text, audio, images, and videos. Everything from physical objects to virtual worlds is possible. NFTBooks will also offer the ability to order a hard copy at printer prices through the dApp contained in every book.

During the creation of the technology, NFTsBooks certain drawbacks appeared: royalties, unstable prices, book design, book security. Each of these obstacles has been tackled by a small team of innovative and dedicated NFT pioneers. The result is a book market like the world has never seen before: eBooks are non-transferable and there are no secondary markets, and paper books can never be immutable, which is why NFTBooks are unstoppable.

PageDAO will revolutionize the publishing, buying and selling of books through the NFTbooks minter. A simple tool with which you can launch your book on Opensea, the largest NFTs market in the world. With digital ownership and scarcity, the NFTBooks markets will be more efficient than anything before. Even Gutenberg Press and its diverse backgrounds couldn’t create books as durable and censorship-resistant as NFTBooks.

Welcome to a revolution in literary technology!

Why publish on PageDAO?

There are a huge number of authors who can’t follow through on their dreams because of the current book publishing system.

The authors have two options, look for a publisher, which will decide if the work is good in a centralized way, which we dislike. Besides other problems such as pirate publishers that exist today in which they take advantage of the hopes and despair of writers.

The other option is to self-publish and the easiest way to do it is through Amazon kindle. It is undeniable that Amazon democratized publishing by allowing anyone to launch their ebook for free and put it up for sale in the largest book market in history. That’s great, but we’ve already talked about what web3 entails. After all, if Jeff Bezos wanted to tomorrow, he could delete all the books published on his platform. Just like banks, which can block your money without your permission. A widely used phrase in the crypto world is, “it’s not your keys, it’s not your money”. The same can be carried over to digital books. Through NFTs you are storing those books on the blockchain, which is immutable.

Also, to be fair, listing on Amazon is free, but if you want to launch a quality product, you’ll need to spend money first. Personally, this is where DAOs and web3 win hands down over any other way of publishing. The possibility of collaborating. To publish a book, you will need a cover designer, one or two text editors and several Alpha readers. Also, later you will need to have knowledge of marketing, SEO and social networks so that your book does not get lost among the thousands that are published daily. In PageDAO you can find all these actors that will make your publication much easier. Through tools like joint wallets and voting platforms like Snapshot, the publisher now belongs to the writers themselves. Together, the future of the DAO is decided. And together you can contribute to one book/projects someone is working on. Power within the DAO is determined by the number of $PAGE tokens each member has. A wonderful possibility that exists within the DAOS and also Page DAO, is the use of grants. Any user can make a proposal requesting a crowdfunding for their project, and if the rest of the DAO members agree, the user will receive their $PAGE grant with which to start working.

PageDAO is currently available on the Ethereum and Polygon network. And that’s yet another reason to post on Page DAO. Many people say that cryptocurrencies pollute, but that is far from the truth. The current banking and mining system, industries such as fashion or entertainment, or even the internet, are more polluting than Bitcoin. But based on those opinions, PageDAO mints his NFTsBooks on the Polygon network, which is more efficient and less polluting than Ethereum. Not to mention commissions, which are almost non-existent in the Polygon Network.

Decentralized distribution allows all market participants equal access to the technology and financial tools needed to create great new properties for books. Enabling NFT technologies will allow a whole new set of properties to be integrated into the book market for the first time in history.

It is possible to create a completely decentralized blockchain-based library of NFTBooks that pays its authors and promoters more to make and distribute books than traditional marketplaces. No matter the literary genre, scientific travel books, biographies, monographs, poetic fiction, etc. PageDAO intends to compete with the publishing industry. The goal is to enable book writers and readers alike to benefit financially from their participation in this revamped and revamped publishing industry.

Another problem that PageDAO comes to solve is piracy. Both in classic books and in digital content, there has been a lot of authorship theft and to this day it continues to be a headache for authors, buyers and publishers. Blockchain solves counterfeiting problems.

You have three options to join Page DAO with which you will benefit.

If you are a writer: you will have financial and moral support from the other members of the DAO. Publishing your content through an NFT allows you to collect royalties if the buyer resells the book.

If you are a reader: buying an NFTbook, besides the love of reading, allows you something that is not possible in digital books, resell it when you have already read it, or give it away by sending it to the wallet of a loved one. Another option is to hold onto it hoping the book will become the next Harry Potter and you can say you have the original digital edition.

If you are an investor/collector: the NFTbooks besides the literary value, give you the option described above, you can buy an NFTbooks of the next Edgar Allan Poe and it will be registered in the chain of blocks that you bought and hold that NFT.

Where are we going?

Writers still only “have” two real options: impress a literary agent who holds the keys to the publishers, or self-publish. Both paths are unnecessarily painful, and only the lucky, the privileged, or the immensely discreet make a steady income from them.

Nobody said that being a writer was easy and at PageDAO we know it, since as independent writers, we have suffered the same. Also, the worst thing is that the path of the writer used to be lonely. That doesn’t have to be like that, the more you get into the world of DAOs, the better you’ll understand.

Discord right now is a hive of ideas and in Page DAO it’s amazing how people from all over the world, with the same passion for literature, collaborate with each other. Currently over 30 NFTbooks have been released and there are 6 collaborative projects that have received grants from the DAO to carry them out. It also has two daily sections where you can receive $PAGE for writing short stories. PageDAO, besides everything we have described in this article, offers you the possibility of publishing your books while you learn or teach knowledge to other writers.

The way we communicate has really changed in recent years. We spend more and more time glued to a screen. Technology can take you away from the real world, but it can also bring you closer to people thousands of thousands away. PageDAO discord could be the virtual version of the Anticco Caffe Greco. A place where writers meet, write and talk and negotiate about their projects and life. In short, a place where people with restless minds and a love of literature can go.