Publica is the worlds first to decentralize one of the larger industries in the world. The publishing industry.

The industry ranked up around 113 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. And is forecast to grow to around 123 billion by 2020. Publica is reinventing how the Author/Publisher relation works by introducing the blockchain to an industry that hasn’t seen a major change for centuries.

General idea

Publica will support authors from start to finish and beyond. Publica will be the platform for authors to start crowdfunding for a new release (using a similar system as an ICO). They build their own community, sell already released books and much more. Publica will offer a new way to sell books without any geographical restriction and offer the ability to buy books with any currency.

This does not only apply to e-books because Publica’s protocol will also support ‘print-on-demand’ with a participating partner. Offering lower priced paper books and the option of printing them near the readers location, without shipping. Eliminating waste in traditional large print runs and warehousing.

Not only will Publica’s platform handle novels and such. But the textbook industry in the U.S. alone is currently worth $14 billion. So you can imagine the potential. Universities will have the ability to offer books directly to their students, the ability to update texts on the fly and much more using Publica’s platform.

What are READ tokens?

Publica’s tokens also known as READ tokens are represented by an Ethereum ERC20 token. Which are active on the Ethereum network. The READ tokens are used as the book’s access key. The balance of these READ tokens are mapped to the public key of it’s owner on the Ethereum blockchain. Decentralized free access to the blockchain’s data enables transparent verification of ownership and the authorization which is necessary to connect any literary work, through the connected READ token.

The tokens which powers Publica’s protocol are known as Pebbles (PBL) and are issued in a fixed and locked supply. They are the overall currency of the platform. For example, if the Publica platform has over 100.000 books, there will be over 100.000 READ tokens. Every READ token being the key to their own book with it’s own ‘Smart contract’. When a reader wants to buy a book they can simply choose their own currency like Euro’s, U.S. Dollars, Japanese Yen etc.

The chosen currency will be converted to Pebbles and a READ token will be bought. This all happens under the hood. And the reader will not have to know anything about Cryptocurrency to buy a book. The same applies to the authors when they use the Publica platform.

Beneficial for all parties involved

Publica’s protocol will, when utilized, be beneficial for both readers and authors. And the protocol will also support some publishers.

Some of the publishers will benefit from the status quo and some from innovation. A few examples of benefits for parties mentioned above.

For the Author;

Immediate direct payments, buyer to seller, reader to author.

Freedom to market, publicize, and sell to the whole world. Without any geographic restrictions. Without fear of charge backs, errors or cheating.

For the Reader;

Lower prices. Payments go directly to the author’s wallet without any need for intermediaries.

Secondary markets and persistence. Readers will be able to sell or give away book keys as they wish. E-books on decentralized storage don’t disappear.

For the Publisher;

Direct control of publications-in-process, including editorial and illustration copies, review copies, pseudonymised peer review copies, translation copies, etc., and their e-commerce.

Publishers will be able to bypass regular retailers and sell directly to their consumer base.

To read more about this project and its benefits, check out Publica’s Whitepaper here.

Trading and investment opportunity

At the start of Publica’s ICO, one Pebble (PBL) was worth $0.10. Currently the price has gone up to $3.80. With a market cap of around 70 million U.S Dollars there is still a lot of room for growth. It won’t take long for the larger exchanges to recognize Publica’s potential.

The price has never been below the ICO value, which indicates a strong faith from investors. The community members have always been confident in this project. This also reflects in the price. The price is still growing in a healthy and natural manner.

Publica’s Pebbles are available on the following exchanges; Cryptopia, KuCoin and EtherDelta.

The growth of the Publica token known as Pebbles (PBL), Source coinmarketcap.com

The Team

The following people are the key team members of the project.

Josef Marc, CEO

Josef Marc leads the Publica team as the CEO of the platform. He has experience leading teams in the launch of DirecTV and the launch of Verizon FIOS TV. These projects helped him to get prepared for Publica. Publica being something that has also never been done before.

As Senior Project Manager & Professional Services at Sony he managed multiple teams building two Olympics broadcast centers at CBS and more. He is also an avid conference speaker and committee member at the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE). Overall he has worked with brands such as, CBS Olympics, DirecTV, Verizon, Sony and UNICT Rwanda. You can read more about Josef’s background on his LinkedIn page here.