Block Dojo 2023: Finding new ways to promote books and sports with blockchain

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Ever wondered how books get published? It’s not an easy process, says Arsim Shillova, co-founder and CEO of Libraro, a platform that will allow the general public access to unpublished books and help publishers decide which to support. Arsim, an author himself, was disheartened after seeing first-hand what it takes to get a book published.

“I actually wrote a book and decided to try and get it published through the traditional way of sending it to a literary agent, and to my disappointment, I never got a response,” he recounts.

Out of curiosity, he decided to visit the publishing company to better understand the process.

As he tells Charles Miller on the latest episode of CoinGeek Conversations, “When I entered this office, I realized why I never got a response, because the office was full of manuscripts. Physically it was impossible to read that many. But technology should be able to solve this problem.”

Arsim says that authors like him stop writing after experiencing rejection through the traditional process. With Libraro, he wants to give writers an opportunity to get their work out to the public. He explains that Libraro allows authors to write from scratch or upload their content onto the platform. Artificial intelligence (AI) will then provide a synopsis of the manuscript, as well as offer suggestions for possible improvements. Once the content goes live, readers can access the author’s work with an option for both parties to engage with one another.

“It’s almost like another social community platform,” he says.

The platform utilizes blockchain in such a way that content on Libraro is recorded on the ledger—it is immutable and offers a layer of protection.

“Intellectual property rights are something of a concern to everyone out there who writes something,” he says. “We will use blockchain to timestamp the manuscript, so we know that there is a digital record and it sits in blockchain with your credentials.”

Libraro is currently in talks with the London Writers’ Salon, a writers’ group with 20,000 members.

“The idea is we want to channel these writers to our platform,” Arsim says.

From books to sports

Next up, Charles speaks to James Hart, Founder and CEO of Rumblebox, a platform that uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to fund new sports leagues and events. As James explains, sports fans will be allowed to crowdfund through Rumblebox in exchange for benefits such as tickets, VIP access to the athletes, merchandise, and monetary rewards.

James says they plan to target Gen Zs. To start with this, they intend to focus on emerging sports such as esports and YouTube boxing.

“The younger fans that are more NFT-friendly are more likely to have completely different tastes, and in the way that they consume sports, for example, they like esports way more than football, and in some countries, they like YouTube boxing over traditional boxing.”

Part of Rumblebox’s strategy is to partner with an athlete or influencer and to leverage their audience by having these personalities act as endorsers of the new sports league or event. As James explains, Rumblebox will work similarly to NBA Top Shot, a popular NFT marketplace that allows users to trade on the platform regardless of their knowledge of the technology behind it. Just like NBA Top Shot, which has a million users, Rumblebox will price its products in U.S. dollars.

According to James, their objective is to create new sports franchises or sports leagues that will bring long-term value.

“The more profitable and more organic growth that they [athletes and influencers] get for the fan base for those leagues and events, the more valuable a season ticket or a VIP access pass is going to be.”

Watch Arsim and James discuss their platforms in the third part of CoinGeek Conversations’ latest Block Dojo series. For previous shows, check out the CoinGeek Conversations YouTube playlist.

You can also watch the podcast video on YouTube.

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