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Abstract

p>For several of those responding to the question, the catch was that the original story turned into a higher paying project — often edging up to the 10,000-word mark. A couple of people responded with five-figure amounts for book deals.In my case, I never wrote another word on my $30,000 article or even anything else for the original publication. It has never been edited or rewritten. It has simply been resold. I’ve always been reluctant to share the details of those resales, but I think they clearly show how we can use NFTs to our benefit, so I’m gonna share everything but the actual company names (which wouldn’t take you too long to dig up, if you really wanted to do the research.)It started with a 1993 trip to the grocery store, where I encountered the smell of bacon in one area of the store and oranges in another. My first thought was that they were offering samples somewhere, but I never found any. What I found instead, after a bit of research, was that it was a newish marketing trend: aroma marketing.Among the multiple stories I pitched from that research, was one targeting kids interested in science in the magazine 3-2-1 Contact (a publication of the Children’s Television Workshop.) They contracted for the story. They bought first North American print rights for$ 300.My first resale was a year later to the state of Louisiana for use in a reading comprehension standardized test. They bought it three times, each for one-time use in a specified number of test packets and each sale netted $200. That opened a floodgate into the educational market.The remainder of the sales were to workbook publishers, in North America, Japan, China, and Singapore. The North American publisher was the cheapskate (and also the one company that published the story without consent first). They insisted on a 10-year contract without limits on how many workbooks they could use the story in. The Japanese made up the bulk of the$ 30,000 re-sales and acted as my referral for the other two Asian markets.<h1 id="d8d5">Can you see yet where this is going in relation to NFTs?</h1>Selling an article as an NFT would be the same as selling a license to use something you wrote. You would retain copyright and therefore the ability to sell multiple NFTs derived from the same work.The market for written content is actually much larger than you think it is, particularly the market for work already created. Admit it, had you ever thought about selling a story to a standardized test creator? How about a Japanese language workbook? The NFT marketplace will simplify these types of sales and make them far more commonplace across the globe.In the case of my aroma marketing story, I’d have sold an NFT to 3–2–1 Contact that specified First North American print rights, which would

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likely increase its price (while limiting the purchaser’s ability to use it more than once or to resell it).Which brings up an important subject: NFTs can be resold. So once my Japanese workbook publisher tires of the story, they could conceivably put the NFT back on the market. They probably even have contacts at smaller publishing houses who would snap it up like carp snatching bread crumbs on the surface of a pond. The beauty of that scenario is that because identity is digitally built into the NFT, the creator is paid a 10 percent royalty for life on any subsequent sales.Even if your words don’t appreciate in value like art, the potential for the original buyer to eventually want to recoup some of their expenses by reselling an evergreen piece is very real. In the case of my story, it might have lead to an even larger bottom line had it been priced right in the beginning.The fact that I know a little about the market (and now, so do you) means I wouldn’t list any article with this particular potential for less than $10,000 (5.4 ETH). But I made$ 30,000, why would I lower my expectations? Because I could realistically sell such a piece at least three times, if not more. You also have to consider that during the transition to any new market the shock to those companies that paid a few hundred several times in the past will be a challenge to overcome.<h1 id="14e2">But how would sales be facilitated?</h1>Initially, writers themselves could request that a transaction be handled as an NFT during contract negotiations. Beyond that, putting written work out on the existing marketplace sites will eventually attract the attention of all sorts of publishers looking to fill their content needs.My story fit nicely into the education sector, but there are content markets for strong evergreen pieces in the finance, legal, and real estate markets, among others. The buyer’s ability to easily offer an article for resale when they finish with it might be the attractant needed to draw them in.One caveat is that open-market pieces should not have tightly restricted rights. (You can’t sell first North American print rights twice.) Restrictions should probably be reserved for sales negotiated in advance.<h1 id="0ad5">Takeaways:</h1>There’s a new game in town and it has our names written all over it. NFTs are likely to be the thing we’ve all been waiting for to ensure we get paid a reasonable fee upfront for our work while creating a potential for life-long passive income as that work is traded on the open market for a period of time.The keys, in my opinion, are writing evergreen content with a particular market in mind, pricing those pieces competitively, but with long-range value in mind, and using plenty of follow-up marketing to ensure your content is found.</article></body>

My $30,000 Article Explains How NFTs Might Work for Writers

I made my money the old fashioned way, but it would have been easier, faster, and more secure with NFTs

Photo by Kristina Tamašauskaitė on Unsplash

Let’s be clear right up front, NFTs (non fungible tokens) are tickling our temporal lobes from every direction these days. And even the smartest among us are struggling with how to find the path forward for writers. I’ve been reading what those smart people are saying (start with Ash Jurberg’s story), plus after Greg Prince actually created his first NFT, I spent a little time on the site he used. It is mind-boggling. Imagine eBay of the next century.

There’s so much to learn. What ARE all those things for sale? What’s an Ethereum worth in dollars? What’s the difference between WETH and ETH? How do you sell territory in a video game? It will take time friends, but first the baby steps.

Will this even work for the written word?

Oh, hell yes. In all honesty, I think eventually this will be the predominant method of selling our work, to clients, publications, and even directly to the reading consumer themselves. (Amazon had better hurry up and get involved in NFTs, or the next big digital bookstore will put them out of the book business, once and for all.)

But that’s the not-too-distant future. Right now, the vast majority of NFTs for sale involves visual art forms. So we first have to determine who would pay for words in the here and now. And that’s how the story of my $30,000 article can help you understand the principle of how words can earn over a long lifespan outside the parameters of where we usually think that happens in today’s lightening-paced world.

The non-viral story that keeps making money

I’ve mentioned this story before; it came up again recently in an online conversation where a group of writers was asked to share their top earnings for an article outside of Medium. The numbers were quite impressive, but the key thing I took away from every answer that topped the $1,200 mark is that to reach those life-changing numbers for a single short piece of work there is always a catch.

For several of those responding to the question, the catch was that the original story turned into a higher paying project — often edging up to the 10,000-word mark. A couple of people responded with five-figure amounts for book deals.

In my case, I never wrote another word on my $30,000 article or even anything else for the original publication. It has never been edited or rewritten. It has simply been resold. I’ve always been reluctant to share the details of those resales, but I think they clearly show how we can use NFTs to our benefit, so I’m gonna share everything but the actual company names (which wouldn’t take you too long to dig up, if you really wanted to do the research.)

It started with a 1993 trip to the grocery store, where I encountered the smell of bacon in one area of the store and oranges in another. My first thought was that they were offering samples somewhere, but I never found any. What I found instead, after a bit of research, was that it was a newish marketing trend: aroma marketing.

Among the multiple stories I pitched from that research, was one targeting kids interested in science in the magazine 3–2–1 Contact (a publication of the Children’s Television Workshop.) They contracted for the story. They bought first North American print rights for $300.

My first resale was a year later to the state of Louisiana for use in a reading comprehension standardized test. They bought it three times, each for one-time use in a specified number of test packets and each sale netted $200. That opened a floodgate into the educational market.

The remainder of the sales were to workbook publishers, in North America, Japan, China, and Singapore. The North American publisher was the cheapskate (and also the one company that published the story without consent first). They insisted on a 10-year contract without limits on how many workbooks they could use the story in. The Japanese made up the bulk of the $30,000 re-sales and acted as my referral for the other two Asian markets.

Can you see yet where this is going in relation to NFTs?

Selling an article as an NFT would be the same as selling a license to use something you wrote. You would retain copyright and therefore the ability to sell multiple NFTs derived from the same work.

The market for written content is actually much larger than you think it is, particularly the market for work already created. Admit it, had you ever thought about selling a story to a standardized test creator? How about a Japanese language workbook? The NFT marketplace will simplify these types of sales and make them far more commonplace across the globe.

In the case of my aroma marketing story, I’d have sold an NFT to 3–2–1 Contact that specified First North American print rights, which would likely increase its price (while limiting the purchaser’s ability to use it more than once or to resell it).

Which brings up an important subject: NFTs can be resold. So once my Japanese workbook publisher tires of the story, they could conceivably put the NFT back on the market. They probably even have contacts at smaller publishing houses who would snap it up like carp snatching bread crumbs on the surface of a pond. The beauty of that scenario is that because identity is digitally built into the NFT, the creator is paid a 10 percent royalty for life on any subsequent sales.

Even if your words don’t appreciate in value like art, the potential for the original buyer to eventually want to recoup some of their expenses by reselling an evergreen piece is very real. In the case of my story, it might have lead to an even larger bottom line had it been priced right in the beginning.

The fact that I know a little about the market (and now, so do you) means I wouldn’t list any article with this particular potential for less than $10,000 (5.4 ETH). But I made $30,000, why would I lower my expectations? Because I could realistically sell such a piece at least three times, if not more. You also have to consider that during the transition to any new market the shock to those companies that paid a few hundred several times in the past will be a challenge to overcome.

But how would sales be facilitated?

Initially, writers themselves could request that a transaction be handled as an NFT during contract negotiations. Beyond that, putting written work out on the existing marketplace sites will eventually attract the attention of all sorts of publishers looking to fill their content needs.

My story fit nicely into the education sector, but there are content markets for strong evergreen pieces in the finance, legal, and real estate markets, among others. The buyer’s ability to easily offer an article for resale when they finish with it might be the attractant needed to draw them in.

One caveat is that open-market pieces should not have tightly restricted rights. (You can’t sell first North American print rights twice.) Restrictions should probably be reserved for sales negotiated in advance.

Takeaways:

There’s a new game in town and it has our names written all over it. NFTs are likely to be the thing we’ve all been waiting for to ensure we get paid a reasonable fee upfront for our work while creating a potential for life-long passive income as that work is traded on the open market for a period of time.

The keys, in my opinion, are writing evergreen content with a particular market in mind, pricing those pieces competitively, but with long-range value in mind, and using plenty of follow-up marketing to ensure your content is found.