A new way to publish. Read, collect, and support writers and artists you love. Major product updates coming soon!
The Magazine
NiftyLit publishes short form literary content in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and flash. Authors submit pieces for consideration using our Submittable page, and our staff reads every piece we receive. Pieces selected for publication are put through a rigorous editorial process and are also assigned an illustrator for original artwork creation.
Our Publishing Model
NiftyLit publishes “issues” on a monthly basis, typically featuring 5-10 individual literary works across all genres, and anthologies on a quarterly basis. All writing is paired with original illustrations. NiftyLit has a unique publishing agreement that offers authors royalty rates greatly exceeding 50% of net receipts of initial and secondary NFT sales of their work, paid in USD. NiftyLit has exclusive publishing rights to the literary works for a two-year period, and non-exclusive publishing rights to the literary works thereafter. For illustrations, NiftyLit pays its illustrators on a piece-by-piece basis, and has a growing pool of illustrators to whom we are already providing a steady stream of commission agreements.
Published pieces appear in online print on our magazine’s site for a “reading period” of approximately 60 days, and are simultaneously published as a literary NFT collections. Then, our amazing community of readers, art lovers, and NFT enthusiasts can buy, sell, and trade copies of the literary NFTs in order to read, enjoy, engage with our growing community, and support their favorite writers and artists.
Literary NFTs
Please visit our Literary NFT Education Page for more details, videos, guides, and FAQs.
Similar to the way music is being distributed as NFTs, Literary NFTs display each piece’s original artwork as “cover art,” and the literary works themselves are displayed only as “unlockable content” to NFT purchasers.
NiftyLit uses Submarine by Pinata to verify NFT ownership with purchasers’ crypto wallet IDs, at which point the literary works are “unlocked” for reading. NiftyLit publishes our Literary NFTs as custom typeset, beautifully rendered PDFs that provide a unique reading experience and are a worthy addition to any NFT collection.
Unlike some other NFT projects, NiftyLit Literary NFTs are created by or on behalf of NiftyLit and are specifically associated with one or more works of authorship such that, if a person owns a NiftyLit Literary NFT, that person can access such creative work through the NiftyLit Literary NFT pursuant to our NFT Agreement. Creative work is licensed; NiftyLit or its licensors own all legal right, title, and interest in and to the creative work and all intellectual property rights therein. This and other measures protects our authors, illustrators, and our business from IP and copyright infringement.
Who We Are
A group of literary enthusiasts who believe in the power of technology to put creative control back in the hands of artists. Swing on over to our Discord channel to get to know us!
NiftyLit Team
Katie M. Zeigler
Editor in Chief / katie@niftylit.io
Katie M. Zeigler is a writer and professor of creative writing who has published both fiction and nonfiction in a variety of outlets. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two teenage sons. Unlike Jo and Alex, Katie has never done anything with a bomb, but was awarded the Junior Cowgirl belt buckle in 1985 at the Mariposa Rodeo which should count for something. www.katiemzeigler.com
Jo Unruh
Cofounder and CEO / jo@niftylit.io
Jo used to disarm bombs for the Navy, and now she writes. She’s a transfeminine, queer identifying parent who also happens to go by “dad” to her two kiddos. She’s worked in corporate cubicles, defense contracting, and VC. And now, she’s putting her business savvy towards fixing something she believes is broken: the publishing ecosystem. You can find some of her work at www.jounruh.com.
Alex Burtness
Cofounder and CTO / alex@niftylit.io
Alex used to travel the world disarming bombs with Jo. Now he builds robots and does improvisational comedy. Alex is passionate about artificial intelligence and blockchain, but he’s most fascinated by the intersection of art and technology. He’s never been published, but he thinks writers are the greatest people in the world.
What's Next for NiftyLit?
Growing Our Community
NiftyLit is gaining new followers on social media everyday, but the most meaningful connections are when it feels like people are truly joining our community. We’ve had ongoing dialogue with writers, artists, and literary enthusiasts via our Discord channel, and hope this unique part of our literary publishing business continues to expand, far beyond Discord and into author readings, interviews, and even live, in-person literary events.
Improving Our Technology
NiftyLit will one day be a “one-stop-shop” for Literary NFTs, where everything in our workflow can be performed directly on our site, from submitting work to purchasing our NFTs, without having to visit a single third-party website. We also hope to leverage technology to improve and enhance the customer experience (e.g., including audio and video recordings bundled with our literary NFTs).
Expanding our Publishing Model
In the future, we hope to publish full-length works, works in translation, and potentially academia and research-based articles and papers.
Partners and Shout Outs
Pinata
Your home for NFT media / Pinata.cloud
We use Pinata’s Submarine (submarine.me) to create and manage our unlockable content (mainly, the beautifully typeset versions of our literary NFTs that our CTO Alex works very hard on!). And more than that, the team from Pinata is extremely kind and generous in helping us out!
Chainstarters
Web3 made easy for brands / Chainstarters.com
Chainstarters is a “no-code platform that makes it easy for brands to implement web3 solutions that drive customer engagement and accelerate growth – without the dev time.” We’ve been working with Chainstarters to make the process of purchasing literary NFTs even easier. They are also very kind and we love their team!