A historical NiftyLit Page...
Hello! If you’ve landed on this page, you’re visiting a relic from our past. We are no longer publishing writing as Digital First Editions, aka Literary NFTs. We are leaving this page live for educational purposes, but many of the links are broken and the information is outdated. Thank you for your understanding.
Digital First Editions, aka Literary NFTs: the Future of Publishing. Our Digital First Editions are created with NFT technology, which holds far more potential to power the “creator first economy” than most readers realize… going well beyond the jpegs of animated animals that most of the population associates with the term “NFT.”
We highly encourage our community to give our Digital First Editions/ Literary NFTs a try, especially since the majority of proceeds from our literary NFT sales go directly to our contributing authors. As of October 31, 2022, we’ve launched our own NFT Marketplace, which you can access here. Our marketplace offers user-friendly solutions for buying and reading NiftyLit NFTs…very little crypto knowledge necessary! If you need help with this process or have questions, we have lots of resources below on this page, and on our Discord. Note: prior to our marketplace launch, we utilized a marketplace called OpenSea to publish our literary NFTs, which we will be re-releasing on our own marketplace in due time. You can see those legacy NFTs here.
Discord. We have a growing community on our Discord and we’d love for you to join us! We frequently post helpful resources to our Discord channels, and are reachable via Discord practically 24/7 (we do like our sleep here at NiftyLit). All are welcome. If you want to know more about Discord, we put together a short synopsis here.
Want to know more about NiftyLit? You can read more about NiftyLit, our business, and our team on our about page.
Below are answers to frequently asked questions.
FAQs for Readers
A Nonfungible Token is a unique digital item. It can be associated with a work of art like an image or a piece of literature. Check out these great posts from Ethereum.org and OpenSea to learn more!
A literary NFT is a unique digital asset that provides access to a piece of literature. The content is only accessible to owners of the literary NFT. ≥50% of net receipts from sale and resale of NiftyLit’s literary NFTs go directly to the writer (royalty and net receipt-sharing models are delineated further in the master publishing agreements we sign with our contributing authors).
As of October 31, 2022, we’ve launched our own NFT Marketplace, which you can access here. On our marketplace, users have the option to use one of two types of “crypto wallets”: either Magic Link, for which all you need is an email address (no crypto knowledge necessary!), or MetaMask, which is a more crypto-native, decentralized solution (for our hardcore crypto-fans out there). Prior to our marketplace launch, we utilized a marketplace called OpenSea to publish our literary NFTs, which we will be re-releasing on our own marketplace in due time. You can see those legacy NFTs here.
Unlike on our marketplace, in order to make an account on OpenSea, you will need to own a crypto wallet like MetaMask or Coinbase Wallet. You will also need to purchase some cryptocurrency from a site like Coinbase (or buy direct using your crypto wallet), in order to purchase and/ or bid and/ or make and receive offers on NFTs. NFTs on OpenSea can be purchased and sold in a “buy now” capacity, in auctions, or even just by enthusiasts making and receiving offers for NFTs within various collections.
While we are transitioning away from OpenSea and to our own marketplace, if you do want to know more about the crypto-native buying process, you can check out How to Purchase a Literary NFT from NiftyLit (and do other cool web3 things too): A Beginner’s Guide, written by Jo (in other words, send all complaints to jo@niftylit.io!).
The number one reason? Because you love the work and want to own it.
The tied for first place reason? Because you want to support writers and artists and you value the work that they create.
As mentioned above, a significant portion (≥50%) of net receipts from sale and resale of NiftyLit’s literary NFTs go directly to the writer. This is a huge divergence from traditional publishing models (which we believe are broken) and is centered on putting writers and artists first!
We use a service called Submarining (made by our friends at Pinata) to keep the content locked to only the owner of the NFT. Ownership is verified with the owner’s unique wallet ID.
If on OpenSea, there will be a link in the unlockable field of your NFT. You’ll then sign in with your crypto wallet in order to access the content. On our marketplace, you can access your NFT’s content under “My Perks” or on your profile.
You can keep the NFT so that you can continue to access and enjoy the work long term. You may also desire to hold onto it if you believe the value will increase over time (say the writer who wrote a piece of writing you own as an NFT goes on to win a Pulitzer…making ownership of your NFT even more special…). You can also sell it at any time, and choose your own price. Think of the blockchain as a “used digital bookstore.”
No, you will need to sign in using a crypto wallet holding the proper NFT in order to access the content. After you’ve sold it, you will no longer have access.
FAQs for Writers
No. This is a common misconception about NFTs. Except in rare cases (not here), purchasing an NFT does not imply anything about legal ownership of metadata associated with the NFT (like a gif, jpeg or a piece of writing/ literature). NiftyLit’s master publishing agreement has comprehensive details on this topic to ensure we are protecting our contributing writers and their work.
Here are some great posts on this topic:
Harvard Law
World Intellectual Property Organization
Norton Rose Fullbright
Our master publishing agreement (MPA) includes a $50 payment for the work we accept for publication, in addition to royalties (≥ 50%) from net receipts from initial sales and secondary sales of all NFTs minted, based on your work in all forms other than as part of any NiftyLit anthologies. Our MPA includes comprehensive details that we will review with you if you are selected for publication.
(“Net Receipts” means amounts received by NiftyLit or any of its affiliates from the sale of the Work in all forms other than as an Anthology after discounts, allowances, third party distribution fees and/or commissions and/or transaction fees and/ or cryptographic token minting fees, and excluding sales, excise or similar taxes, if any, calculated in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.)
As a straightforward example, we may choose to mint 20 copies of your work, priced at $5-10 each (actual prices are in cryptocurrency, typically Ethereum (ETH), which will fluctuate). If all of these yield net receipts of say, $150 (remember, we have to deduct operating costs, costs which NiftyLit will carry as part of its publishing model) you’ve made another ~$75 in royalties.
Let’s say that the next quarter, 5 of those NFTs are sold again by their owners for $100 each. We’ll collect a 10% commission on each resale ($50 of that $500 of total sales). Of that amount, you’ll make approximately 50% of those net receipts (~$25) as your royalties for that quarter.
Don’t worry. If you write for us, you won’t need a crypto wallet in order to get paid. All of our payments will be in USD. Down the road, we may offer different payment terms to authors accepting payment in cryptocurrency. Our publishing agreement delineates the details of payment terms.
Great question! Check out our Submittable page to learn more!
There are too many to list here! Below are a few…
NiftyLit believes one of the key benefits of publishing your work as NFTs is that your work can be paired with a “real-world” value that matches your work’s literary value in the marketplace. NiftyLit will follow market trends to set prices and volume for your work initially, but once your work has been purchased in the NFT marketplace, you could theoretically earn royalties in perpetuity for your work as it continually gets bought, sold, and enjoyed by your readers, fans, and collectors.
Find your fans: NiftyLit’s model for getting artists and writers paid for their work is loosely inspired by the “100 True Fans” theory (or “1000 True Fans” theory, depending on who you ask…), although we believe some of our writers could have millions of fans someday, given the quality of submissions we’ve received so far.
Another key benefit has to do with IP protection. As mentioned above, purchasing an NFT does not imply anything about legal ownership of metadata associated with the NFT (like a gif, jpeg or a piece of writing/ literature).
Literary NFTs also enable writers to engage with their readers on a whole new level, be it by obtaining data on what your written pieces are worth monetarily to your fans, or for fans to collect entire bodies of work that you publish as NFTs. In the future, NiftyLit will work with contributing authors to put together community incentives (e.g., collect all of author X’s work and receive a signed copy of their upcoming full length novel). The possibilities are (literarily speaking) endless!
NFTs will truly revolutionize the way creators engage with their audiences.
NiftyLit believes in the curation process and is committed to publishing high-quality content. There is nothing stopping individual writers from minting and selling their writing as NFTs, however, we believe the majority writing will benefit from being put through an editorial process in order to maximize the value being presented to the marketplace. Moreover, by using enabling technology for NFTs featuring unlockable content (the writing), NiftyLit is helping in every reasonably achievable way to protect writers’ work from being inadvertently distributed, thereby devaluing the literary NFTs themselves.
Currently we are open for submissions for short form non-fiction, fiction, flash, and poetry. By popular demand, we also opened up a category for other submissions that don’t fit into our genre based categories. Check out our Submittable page to learn more on our guidelines.
General FAQs
Our model for artists and illustrators who want to have their work featured in NiftyLit is a bit different than it is for writers. Because we provide bespoke illustrations for each piece of literary content published with NiftyLit, we do not generally accept submissions of work that is not created for the specific purpose of pairing with literary content. That said, if you’re interested in joining our growing community of artists who will be doing cover art and illustrations for NiftyLit, please email us at info@niftylit.io.
Yes, generally we will publish pieces and associated illustrations directly on our site for a “reading period” of approximately 60 days. NFT sales (or “drops”) for each work will open on the same day the work is published on our site. After the reading period, work will only be accessible for reading by purchasing the work as an NFT.
Discord is an online community where NiftyLit has its own server so that we (the staff) can interact with you! (readers, writers, artists and NFT collectors). Check it out! Once you sign up, you’ll see our community guidelines and various channels, including a community channel and a new-to-crypto channel. We check our Discord regularly and are always happy to answer your questions, and talk crypto, writing, NFTs, and anything, really (like if your pet cat did something funny and you’ve decided to write a short story about it).
Our CEO and co-founder Jo came up with the name, though the word “Nifty” is used widely as slang for “NFT.” You’ll see lots of NFT companies popping up with names that utilize the word “Nifty” in some capacity. And the “Lit” part stands for “Literature.” Hence, “NiftyLit.”
NiftyLit’s staff is made up of people who identify as LGBTQ, women, and service-disabled veterans. Given current events it feels prudent to stress that we champion diversity, equity, and inclusion, and will not publish anything even remotely problematic. Simultaneous to putting artists and writers first, we exist to grow a substantial community that champions historically marginalized and underrepresented populations. That includes not only a commitment to DEI in terms of hiring, the artists and illustrators we promote, and the art and writing we publish, but also a firm stance against the ongoing anti-trans and anti-gay legislation being passed, as well as against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We believe Black Lives Matter and that Black Trans Lives Matter, and that love and kindness will triumph.