Unless you’re a brand new reader, you probably know that I often advocate for e-books, or more specifically, decentralized publishing. That said, when I published two works last year, I still chose to release print and digital simultaneously. My friend T asked me why, implying that if I was already exploring new forms of publishing, why would I “walk the old path” again? I didn’t think much of it at the time and simply replied that I wanted to collect some data.
More than a year has passed. The shy T sent me a manuscript, revealing that he had been secretly writing a novel for years. His question last year was born from his own uncertainty. Now that the book is finished and publication is imminent, T asked for my opinion again. I knew I had to give a serious answer this time. Just as I had written a thousand words in a reply email, I remembered my friend W is in the same situation, and most first-time authors—and even some veteran writers—ponder this question. So, I decided to turn my reply into this article to share with everyone.
Leaving a Legacy: A Human Desire
Let me start with my own situation. Although everyone’s circumstances are different, it might serve as a reference.
I have published six works in total: three were simultaneous print and digital, and the other three were digital-only. I think I deeply understand the feeling of a first-time author who must have a print book. It doesn’t matter if it’s an emotional decision rather than a rational one; I don’t believe rationality should govern everything anyway. I just re-read the preface I wrote for my first book, The Road of Game, and it seems my 2009 self didn’t analyze this rationally either: “After all, the world hasn’t reached universal internet access yet. At the very least, my parents aren’t netizens. Besides, everyone more or less wants to leave something behind in this world. After being digital for a decade or two, this time, I want to be analog (physical) for a bit.”
That was in 2009, two years after the iPhone’s debut and the year Bitcoin was born. I was immersed in the rising tide of Web2 and had never heard of blockchain, let alone imagined Web3-based decentralized publishing.
A full sixteen years and four books later, I just published the sequel this year, The Dao of Game, chronicling the second half of my 20-year game development career. Having “digested the past,” I no longer have any attachment to print. Futhermore, this work has limited public relevance and is mainly for personal commemoration. I chose to release it as a digital-only edition, and only on 3ook.com. It’s less about an “exclusive release” and more about saving myself the trouble of producing multiple versions and managing multiple channels.
Between the first and second volumes of Game, there were four other works that trace my exploration of publishing models. It began with the decentralized publishing experiment of So-Called ‘I Don’t Invest’ Is Just Going All-In on Fiat Currency. In November 2022—exactly three years ago—I self-published an e-book using Web3 technology for the first time. I stepped out of my comfort zone to promote and sell it, successfully selling over a thousand copies in just over a month, reaching my goal. For details, see 1,024 Copies, 943 Readers, 18 Regions, 21 Channels, 34 Days—A Quantitative Analysis of a Decentralized Publishing Experiment. The experiment’s success not only kicked off my subsequent decentralized publishing journey but also indirectly gave birth to the current 3ook.com and the LikeCoin v3 DeBook protocol.
Last year, I re-edited and re-formatted the digital-only So-Called, upgrading its “cringe” name to the more “academic” Moneyverse: On Financial Freedom. This time, I chose to release a print version simultaneously. My considerations were multi-faceted.
Exploring Decentralized Publishing
First, while I advocate for e-books and decentralized publishing, I have never rejected print books. Not in the past, and not in the future (with the exception of shoddily produced, mass-printed books that waste paper). I do occasionally mention the shortcomings of print, but characteristics like high costs for printing, warehousing, and logistics are things that even print diehards cannot deny. I am merely analyzing, not disparaging. It’s like how I promote cryptocurrency and the right to mint, and I’ve mentioned many flaws of traditional currency, but I’ve never rejected fiat currency. I see their relationship as a division of labor, a complementary one. If you don’t believe me, try sending me some US dollars and see if I’ll accept them. 🙂
In fact, I might cherish paper books more than many people. Just last year, the UBR program spent over HK$30,000 on print books. In the past few years, I’ve been exhausted from constantly moving books between my mini-storage, bookstores, and home. This is no great feat—it’s all just a drop in the ocean compared to the books that are banned or “disappeared.” I’m just saying, if I’ve ever spoken ill of print books, it’s probably because I’ve been staring at huge piles of out-of-print books for too long, which is extremely frustrating. I’ve developed PTSD from it.
There’s another reason for choosing a simultaneous release, which might be unique to me. Early last year, I just started to take part in Nowhere Publishing, which publishes both print and e-books. As it was the publisher’s first book, we wanted to fully roll out the sales network, sign contracts with all channels, and compare their data and characteristics.
The final consideration for publishing a print book simultaneously is one that readers in Taiwan might not feel. Even though the internet seems borderless, it still cannot breach “the Wall”. People inside the Wall can only read print books. Although I had my doubts about whether my book could even be delivered “inside,” it was later confirmed that my status as a “nobody” was actually my “advantage.” Both Moneyverse: On Financial Freedom and the subsequent reprint of The Sociology of Blockchain successfully reached the hands of several friends. Numerically, printing a thousand books for just a few people seems unjustifiable. But some things cannot be measured by numbers—including the connection forged between those inside and outside the Wall by words traveling on paper. I don’t want to use a cliché like “warmth,” but I truly felt the weight of the paper, heavy with words.
Print for Preservation, Digital for Proliferation
After all that, let’s get back to T’s question: should you publish in print or digital?
Unless your work is handwritten without a computer, the process of making a print book already creates a digital file. You just need someone to process it into an e-book. Aside from “I just don’t like it,” there’s really no reason not to release a digital version. So, in my view, the question is more like: should you only release a digital version, or should you “be an adult and have it all” with a simultaneous print and digital release?
I’ve said before that “substance over form.” In the context of publishing, the book is the substance; print and digital are the forms. Based on their characteristics, the former has historically been used for “preservation,” while the latter is better suited for “proliferation.” Preservation is on the vertical axis of time; proliferation is on the horizontal plane of space. This all applies to “traditional e-books.” Decentralized publishing using Web3 technology, has the potential to handle both preservation and proliferation. However, this article isn’t for advocacy, so we’ll set that topic aside for now.
Even without a publisher’s support, if an individual has the means, they can still consider self-publishing a print version. But you don’t necessarily have to print a traditional run of 1,000 or 500 copies. The print and digital versions don’t have to be simultaneous, and their pricing doesn’t even have to be similar. It all depends on your budget and how many people are willing to pay.
It’s not just my friend T. Even with my experience, I still deliberate this every time I publish. I’ve already formed a new set of ideas that I plan to test in another decentralized publishing experiment with my upcoming new book. I will once again make the entire thought process, execution, and results public for other writers and the entire publishing industry to reference.
I’m calling the new publishing model I’m about to experiment with IBO: Initial Book Offering. The IBO was actually an idea from last year. It was delayed not just due to laziness, but mainly because I wanted to upgrade LikeCoin first and implement it on the v3 foundation. Now that v3 has officially launched, I have no more excuses to delay preparations for the new book. In other words, an announcement is coming soon. Please stay tuned.
P.S. When T sent me the manuscript a few months ago, I planned to read it quickly and give some feedback. After a couple of nights, I noticed the progress bar on my e-reader was barely moving, which felt wrong. I checked on Google Docs only to realize it was an epic-length 500,000-word masterpiece. Unfortunately, I was swamped with the LikeCoin update and other matters, so I had to steel myself and spend many more days and nights to finish it. 500,000 words… if produced as a print book, it would be a heavyweight work.
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