Tiisetso Maloma, a South African entrepreneur and author of 8 books, has released an NFT sculpture for his latest book titled ‘Introducing Ubuntu Stoicism: Gain Joy, Resilience, Productivity, and Defuse Anxiety’.
The author is no stranger to creativity with book covers. His previous book Innovate the Next features a flying Tesla Cybertruck on the cover.
This is the first time anyone has created an NFT sculpture for a book cover.
It resembles a stoic African man. This is in line with the book’s theme of merging the African philosophy of Ubuntu and the Greek philosophy of Stoicism.
Introducing Ubuntu Stoicism is a philosophy book, and, is a slight deviation from Tiisetso’s usual entrepreneurship and innovation writings.
NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are the new craze in the crypto world. They are unique digital assets like artwork or images. The public can buy, auction and use them for individual purposes. Their ownership is tracked by blockchain technology.
The most expensive NFTs sold were for $91.8 million and $69.3 million, each by the digital artists Pak and Beeple respectively.
An NFT version of Nelson Mandela’s 1962 arrest warrant was released as an NFT earlier this year. It sold for over R1.9 million.
Celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Anatii and DJ Sbu, and big brands such as Adidas and Coca-Cola, have ventured into NFTS.
As said that this is the first time someone has created a sculpture for a book cover, other authors have released their full books as NFTs.
In this case, Tiisetso has not released the book as a full NFT, but only the sculpture.
“The book is available traditionally in bookstores and on Amazon. I don’t encourage authors to release full NFT books yet. Although there are one or two authors who’ve made unimaginable money through releasing NFT books, most have not. You need your book to be accessible in ways more customers use, e.g. Amazon”, says Tiisetso.
The entrepreneur and author Gary Vee paired the release sales of his 2021 book Twelve and a Half with free NFTs offers to customers. He sold 1 million books in 2 hours subsequently.
One of the earliest authors to release their books into full NFTs is Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Dumani Mandela, last year.
Some authors apply various innovative ways of releasing their writings as NFTs, e.g. releasing quotes and images of sections.