Book.io, a Web3 marketplace for buying, reading, and selling decentralized eBooks and Audiobooks has inked a deal with Dazzle Ship Inc., creators of the web3 storyworld BROADSIDE, to launch a Collector’s Edition of the first Broadside book.
The Broadside: Collector’s Edition of 2000 copies launches on Book.io this October 18th priced at 90 MATIC (~$45) each. Holders of the Collectors Edition will also get allowlist to the upcoming Broadside: Season 0 mint in early 2024.
DazzleShip launched Broadside, a ‘Solar Punk Rave Cult’ comprised of 7,290 unique 3D avatars in November 2022, which quickly became one of the most engaged communities in the nascent metaverse space. Each Broadside avatar comes with full commercial rights and cc0 (public domain) assets, as well as a decentralized story featuring all 7,290 characters from the collection. In the months since, Broadside holders have minted over 40,000 episodes of the story. As the storyworld has grown, the Broadside community has become infamous for collaborating, partying, and gaming together.
This August, Broadside launched ‘Merge and Bind’, a system that allows Broadside holders to merge their episodes together into a 1/1 unique First Edition of the book, featuring their unique character as the star. During that process, each Broadside holder was asked to make a creative contribution to future editions of the work, in exchange for royalties paid by Dazzle Ship to Broadside holders for those contributions.
The Collector’s Edition launching on Book.io will be the first edition of Broadside to feature this new creative work from the community. Aimed at a wider readership, the Collector’s Edition will feature one hero throughout, as well as a brand new introduction from the authors. Community contributors will earn 30% of Dazzle Ship’s share of royalties from sales of the Book.io Collector’s Edition, in exchange for their work – a first in Web3 and potentially a new model for publishing.
“At a time when royalties for writers and creators are under threat, it’s vital to have a model like this on an innovative platform like Book.io,” says Matt Mason, co-founder and CEO of Dazzle Ship. “Web3 is a bit of a head-scratcher for a lot of people in traditional media. We want to grow with our community and new fans in a way that showcases what you can do with the blockchain as a creative medium and mechanism for collaborating with early supporters.”
“Broadside is blazing new trails in Web3, building deeper connections with their community, and even sharing royalties,” says Joshua Stone, CEO of Booki.io. “Web3 and blockchain are creating experiences and opportunities that never existed before, and we’re proud that Book.io can enhance and expand publishing’s capabilities to help creative storytellers like Broadside.”
“When we launched, we had no idea where the story would go,” added Vector Meldrew, co-author of Broadside and co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Dazzle Ship. “We didn’t know Broadside would grow into one of the most hyped communities in the metaverse, or that the community would use their Broadside characters to build games, worlds, IRL businesses, new music genres, and all kinds of creative work. Storytelling is at the heart of everything we do and publishing this Collector’s Edition with Book.io feels like a natural extension of the Broadside world and community.”
The Broadside story is set in 2037 San Francisco, a solar-punk future where AR gaming rules the planet, anti-surveillance clothing is always on-trend, and 3D bass music is used as a weapon to fight oppressive robot armies. The immersive story and world encompasses gaming, fashion, music and culture, and has been developed over more than a decade by the Dazzle Ship team.
Vector Meldrew and Matt Mason met as part of the founding team of RWD, which they helped grow into the UK’s largest music magazine. Vector is a globally recognized crypto artist, VJ and creative. Pieces and collections by Vector have been auctioned at Bonhams, and regularly sell out on platforms including Nifty Gateway, SuperRare + others. Mason’s first book The Pirate’s Dilemma was a bestseller in ten countries, and he has since held positions as Chief Content Officer at BitTorrent, a studio head for a Sony Pictures-backed gaming studio, and as CMO of crypto exchange Kraken.
