Textbook publisher wants to use NFTs to skim the used textbook market

The college textbook publisher hopes to capture some of the aftermarket sales on digital textbook sales by assigning an NFT to each title.

Textbook publisher Pearson has revealed plans to use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to track digital textbook sales and "decline the secondary market" of its digital textbooks.

According to an Aug. 1 Bloomberg report, Andy Bird, CEO of Pearson, wants to assign NFTs to its digital textbooks to better track sales and capture revenue that was previously lost to the second-hand market.

Bird hopes the company can use the technology to earn a commission on second-hand sales of its textbooks, which are normally made privately from student to student. Bird noted:

"Technologies like blockchain and NFT allow us to participate in every sale of that particular item throughout its lifetime. The ability to participate in downstream revenue […] I find really interesting.”

He noted that a Pearson textbook is typically resold up to seven times in its lifetime.

As Pearson explores its options with blockchain technology to remove more sales revenue, Bird added that his company will look for ways to leverage the metaverse.

"We have a whole team working on the implications of the metaverse and what it might mean for us."

Getting into the metaverse could be lucrative in the medium term if the market capitalization of the virtual world is to meet expectations by surpassing $50 billion by 2026.

The London-based publisher is part of a growing cohort of academic entities studying the metaverse. Last week, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) launched its first classroom in the Metave...