Towards Designing a Blockchain-Based Model for E-Book Publishing

This paper examines the application of blockchain technology in e-book publishing by analyzing previous research and identifying current limitations. The study investigates how smart contracts and cryptographic algorithms can facilitate agreements between publishers and authors. While blockchain has been widely adopted in digital publishing domains, such as image, video, music, and scientific journals, research on its application to e-books remains limited. Existing solutions typically address individual challenges such as transaction transparency, authenticity, or copyright protection, but rarely integrate them into a single framework. To provide a systematic synthesis of prior works, this paper develops a taxonomy of blockchain-based e-book publishing models across six dimensions: platform, storage, smart contract usage, cryptographic algorithm, tokenization, and actors. This paper reviews seven (7) blockchain-based models in e-book publishing and identifies their limitations. Based on these insights, a conceptual blockchain-based smart contract model for e-book publishing was proposed using Ethereum platform, incorporating InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) storage and cryptographic algorithms. The proposed model has the potential to significantly enhance the security and rights protection for authors and publishers, thereby fostering a more secure and equitable e-book publishing landscape.