About Discovery on Ream — Coming December 2023
There’s a better way to find readers.
There’s a better way to build your publishing career as an author.
There’s a better future for fiction.
And today, we begin creating that future together.
But first, we have to go back to the beginning.
Growing up, all I ever wanted to be was a storyteller.
I published my first science fiction book at 15 and managed to get out 12 novels before attending college.
In that time I spent all my savings on digital ads and publishing costs.
I kept thinking about how to please the algorithm. How to write faster. How to keep up and grow before it was too late.
My sales ranking kept me up at night.
Burnout followed. The second I stopped feeding the machine — it crushed me. My sales ranking dropped, income dwindled. I had no way to contact my readers. No idea even who my audience was outside of empty metrics in a dashboard telling me how many pages were read, not even which pages were being read.
After years of trying and seemingly failing, I thought “I must suck at this”.
So I quit. Well kind of.
Instead, I started a YouTube channel hellbent on proving to myself that I was a worthy storyteller. It was YouTube videos and science fiction novels that got me through the toughest times of my childhood — it was going to be my own creations that would get me through this next one.
So I roadtripped America on an adventure to film viral stunts and make a career at this thing we call being a 21st Century Storyteller.
But it all came to an end.
It was 3 am on a highway banked in snow.
I was exhausted. Stressed out. And more than anything… desperate.
I was losing control.
The truth is I never had it.
I crashed the car into the median.
The car was not okay. But me and my college roommate were.
It was a wake-up call.
What the heck was I doing with my life?
All of a sudden, I was a kid with a dream who was willing to risk his life just to make it as a storyteller online.
I know I’m not alone in this feeling.
Maybe you haven’t ever crashed your car while trying to write the next Great American novel.
But we have all sacrificed so much to make our dreams as storytellers come true.
To be independent. To have the power to tell the stories we love for people we care about. To have control. To have the power to create a new world for our readers that makes their lives better and heals us in the process.
Well, what if I told you, that sinking feeling, that desperation, that crippling anxiety… is not your fault.
It’s the system.
A system designed to work against us. A system designed to profit off us. A system designed to make our readers THEIR customers and all of us fighting for scraps of attention, for dwindling pools of funds, gasping for air at the end of each month.
I say screw this system.
We can do better. We deserve better. And we will do better together.
My life changed when I read a book. It’s stories after all that fill our lives with meaning. This book in particular was The Story Paradox written by Johnthann Gottschall.
Four words stuck out to me in the book more than anything else.
Storytellers Rule the World.
There it is! Someone telling us that we matter! That we’re not just a number in a machine. Not just a view count or a page read — but someone with actual power.
So why did I feel so out of control? Why did I feel so powerless if I was telling stories and Storytellers Rule the World?
My friends, this is where I realized that we were being lied to.
Storytellers DO Rule the World.
But the real question is, WHICH Storytellers Rule the World?
The answer became clear. It was big corporations, platforms designed to exploit our personal data and creative profit. A handful of executives who spun a narrative that disempowered us all on shiny promises of gold — new readers, new eyeballs, and fresh influxes of cash.
In return, they took the thing that mattered most: our control. Whether it was our rights in the industrial age of the printing press or our data in the digital age of the computer — we never had the power as authors.
But we can finally change that now.
Discovery has always been a privilege.
Something we have to give up in order to attain. Signing away our control, signing away our rights, signing away our freedom.
But there’s a better way.
NO MORE DEVIL’S BARGAINS.
Instead — let us step into a future where Storytellers Rule the World. And not just any storytellers — those storytellers are YOU.
Welcome to Discovery on Ream.
It’s the beginning of a new way to publish.
On Ream, you get all the emails of all your Followers and Paid Members. If a reader chooses to interact with your work and engage with you, you will forever have a direct connection to them. And Ream sends all your readers emails on the content you publish — automagically and for free.
With the launch of Following over the Summer, we were ready to finally explore the next step in creating a future where independent Storytellers Rule the World.
That next step begins now.
Not only can Ream be a home for your superfans. A home for you to run your subscription, build your community, and run your publishing business with control over your data, the content you publish, and what you get paid for your stories.
Ream *very soon* will be a place where you can find new readers too.
At our core giving you — independent storytellers — full control is at the heart of what we do. That’s why our motto and our core value is Storytellers Rule the World. That’s why we are building a direct discovery system — one that gives all your readers a direct connection to you and your stories.
No more being trapped inside a platform with exclusivity agreements. No more waiting till the end of the month (and then waiting two more) to see what you were paid.
But it’s even more than that.
Which Storytellers Rule the World? This question isn’t philosophical. It’s practical with real-world ramifications. Which stories will Ream choose to highlight? How will Ream share your work with new potential readers and how will I be able to shape that process?
This is where our discovery system comes in.
One that not only puts you at the forefront but also the needs of readers. One that aims to uplift all storytellers with categories for Romance Pairings, Audience, and Diversity in addition to a robust list of Genres and Subgenres and a detailed tagging system.
There’s never been anything else like this in publishing.
And in just a few days I’ll reveal to you the taxonomy. I’ll reveal Your Early Access to Discovery on Ream.
Coming soon this system will be live. But in the meantime, we want as much feedback from our community of authors as possible.
Storytellers Rule the World isn’t just a motto. It’s a fact. And the Storytellers who rule the world of Ream are you.
So together let’s create a better future for publishing.
Together let’s build discovery on Ream.
It’s going to be a wild adventure and we have already gotten input from hundreds of you in the early stages of the process.
We can’t wait for these next steps. And we are so grateful to have you here with us.
You’ll hear more from us soon.
But in the meantime don’t forget…
Storytellers Rule the World (that’s you, silly)