by Michael Evans, February 23, 2024
This one equation changed how I look at authorship forever.
Slope > Intercept.
Seems simple right?
There’s something unbelievably powerful here.
It’s not about where you are today that counts. It’s about your growth and where you will be tomorrow.
In the moments you don’t believe in yourself, in the moments you feel so far from where you want to be, just remember that it is always and forever will be Slope > Intercept.
But this begs the question… where are you going?
What “yardstick” are you using to measure your slope?
This is where the game of authorship and life gets fun.
It’s not a 2D plane. It’s 3D. You get to define what success looks like for you. You get to decide where you are going.
And often times YOUR slope is headed in a different direction than others.
We all have our own slopes to climb.
It’s what makes life and being creatives beautiful.
Don’t ever settle for thinking there is one slope up the mountain.
And don’t ever think that just because you don’t know what to do today that you won’t get there tomorrow.
When we started Ream 2 years ago, I literally had no idea what I was doing except an undying passion for making life for indie authors better.
3 years ago I was at the absolute low point of my life. If you looked at my intercept it wouldn’t even be on this graph. I was *literally* risking my life to film YouTube videos and try and go viral… thinking that the slope of views and surface-level metrics was the only way to success.
But there was another way. A better way for me.
You have to find that way for yourself.
And the most important thing of all?
Surround yourself with others who are focused on increasing their slope and share your insights and learnings together.
For Ream, as we have grown our team, I don’t focus on where (or even if) someone went to college or the logo of the last company they worked at. I just look for one thing: are you passionate and have the ability to learn and climb your own slope?
A group of misfits, banding together to summit a mountain where Storytellers Rule the World. To me, that’s what life is about. And as a community of authors, we can all work together to help one another. That’s the real super power.
If this was insightful to you, please let me know, I’m happy to share more of my mindset and stories behind growing a successful author business and just living a good life in general.
I too am far from where I want to be.
But I’m climbing my slope with people who inspire me everyday.
I wish you luck on climbing yours.
With 
,
Storytellers Rule the World