I never thought I’d say this, but I just finished my first non-fiction book, Creator Economy for Authors: A Guide to the Future of Publishing.
Storytelling has always been the center of my life. I wrote my first science fiction novel at 13 and published 12 novels by the time I started my freshman year in college.
I had an undying passion for creating stories. And my biggest dream was to make a full-time living doing what I love.
3 years of indie publishing, spending thousands on digital ads, and learning Facebook Ads and AMS like the back of my hand, I felt depleted.
That’s when I uploaded my first video to YouTube. In just a few months, I had over half a million views and was making more per month from simply vlogging my life than I was from writing fiction.
My adventures in digital creation lead to me livestreaming for a Sean Parker start-up for 1000 hours. Roadtripping America and filming videos from surprising the Sway Boys with a Keg to kayaking to Airrack’s Island to ask for an internship.
What had become of my life?
I used to be a fiction novelist, world building near futures where our society has to confront and imagine a better tomorrow for society, technology, and science.
Now, I was chasing views and addicted to the rushes of dopamine that an algorithm would deliver to me.
I was self-aware enough to know something was wrong. Not just with me (although to be certain, I learned a lot about myself during this period). But with the way that creator platforms and technologies interacted with creators and fans. The way that stories and our way of being are manipulated by a new communications infrastructure that is rapidly evolving and often damages our mental health and well-being.
This is when I asked my roommates at Harvard to found a company with me. We tried to build something that could change the way content was discovered on the internet. We learned a lot. Met incredible people. And by the end of that adventure, I found myself staring at a blank page, preparing to pick up the pen and write again after a year of traveling, exploring the world of creator economy start-ups, and live streaming 20 hours a week.
I wrote my 13th fiction novel called Millennium Game, a speculative thriller that explores a world in which humanity “solves” climate change by making the dollar carbon. When you hit your limit, you die.
I prepared for publication. I decided that I didn’t want to go the indie route, instead exploring what traditional publishing would look like. I attended conferences, workshopped my book, and even booked calls with editors and agents to learn more about the business and what they were looking for (these were paid calls, I may add).
But nothing felt quite right.
The same broken model of publishing persisted no matter how I choose to get my story out into the world. A model that incentivized greater sales rather than greater connection with my readers. A model that prioritized big viral hits and left everything else to squander. A model that culminated in stories being crafted to meet the predetermined needs of a market that supposedly worked optimally but left artists feeling deflated and boxed-in.
I knew something had to be different. That there could be a way to leverage the technologies and opportunities of the creator economy and have a new relationship with my fans.
That’s when I started exploring the world of publishing start-ups, meeting founders in the web3 space, social reading and book club start-ups. You name it, I probably have been to their site and tried sending emails to the company to learn more about what they do. Anyone with a new idea to reimagine the publishing industry, I was interested in chatting with.
This all culminated with me meeting Emilia Rose and Sean Patnode. Emilia is a romance author who had garnered millions of views on Wattpad before pursuing a subscription model to monetize her books. No existing subscription site was built specifically for her needs as a fiction author, and it was there that we had an idea.
Why don’t we build that place for fiction authors? A home by fiction authors for fiction authors. That’s when we began building Ream, a platform that helps authors monetize through subscription by offering their superfans early access to their work, exclusive community, and other perks that the author decides.
We will be releasing our beta later this year. It has been an immense learning experience running yet another start-up during school, except this one is 10x more serious, has already taken me halfway across the world to attend several writer conferences in Europe, and has enabled me to meet some of the coolest authors and people out there.
During this process, I was learning even more about the creator economy and had lots of thoughts about where the future of publishing might be going. We started a podcast and a weekly newsletter, and grew a Facebook Group (with limited marketing) to over 850 authors eager to learn about subscriptions.
This is when my co-founder, Emilia Rose, told me that she thought I had some insights to share with the world of author creators. I jokingly told her, “What if I wrote a book about the future of publishing?” She told me to do it, but she was actually being serious.
I outlined the entire book in a frenzy after our call, and on July 20th, 2022, began writing it. 40 days later, the first draft was complete, my first attempt at writing nonfiction. I recruited a team of 30 top tier beta readers that range from author friends in Croatia to CEOs of publishing-tech companies that I greatly admire.
Today, I received their feedback on my books and am making the final preparations to revise the final draft and send it off to my editor. It’s super exciting. This will be my first published book in 2 years and one of the only books out there that is talking about the burgeoning creator economy and what this means for authors, readers, and the future of our industry.
Now I know what you’re thinking… what does this mean for my fiction?
Alas, I will be back to publishing fiction again in 2023. No set plans yet, but I foresee it being a transition year, I will be launching a new series, wrapping up old ones, and focusing on my unique brand of science fiction that features new adult characters in high-stakes scenarios.
But why do I say transition period? It’s because I see my work maturing. The “who” I am writing for has changed, partially after learning more about my readers, and partially due to changing myself. I always thought I was writing for teens about the future. My first 12 books certainly do that, and probably my first 20 books or so as I wrap up this phase and worlds I’ve created will feature young adult characters prominently. In truth, they were all written or at least conceptualized during my teenager years.
But I’m not a teenager anymore.
And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life writing YA sci-fi books.
Which is why 2023 is all about closing that chapter and opening a new one for me. Launching a new future for indie publishing with Ream and exploring a new future for myself with a unique brand of science fiction that I am still trying to pin down (it will always be a process of figuring out).
The reason you haven’t seen me release any new novels recently is because I have been focused on building and operating Ream, our upcoming subscription platform for authors. But as I begin publishing again, you may notice a slightly different strategy on my end. This is only the beginning of my experimenting and trying to build the future of fiction together with all of y’all. Think of it as blurring the lines between sci-fi and reality.
As I look ahead to 2024 and beyond, when I’m set to graduate college, I plan to be focusing more and more on writing and the world of technology (frankly, that’s all I focus on at the moment too). 2023 won’t just be a year of launching books but creating new kinds of stories and experiences that I hope to invite you all to. In short, you should be seeing more from me and my thoughts on the future of technology.
And most importantly, fresh ideas on how we can work together to create a better future for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
More from me soon. I’ll keep you all posted on the publishing journeys and the launch of our technology platform. New fiction from me soon. And new musings. But in the meantime, don’t forget…
Together we are boundless.