Today is part one of two where we are talking to Will Grey about his novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about storytelling as a teenager, starting with being a dungeon master, becoming your character, going from being signed to a publisher, to that same publisher teaching you how to do it yourself, promoting yourself, writing and publishing in dyslexia font, plotting an entire world worth of books, and writing the story you want to tell.

Get the Books

Will's Website - Will's Facebook - Will's Instagram - Will's TikTok - Will's Twitter

Will Grey is a lifelong gamemaster and an eloquent storyteller. The Dalen Pax series is his magnum opus. Representing over 25 years of consistent personal and collective world-building and encapsulating his unique and compelling philosophical system. he lives in Citrus Heights California with his wife Rhiannon and their children Billy, Jareth, Madison, and Zoey.

Check us out on our website or Support us on Patreon

Follow Our Show On Socials: Facebook - Instagram - Twitter - TikTok

Follow Our Host Freya: Facebook - Instagram - Twitter - TikTok

Want Freya to Narrate Your Audiobook? Complete This Form

Welcome to Freya's.

Fairy tales.

We believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.

Each week, we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.

At the end of each episode, we will finish off with a fairy tale or short story right as close to the original author's version as possible.

I am your host.

Freya victoria I'm an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.

I am also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.

We have included all of the links for today's author and our show in the show Notes.

Be sure to check out our website.

And sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.

Today is part one of two, where.

We are talking to Will Gray about his novels.

Over the next two weeks, you will hear about storytelling as a teenager, starting with being a Dungeon Master, becoming your character, going from being signed to a publisher to that same publisher, teaching you how to do it yourself, promoting yourself, writing and publishing in dyslexia font, plotting an entire world worth of books, and writing the story you want to tell.

Dalen PAX and the Beads of Fire The Chronicle of Time Dalen PAX and the Beads of Fire is a delightfully inventive fantasy novel, a remarkably touching and insightful coming of age story, and a philosophical tour de force.

Dalen PAX is a typical high school misfit who has always wished that magic was real.

One fateful night, he found that it was when he risked his life to save Matthias, a man he didn't know, a man with the ability to wield real magic.

After their meeting, Matthias enlists Dalen to help him retrieve a powerful artifact known as the Beads of Fire, which connects its wearer to the Fire Gen, a free willed divine being that can grant the wish of whoever possesses them.

Once Dalen awakens the Fire Gen, she grants his wish to learn magic and takes him to an enchanted world to teach him the elements of reality, or he will have to know the truth about magic and power.

Of course, it turns out that making wishes can be a rather tricky endeavor, and he quickly discovers that there are two sides to every coin.

The world will need Dalen to be more than he ever imagined or wished he could be.

Can he find the truth within himself and believe in who he is and was always meant to be?

All right, so the podcast is Freya's Fairy Tales, and that is in two ways.

Fairy tales are something that we either watched or listened to, having our parents read to us or read ourselves as kids, and also the journey for you to spend weeks, months, years working on your book.

To hold that in your hands at the end is a sort of fairy tale for you.

So I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale as you were growing up, and did your favorite change as you got older?

And that could be short stories, too.

It's not exclusive to fairy tales.

Sure, yeah.

Originally, when I was very young, my mom gave me a book of original fairy tales.

They were the original hands.

Christian Anderson.

Grimm's Fairy Tales.

They were not the Disney easier version.

Yeah, the Disney version.

And out of those, it was probably either The Little Mermaid or The Matchtick Girl, which were both tragic, terrible stories.

But then again, so are most fairy tales.

I can't think of a single fairy tale that everyone was like, oh, yeah, I'm glad I'm a part of this story.

I think if you're going to include ASOPs, those all have good endings.

Okay.

The fables, some of them do.

But a lot of Asop's fables are explanations of why not to go that route.

There are a lot of cautionary tales.

Even if it's just a bird with a pitcher in water, that's probably one of the only ones I can think of that was just, like, a way to go bird.

Anyway.

My other fairy tales that I grew up with were comic book characters because a lot of those characters are legends now.

What legends were, what Hercules and Perseus were to those people then are what Batman, Superman, Spider Man are to us now.

Right.

These ideas of powerful, beyond powerful beings who are usually rescuing us but just causing more havoc in the world.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like at the end of every like, if you look at Marvel movies, at the end of every one of those movies, they've left this gigantic disaster that needs to be cleaned up.

How much did it cost to repair all the damage?

You threw someone through a building, like, through it?

Someone some giant, like, look at, like, Godzilla.

I mean, you're throwing, like, gigantic monsters through the buildings.

So at what age did you start writing anything short stories, your own fables, whatever it was?

Well, writing or it's storytelling, because there is a difference.

I started or rating stories early.

I have been an or rater for a long time, and for a long time, probably starting all the way back when I was still a teenager in high school, I started being a dungeon master for my friends.

It was introduced to us because of a play that we were doing, and they needed to know Dungeons and Dragons terms and be able to say them fluidly.

And so we went, fine, we're going to play everyone in the cast.

We're going to play a DND game so you know what's going on.

And after that, they're like, can we keep playing?

And so I started or rating then, and I created a world.

I created my own world, and so on and so forth.

And every time we'd finish a game, I'd say, okay, ten years had gone by.

We're going to make new characters.

Everything that you did happened.

And then I continue, and I DM'd that one world for 30 years of my real time.

Oh, goodness.

That's the world that my books are written in, is that world.

Oh, gosh.

All right.

So I have 30 years of world development.

Yeah.

But the first time I tried to write a story was when I was 22, using words that they use nowadays.

I was in a very bad place and tried to unalive myself.

Okay.

All right.

It was a really bad moment, but it was also that crystallizing moment where you go, Wait a minute.

No, I don't want to do this.

And my life switched hard, and right then, my first character came to mind that I started writing.

All right.

And I tried to write.

Seems like a good way to pull yourself out.

There.

It was, hey, we're going to write instead.

Well, it was right instead.

But the moral, ethical, spiritual, physical things that he was going through was my therapy to pull me out of where, you know, this was a therapy in many ways, but this character was called Will Gray.

That's not my real name, okay?

And when I built this character, I was becoming this character in some ways.

I'm no longer this dark, broken little piece of whatever I am, this blossoming human being that is going through this change.

And so at that point, I took the name Will Gray for myself, and I've been him ever since.

I'm looking down the business into 50.

I'm turning 48 this year.

And so I've utilized the name Will Gray for that entire time for more than half my life.

And so when I was doing stuff on YouTube and or rating more stories and so on, there, I was using the name Gray.

And so when I started to write the book, I'm like, this is how people know me.

I may as well go with so I went with the author named Lil Gray.

But the original character that created all of this is in my book as the narrator.

I never would have come up with that at all.

Right, well, the cat original character in his story ascended and left his world.

And so I said, ten years later, like you used to do, ten years.

Later, he is now being brought back in as a narrator god.

Right.

He is now telling the story.

He speaks, therefore, the world.

Right?

And so that's why he's the narrator of my stories.

And if you look at my cover, it actually says, Dylan Beck to the beads of fire as told by Will Gray.

It never says he's the author.

Right?

But I write myself down as the author will Gray.

But it's that character, that character from my original story that got me writing in the first place and got me out of that dark place is the narrator of my series.

Now, so that story that Will Gray was born in, did you actually write a full book with that?

I wrote two thirds of a book and ran into a serious problem, which is if the movie was made, if the story was told, it would be told like Across Universe or Moulin Rouge or Rock of Ages.

It's filled with music, all right?

And it has to be specifically that music.

That's that song.

Because a lot of how I was writing, how I still write today, is I'll listen to music.

I'll put on a song and let my mind just create.

And when it creates a scene, every now and then it creates a scene.

I'll listen to the music.

I go, that's a good song.

I listen to that song.

This is a great song.

I listen to this music, my mind's eye opens up and I go, epic story.

I'm like, oh, this must be part of the book.

And a lot of the times me writing my book is me just trying to get from song to song to song because these are the scenes that I create and so I utilize.

I'm sorry, I got off track.

What was the initial question?

I think we started with when did.

You said, why am I telling you this about the song?

Oh, I was asking if you ever finished the first book.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I stopped writing it because I realized I'd have to get the copyrights to all these songs.

Oh, yeah.

And there's over 80 songs in the.

Series, so financially not doable for most.

Of the population right now.

Yeah, and there are songs in the new series that I'm working with, but I cut it down to like one or two.

For book three, I'm going to have to get permission to use the lyrics of a song because these Gray members from my original series are now being involved in my story.

And so the Gray members are actually empathic telepaths.

All right?

Not only do they send the thought, but they send the feeling, okay?

So you can't tell.

They can just make you dream something and everything you feel it, you see it, you're there.

As far as there's ghost stories, terrifying.

But they use it for healing as well.

And they can use a song to have you go through this meaning that helps you go through.

And those characters are now showing up in my series, but not until book three, really.

I mean, the narrator is there.

He's there from the beginning, but the others start showing up around three.

So now, right now, the first one that you published that's actually like, published.

Now, when did you start writing that one and how long did that one take you to write?

I started writing it about three and a half, four years ago at this point.

But it only took me eight months to write it.

Nine months to write it initially, draft it, edit it, edit it again.

Okay?

Now it's ready for another person to look at.

Was about nine to ten months, and I drafted all seven books of the series.

I can now write and draft an entire book in about three months.

Okay?

That's before the editing part, in three months, right?

I can draft it, go back through it, and edit it, go back one more time, and read it out loud to myself and go, okay, it sounds right to me.

All right?

But I am dyslexic, and I'm also slightly neurodivergent.

I'm on the spectrum for autism.

And so I will read it eight times and go, yeah, that sounds right.

And then I'll hand it over to someone.

They're like, what are you doing?

For example, there's no difference for me from saying there was no up, there was no down, and saying there was no down, there was no up.

But when people talk about it, there's no up or down.

They always say up first.

I wrote, there's no down or up.

And my editor went, that doesn't sound right.

You need to switch it.

So as an author, my debut is coming out in November, but literally today, like, 20 minutes before we got on this, I was going through my last beta, readers comments.

I still have to finish when we get off of this.

And there was a lot of that.

I'm like, It made sense in my head when I wrote it.

And she'd be like, the f*** is this?

And I'm like, I don't know.

What are melting snow water temperatures?

I'm like, It's the temperature the water gets when the snow melts into it.

Duh.

Right?

What does it sound like?

I'm like, It made sense when I wrote it.

Okay.

Yeah.

There's been only a couple of places that my editor will go, what does this mean?

And I'll read it and go, what does that mean?

Let me read it in context.

Paragraphs before it.

Okay.

I know what I was trying to say here, which has been very helpful.

In book two, I lost my editor, right?

Five weeks before everything was due.

They went, I don't have time to do this.

Oh, no.

She is a teacher.

She was busy throughout the school year, was going to try to get it done during her summer break, but then power blah, all these different things happened, and so on and so forth.

And she was just like, I am not going to be able to get it done.

But it was five weeks before it was due, right?

And her husband, who was my illustrator, also then went, I'm going to go with her, because all of the reasons that she can't do it right now, I can't do it right now either.

Right?

And so we were like, oh, now we don't have an editor or an.

Illustrator in five weeks to go.

Right?

In five weeks to go.

So there was a panic, but in the end, my wife was my editor, and the advantage of that was that my editor was sitting there right next to me, and she could just, on anything, go, hey, what do you mean by this?

And then I would get up and I would act it out.

I'm like, he went like this, or whatever.

And she's like, Right, okay, I know what you're doing.

Okay, cool.

And then she would so that everyone can understand it, I would read it and still go, no, that makes sense to me.

And then she edit it for 15 minutes and then read it back to me.

I went, Isn't that what I said?

No, that is not what you said at all.

So you said it took you about eight months to write it, and then another eight ish months to get it edited and ready to go for the first one.

Then what did you kind of do after that?

Well, initially, I was starting to look at agents at first.

This was my first book.

I had no knowledge of indie publishing.

I had no idea about any of this.

And so, right, you write a book, the next stage, you go get an agent.

The agent goes, does the thing.

So I took a couple of workshops.

There was an agency that was doing workshops on how to get agents and so on and so forth.

And so I took theirs.

They gave me some really good information, some really useful pieces of information that I needed.

Things like, look, it's your art.

You can do art all day.

And if you want to do art for the rest of your life, that's great, and it's perfect the way that it is.

But if you want a marketable product, you're going to have to accept the point that we're going to have to make some changes on this.

And if you can't let go of your art, then be an artist.

But if you want to make a marketable product that you can sell as a book, you're going to have to.

Let it I hate some of the terminology because marketable product.

Marketable to who?

Right.

To the main public.

Yeah.

To the masses, to the store owners of the big bookstores that we're used to being able to get our books into.

That's who you're marketing to is the CEOs or the not CEOs.

Let's be real.

CEO of Barnes and Noble is not reading and picking books, but the people in charge of picking the books at Barnes and Noble to go on the.

The behind the scenes shadow government that runs Barnes and Noble.

Yeah, those ones.

Those guys.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, this is one of the greatest things that I learned, all right?

Because then I was published.

I got an indie publisher who picked me up, and they're like, look, we're going to do this.

And then the pandemic hit, and they became ill.

Not from the pandemic.

They also had cancer type thing.

And what they had, they realized is that they couldn't keep working the way that they were.

They needed to change their profession, and they moved from being a publisher to someone who builds the book.

You hand them a manuscript, they go, Here you go.

And they hand you a book ready to be published, all right?

They do the illustrations.

They build the table of contents.

They get the ISBN numbers.

They get all of the legal information.

Without any input from you?

Well, no, with input from me, it'd be like working with an illustrator.

This was an artist who was taking my manuscript and putting it into book form, and if need be, getting an illustrator, do you want an illustrator?

And they would work with you.

But basically, all of the work that she was doing as a publisher and not getting paid for it, and then her clientele were not going to their book readings, and they wanted to sit back and just, why aren't I famous yet?

Yeah.

And so she couldn't make her money back, right?

And so she was changing her job to all the things that I did to get your book ready.

You pay me for that now.

Good luck, and I wish you I'm no longer a publisher, all right?

Type of thing.

And so I was like, okay, but where does that leave me?

Because you just picked me up as a client.

And she went, I'm going to set you up on the first book, right?

You don't need to pay me.

We've already had a deal.

I'm going to honor that.

I'm going to set you up for book one, all right?

And then you'll become a client for book 2345, whatever.

But I'm also going to teach you how to become your own publisher, okay?

And so she taught me how to get an LLC.

And the way of great publishing is my company, and she taught me how to do that.

She taught me how to find out certain pieces of information, everything from what percentages should be used for getting into bookstores, comparatively, to doing book fairs and so on and so forth, to how to find illustrators, how to get mass amounts of books printed all at once.

She's helping me learn how to become an indie publisher.

And so that process took up three years, I mean, together from the time I started writing to the time I was ready to publish my own book was three years.

And that was a year ago when I put out Dalen Paxton the Beats of.

I mean, I've got to say, though, as for you, that worked out way in your favor for indie publishing to have someone teach you how to do all of that.

Most people are floundering around just googling all the answers.

Yeah, I was very lucky on that.

So did she end up publishing book one for you, or did you end up doing that one yourself?

Book one is published, by the way, of Gray Publishing, which is my company.

Okay, so you ended up doing that one yourself?

Yeah, she helped me go through the entire process of how to do this, and she's also there helping me as a coach while I'm preparing number two.

I talked to her earlier today.

I was just how do I all right, the book is done.

Ingram has gone, hey, it's ready.

What do you want to do with it?

How do I get a PDF version to do a visual proof on it before we say, all right, put it to distribution?

She was helping me with that specifically today.

So I was very fortunate.

But I have been very fortunate through a lot of this in the respect that my original editor was one of those kids from high school who helped develop characters.

One of the original members of the game when my world started is now an English teacher.

And she went, oh, let me edit your book.

And so I had a free editor.

Right.

But it was just happenstance that it worked out that way.

Completely different world I live in now, that was just live in a different world now where we're live.

Call can we afford to buy books for the signing.

For mine?

I started Narrating in September of 21, and then in January of 22 is when I landed my first fiction books.

I did all nonfiction prior to January of last year, and so I started this podcast in not August, April of 22.

And so I've been talking to all these authors that write these fiction books that I Narrate.

I've been talking to authors on here, and I've slowly been absorbing all of the information.

Now, some of it won't apply to me and won't help me because of the way my brain works.

But all these people's writing processes and how they promote the books and how they found their editors and I don't need illustrations for mine, but I've talked to a couple of children's authors that had to find illustrators for their books and all these things and I'm like slowly absorbing.

So I told the author that I narrated for that is now going to be my editor.

I told her I was like, the podcast was really selfish.

It was just so I could learn the business as I was working on my book.

And it's worked great myself.

I think it's a great idea.

You have a question, you just have someone on and ask them the question, hey, how did you do this?

Well, that's why I'm like, I cover everything from fairy tale that you like as a kid to next question for you would be so a year ago, you put your book out in there in the world.

What did you do to sell the book at that point?

Well, a couple of things.

Locally, we have a farmers market that happens every Sunday, and its rules suggest that anytime that the product that you are trying to sell is at least 65% yours, you made it.

You can sell it at this farmers market.

It's in a parking lot at the mall.

But a big farmers market, they sell everything from vegetables to soaps to whatever.

And I can put up a ten X ten booth there and sit there and sell my books.

All right?

I am learning about Book cons.

I am learning about even some of them.

There are book cons, comic cons, fantasy cons, dragon con.

There's so many, so many.

And part of the problem in the beginning, during this last year, it's people I'm on TikTok, and then I get eight different people that I'm following go, oh, dude, DragonCon was so cool.

I'm like, there was a DragonCon.

Shoot.

The thing that I'm learning right now is how to find out about these.

And sometimes it's a Google search, sometimes it's like Book cons or fantasy cons within the general location of where I'm at because I am not rich enough or nor am I selling enough books to go out to Atlanta, Georgia, to do a thing yet, because I'm in California.

But in November, there's one in San Francisco.

In November, I'm going to that know, because it's close enough that I can get to it.

I can drive.

Right.

But I had to learn how to fight out about had to go, where are they?

When are they also because my distributor is Ngram, all right?

And I know that there's a lot of trouble with Ngram right now because it changed prices and did things, but they also distribute your book to, like, 10,000 different locations, and they have seven printing houses all over the world, and it's so much easier to get your book out.

I sold three books in France, one in Germany.

Yeah, cool.

Right know?

Sweet.

I don't know how that happened, but it right.

And it's in the online it's, and it's in Barnes, and it's on it and automatically gets put into Amazon.

And because of that, when I went to Barnes and Nobles, and I'm like, Hi, look, I am an author that uses your distributor in Graham Spark.

They're like, oh, that's know, and if you look me up, I'm in your system.

And they did.

I'm in your system.

Great.

Now, how do I go from in your system to on your hmm.

Because I was already in their system.

It made it easy.

Right.

They asked me, do you have any sort of social media?

Oh, yes, I have TikTok, and I have Facebook, and I have so many followers on this and so many followers on that.

My followers on TikTok rise every day, and they're doing what else are you doing to promote your book?

Well, I had also done two signings.

I went into Half Price Books, which is a used bookstore, but I'm in their system because of Angram, and I got them to have me do a signing there.

And I was selling brand new books at the Half Price bookstore.

But I sold a know.

And so I gave Barnes Noble these numbers.

I'm doing signings.

I'm doing the Farmers market.

I know it sounds dumb, but did the Farmers Market.

I've talked to the local libraries.

You go, hey, you're doing any book done?

And I have TikTok.

I have this.

They're like, okay, so you actually trying to promote yourself?

I was like, yeah.

And they acted like they had never seen this before.

They're like, that is so refreshing to see an author who was actually trying to promote themselves.

Look at why your publisher stopped doing what she was doing because they weren't doing that.

Right?

It's beyond me.

Why aren't you doing this?

My publisher says, Look, I'm a publisher, not a publicist.

Yeah, it's your job to be your publicist.

If you don't want to be a publicist, hire somebody.

Right.

But it's not my job to sell your book.

It's my job to make your book.

It's my job to publish your book, not advertise it.

That's your job.

Yeah.

And where I was like, really?

I didn't realize that was the full case because I thought that's part of the reason why traditional publishers get people is because going through traditional publishing, they have their name recognition.

They have millions of dollars of advertising.

They put into certain things, and so on and so forth.

That's the reason why people go the traditional route.

But that's not true for self publishing or indie publish.

Well, I have talked to both traditionally well, all traditionally indie published and self published.

I have talked to all three groups of people on this podcast.

And from what I have learned, Trad Pub, Big Five, trad Pub will only put money behind known authors.

Stephen King I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head, but like, the authors that they know, this author is going to sell books.

All we have to do is put 100 copies into this Barnes and Noble, and they will sell out.

Because it is such a well known author, where if you are random person with your first book, they don't know what you're going to do.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

And so there's a part of me that goes as a new publisher and as a new author, why go that route?

And I personally have not yet found a proper answer.

The answer is because millions of people will see your book.

Well, and I'm sure you've seen this on TikTok.

The whole, like, oh, indie or self publishing isn't you're not a real author.

And it's just like it's because there's a.

Big group of like, ten years ago because I've read a lot of indie and self published stuff.

Okay?

And so, like ten years ago, all you had to do, especially if you were in romance or fantasy genre, write the book, put it out there.

It doesn't have to be edited.

It doesn't have to be anything.

Just write the book, put it out there.

People will read it.

Because there weren't enough people writing in that genre for the massive quantity of reading that those genre readers do.

And nowadays, there's a whole lot of authors that know you got to get it edited and you got to do this, and they are making sure that the book is polished as much as possible.

But ten years ago, it got a bad name in the industry because people were just first draft throwing that one out into the world, and people were reading it.

Don't do that.

So I'm like, for my stuff, I'm like, this is the path that I'm going to take.

I'm going to self publish and do this and that and whatever.

But for Alex, I'm like, if you want to go my husband for podcasters that may not know for him, I'm like, if you want to go query, you're a grown adult.

You can go do whatever you want to do with your book.

It's your book.

So we both own our own LLCs already.

When it was tax time, we had our accountant get those set up for us because I didn't want to have to figure out how to do that.

So he set them up for us.

And we each have our own LLC.

We'll publish our own books under our own LLCs.

We picked the names of and make it all legit.

But both of us know editors.

I am just now finishing up with beta readers on mine.

Then it goes to the editor, then it'll go to Arc readers.

I did pay someone to help me build an Arc team because my team was not building very fast.

And I know what's the fastest way to spread the word for more people to be spreading the word.

I may want to talk to you eventually about who did you talk to about this?

Because I did everything I could to get Arc readers, and I end up with, like, 15.

All right.

I think on my own, I got like, ten.

On my own.

I did the best I could, but for some reason, I'm getting a lot of views, but not a lot of traction.

Like in TikTok, I will put out a video, and within an hour, I have 280 views.

And two people liked it.

Yeah, I think the last time they reset the algorithm, I think they decided to disregard hashtags, is what I think.

I'm pretty sure is what happened.

Okay.

I'm pretty sure that's what happened with the last reset.

I think they messed up the hashtag, getting it to the right people thing, which just means you got to wait for an update that fixes it.

But you got to wait for an update that fixes it.

Just yesterday, someone said, Look, I found your stuff.

I thought that you had stopped putting out material because I haven't seen any of your stuff for three weeks, and I happened to go onto your account.

I'm like, oh, my God, there's a whole bunch of stuff here, all right?

And the reason why is because that she started watching, like, four or five other people, and so it only feed them that.

I worked really hard to get my 1000 followers, all right?

And I finally did a couple of reader follow parties and so on and so forth to get myself over the line.

But most of my followers are followers.

They liked what I put out.

They went, oh, yes, this guy.

I want to hear more.

Yet only 200 people see it, and for some reason, only like, four people like it.

I'm like, what am I not doing to have this hit?

Right?

So I'm looking at other avenues besides TikTok.

For example, and nothing against TikTok.

I'm not badmouthing TikTok in any way, shape or form in the public.

For example, my books are written in Dyslexia font.

It's a special font made to help people who have Dyslexia.

I'm Dyslexic.

My daughter's Dyslexic.

When I first found out about it, I'm like, Why would you not write a book in this font?

Because even if you don't have Dyslexia, this font removes readers fatigue.

Your eyes don't get tired after reading 100 pages, all right?

So I'm like, Why would you not write in it?

So I'm only producing books in that font.

I'll never use New Roman Times.

I'll never use it, all right?

And so the reason why Book two and Book one came out in October is because it's Dyslexic Awareness Month.

Now, my goal to try to connect with people for the signing that I have set up at Barnes and Nobles, because I went in and went, hey, let's set this up for Book One.

And they took me, they put books on the shelves.

Those sold out.

They had to buy more.

That's always good.

That's a good problem.

And they're like, let's do a signing in October because it's Dyslexic Awareness Month.

It would be better for you, all right?

And I'm like, fair enough.

But since then, Book Two was coming out, so I timed Book Two to come out, right?

But I'm on my own, not because of what Barnes and Noble is doing, not because of TikTok, but not because of anything like that.

I'm going to be setting up PR packages and connecting to my local television Good Morning, Sacramento type of thing and saying, all right, just as October hits.

Hey.

Are you looking for Dyslexic Awareness Month stories?

Because I am a publisher who only is publishing in Dyslexifont for Dyslexic readers.

Do you want a know?

And then when they're, oh, yeah, yeah, we'd like to lease an interview.

You can talk to you about it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

By the doing, my next book is launching on this date.

I'm going to be doing a signing in Barnes and Nobles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I am doing my own self promotion and using other formats than this form than TikTok, because I seem to not be able to get any traction no matter how hard I try.

I know people who have been on just as long as I have, and they have 28,000 people.

It drives me crazy when I see those ones.

I'm like, I've worked hard for my I think I'm at 2300 now.

And I'm like, I've been working hard since January of last year to build up the Freya Victorian name, right?

But I did start across all social medias at once, and TikTok is just the only one that has done anything until now.

Until now.

I don't know if you saw it, but I did post a video yesterday.

I had someone message me on the podcast account on Instagram yesterday, and they asked me all these questions that are in my bio on Instagram for the podcast.

And they're asking me the answers to these questions.

And I'm like, did you read the bio?

Did you do anything whatsoever?

Or did you see book?

Because what they did, they messaged me, and they asked if I needed any audiobook narrators for my books.

And I'm like you're messaging a podcast.

I was in a spicy mood yesterday.

Okay?

So my response, my first response, you're messaging a podcast that interviews authors where the host is a professional audiobook narrator, and you're asking about narrating books that aren't mine.

I'm like, does any of this make sense to you?

And they were like, oh, well, something, something.

Oh, well, if your host is ever busy, we also help make podcasts take your written content and turn.

I'm like, It's an interview based podcast.

If the host is unavailable, there is no podcast.

So finally, after all of that, they were like, oh, really?

I have a podcast too.

Here's my podcast.

And they send me the link to their podcast.

What's the name of yours?

And I'm like, you're messaging me on the podcast page.

So finally, I was like, Listen, we will never work together, but for your future business transactions, I would highly recommend you spend the 1 minute it will take you to read the limited Instagram bio before you message someone.

I had someone hitting me like that too.

I'm like in anyone listening to this.

Whether you're the person that they're trying to sell to or the person trying to do the selling, nine times out of ten, if you took even just two minutes to do any kind of research on the person you're trying to sell to.

And it should be quite clear if you're the author or the podcast that is trying getting these unsolicited messages.

It should be obvious if they did not even do any kind of research on you at all.

Yeah, I just had that happen to me on Facebook.

Someone running, hey, I really enjoyed your material, and I thought that perhaps we might be able to help you.

We do things to do webinars and podcasts and so on and so forth type of thing.

If you get set up, you may already have your own product, but we'd like to at least show you what we have.

And if it's better than what you're doing, then maybe we can set something up.

How would you like to do a free communication?

And I was like, possibly.

I definitely know that if I'm going to be doing anything, if I'm going to buy anything, I'm going to have to have the rest of my team here.

My wife, right?

Let me talk to the boss real quick.

Well, momentarily, there's 2.5 of us for Way of Craig.

Basically, I have one person who's helping me with marketing as well, and he's helping me with marketing visuals.

He's done some of the artwork and so on and so forth to help prepare the new covers and so on and so forth.

And he's one of those people that if Wave Great Publishing ever picks up enough where we can really be something other than just I'm putting out my books.

Right.

He will be a member of this team, but right now we're just putting out mine.

Right?

But I said, okay, but I hope you don't mind.

I don't want the rest of my team there for the thing.

By the way, what of my material?

Did you like that?

Had you talked to me?

And they don't have an answer.

Don't have an answer.

And they're like, oh, well, here's where you can set up to do where we can meet.

And so I ignored it.

And just the other day I don't understand.

You showed interest in what we were doing and then you never communicated with me.

Yeah.

You were so close.

You almost made it because I was interested in some of what you're doing, what you're offering, I'm kind of interested in but no, sorry.

And it's because they didn't take the time to actually know the information that was just like you.

If you're going to try to sell me something and start off with going, I really like the content that you're putting out, you better be ready to answer stuff about my content, right?

Because if you did look at my stuff because for three years before I started writing, I was an Orbiter on Facebook, all right?

I was doing self help.

I was doing some spirituality stuff, but nothing like that.

It was just are you feeling a connection?

Why is it not?

And so I was trying to help the best I could in those areas.

And that's what they were suggesting because I was doing hour long videos almost every day talking about certain aspects of philosophy and, hey, you got to get up, and if you're waiting for someone to save you, that person's you right.

Type of message that I was putting out for years.

And I'm like, well, it'd be fun to do possibly a webinar or something like that on that subject.

I have a lot of information and I could use it, but they never got back to me on it.

And so instead, I decided to put it in my book.

And I did.

There is actually a lot of philosophy in my series, and there's a lot of ideas about connection and how it works and why it works, the way that it works, and so on and so forth.

And I use it to explain magic with big quotations around it.

It's magic.

Seven tenths of book one is the protagonist learning the different elements of magic.

There's a difference between magic of the body, magic of the mind, and magic of the soul.

There's different formats that it runs, but it's all the same stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is a lot of what the first book is about.

And part of the reason why is because I didn't want to have to spend explanation after explanation through the rest of the seven book series.

I wanted to go, look, let me lay down the foundation.

Let me explain to you how this stuff works.

This is what it is.

This is why it works the way that it works in my magical world.

This is why magic is okay, now that you know it, I can just go, he used his magic, all right?

He magically did this.

And I don't have to explain to you how, right?

Because if you read the first book, you know how.

Or you can throw like a little one sentence explanation very quickly and be done.

Yeah, I don't just go magic, but I separate the three spheres of magic is the body, mind and soul, right?

But.

In book two, book three, book four, I'll say Dalen PAX opened up the body sphere and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, if you haven't read book one, you have no idea what the body sphere, right?

So I never suggest to anyone to read these books out of order, which is why.

I'm promoting mine.

There are authors are very specific about these are standalones.

It is a series of standalones.

I'm very specific with mine.

I'm like it will be interconnected standalones.

Each book focuses on a different fairy tale, but you cannot read them out of order.

You're not going to know what the heck is going on for the overarching storyline of the series, right?

Well liked original fairy tales growing up after he was given Grimm's Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Anderson's.

Today we'll be reading The Golden Bird by the Grimm Brothers the Golden Bird is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons.

It is classified in the ARN Thompson Uether index as type atu 550 bird, Horse and Princess, a folktale type that involves supernatural helper, animal as helper.

Other tales of this type include the Bird Grip, the Greek Princess and the Young Gardener jarvich Ivan, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf how Ian Dirich got the Blue Falcon, and the Nunda eater of People.

Don't forget we're reading Les Mort de Arthur.

The Story of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the roundtable on our Patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes.

The Golden Bird a certain king had a beautiful garden and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples.

These apples were always counted and about the time when they began to grow ripe, it was found that every night one of them was gone.

The king became very angry at this and ordered the gardener to keep watch all night under the tree.

The gardener set his eldest son to watch, but about 12:00 he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing.

Then the second son was ordered to watch, and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning another apple was gone.

Then the third son offered to keep watch, but the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come to him.

However, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself under the tree to watch.

As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold, and as it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener's son jumped up and shot an arrow at it.

But the arrow did the bird no harm, only it dropped a golden feather from its tail and then flew away.

The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning and all the council was called together.

Everyone agreed that it was worth more than all the wealth of the kingdom.

But the king said one feather is of no use to me, I must have the whole bird.

Then the gardener's eldest son set out and thought to find the Golden Bird very easily, and when he had gone but a little way, he came to a wood, and by the side of the wood he saw a fox sitting.

So he took his bow and made ready to shoot at it.

Then the fox said do not shoot me, for I will give you good counsel.

I know what your business is and that you want to find the Golden Bird.

You'll reach a village in the evening, and when you get there you will see two ends opposite to each other, one of which is very pleasant and beautiful to look at.

Go not in there, but rest for the night in the other, though it may appear to you to be very poor and mean.

But the sun thought to himself, what can such a beast as this know about the matter?

So he shot his arrow at the fox, but he missed it, and it set its tail above its back and ran into the wood.

Then he went his way, and then the evening came to the village where the two inns were, and in one of these were people singing and dancing and feasting, but the other looked very dirty and poor.

I should be very silly, said he, if I went to that shabby house and left this charming place.

So he went into the smart house and ate and drank at his ease, and forgot the bird and his country too.

Time passed on, and as the eldest son did not come back and no tidings were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened to him.

He met the fox, who gave him the good advice.

But when he came to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where the merrymaking was and called to him to come in.

And he could not withstand the temptation, but went in and forgot the golden bird and his country.

In the same manner.

Time passed on again, and the youngest son, too wished to set out into the wide world to seek for the golden bird.

But his father would not listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son and was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also and prevent his coming back.

However, at last it was agreed he should go, for he would not rest at home.

And as he came to the wood he met the fox and heard the same good counsel.

But he was thankful to the fox and did not attempt his life as his brothers had done.

So the fox said, sit upon my tail and you will travel faster.

So he sat down, and the fox began to run, and away they went, over stock and stone, so quick that their hair whistled in the wind.

When they came to the village, the sun followed the fox's counsel and without looking about him went to the shabby inn and rested there all night at his ease.

In the morning came the fox again and met him as he was beginning his journey, and said, go straightforward till you come to a castle before which lie a whole troop of soldiers, fast asleep and snoring.

Take no notice of them.

Go into the castle and pass on and on till you come to a room where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage.

Close by it stands a beautiful golden cage.

But do not try to take the bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one otherwise you will repent it.

Then the fox stretched out his tail again and the young man sat himself down and away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled in the wind for the castle gate.

All was as the fox had said.

So the sun went in and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage.

And below stood the golden cage and the three golden apples that had been lost were lying close by it.

Then thought he to himself it'll be a very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage.

So he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage.

But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke and they took him prisoner and carried him before the king.

The next morning, the court sat to judge him and when all was heard, it sentenced him to die unless he should bring the king the golden horse which could run as swiftly as the wind.

And if he did this, he was to have the golden bird given him for his own.

So he set out once more on his journey, sighing and in great despair when on a sudden his friend the fox met him and said you see now what has happened on account of you not listening to my counsel.

I will still, however, tell you how to find the golden horse if you do as I bid you.

So you must go straight on till you come to the castle where the horse stands in his stall.

By his side will lay the groom, fast asleep and snoring.

Take away the horse quietly but be sure to put the old leathern saddle upon him and not the golden one that is close by it.

And the sun sat down on the fox's tail and away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled in the wind.

All went right, and the groom laced Snoring with his hand upon the golden saddle.

But when the sun looked at the horse he thought it a great pity to put the leathern saddle upon it.

I will give him the good one, said he.

I'm sure he deserves it.

As he took up the golden saddle the groom awoke and cried out so loud that all the guards ran in and took him prisoner.

And in the morning he was again brought before the court to be judged and was sentenced to die.

But it was agreed that if he could bring thither the beautiful princess he should live and have the bird and the horse given him for his own.

Then he went his way very sorrowful.

But the old fox came and said why did you not listen to me?

If you had, you would have carried away both the bird and the horse.

Yet will I once more give you counsel.

Go straight on.

And in the evening you will arrive at a castle.

00 at night, the princess goes to the bathing house.

Go up to her and give her a kiss, and she will let you lead her away.

But take care you do not suffer her to go and take leave of her father and mother.

Then the fox stretched out his tail, and so away they went over stock and stone till their hair whistled again as they came to the castle.

All was as the fox had said.

And at 12:00 the young man met the princess going to the bath and gave her the kiss.

And she agreed to run away with him, but begged with many tears that he would let her take leave of her father.

At first he refused, but she wept still more and more and fell at his feet till at last he consented.

But the moment she came to her father's house, the guards awoke and he was taken prisoner again.

Then he was brought before the king.

And the king said, you shall never have my daughter unless in eight days you dig away the hill that stops the view from my window.

Now, this hill was so big that the whole world could not take it away.

And when he had worked for seven days and had done very little, the fox came and said, lie down and go to sleep, and I will work for you.

And in the morning he awoke and the hill was gone.

So he went merrily to the king and told him that now it was removed, he must give him the princess.

And the king was obliged to keep his word.

And away went the young man and the princess.

And the fox came and said to him, we will have all three the princess, the horse and the bird.

Ah, said the young man, that would be a great thing.

But how can you contrive it if you will only listen?

Said the fox, it can be done.

When you come to the king and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must say, Here she is.

Then he'll be very joyful and you will mount the golden horse that they are to give you and put out your hand to take leave of them.

But shake hands with the princess last.

Then lift her quickly onto the horse behind you, clap your spurs to his side and gallop away as fast as you can.

All went right.

Then the fox said, when you come to the castle where the bird is, I will stay with the princess at the door and you will ride in and speak to the king.

And when he sees that it is the right horse, he will bring out the bird.

But you must sit still and say that you want to look at it to see whether it is the true golden bird.

And when you get it into your hand right away.

This too happened.

As the fox said.

They carried off the bird.

The princess mounted again, and they rode on to a great wood.

Then the fox came and said, pray kill me and cut off my head and my feet.

But the young man refused to do it.

So the fox said, I will at any rate give you good counsel.

Beware of two things ransom no one from the gallows and sit by the side of no river.

Then away he went.

Well, thought the young man, it is no hard matter to keep to that advice.

He rode on with the princess till at last he came to the village where he had left his two brothers.

And there he heard a great noise and uproar.

And when he asked what was the matter, the people said, Two men are going to be hanged.

As he came nearer, he saw that the two men were his brothers who had turned robbers.

So he said, Cannot they in any way be saved?

But the people said no, unless he would bestow all his money upon the rascals and buy their liberty.

Then he did not stay to think about the matter, but paid what was asked.

And his brothers were given up and went on with him towards their home.

And as they came to the wood where the fox first met them, it was so cool and pleasant that the two brothers said let us sit down by the side of the river and rest a while to eat and drink.

So he said yes and forgot the fox's counsel and sat down on the side of the river.

And while he suspected nothing, they came behind and threw him down the bank and took the princess, the horse and the bird and went home to the king, their master, and said all this we won by our labor.

Then there was great rejoicing made.

But the horse would not eat, the bird would not sing, and the princess wept.

The youngest son fell to the bottom of the river's bed.

Luckily it was nearly dry, but his bones were almost broken and the bank was so steep that he could find no way to get out.

Then the old fox came once more and scolded him for not following his advice, otherwise no evil would have befallen him.

Yet, said he, I cannot leave you here, so lay hold of my tail and hold fast.

Then he pulled him out of the river and said to him as he got upon the bank, your brothers have set watch to kill you if they find you in the kingdom.

So he dressed himself as a poor man and came secretly to the king's court and was scarcely within the doors when the horse began to eat and the bird to sing.

And the princess left off weeping.

Then he went to the king and told him all his brother's roguery and.

They were seized and punished, and he had the princess given to him again.

And after the king's death, he was heir to his kingdom.

A long while after, he went to walk one day in the Wood, and the old fox met him and besought him with tears in his eyes to kill him and cut off his head and feet.

And at last he did so.

And in a moment, the fox was changed into a man and turned out to be the brother of the princess, who had been lost a great many, many years.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.

Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion of Will's journey to holding his own fairy tale in his hands and to hear another of his favorite fairy tales.