Today is part one of two where we are talking to Laura John about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about starting your writing career as a an adult, writing to help your mental health, letting your characters do the talking, getting your books in audio, navigating your career after chaos, finding the software that works best for you, the importance of building a community, and revealing details in your story when it’s necessary for the story.

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Laura is a steamy romance author from Alberta, Canada, who melds love and angst together while normalizing mental illness. In her books, you will fall in love with her rock stars, bodyguards, baseball players, and even a hired hit man!⁣

When she’s not writing, Laura enjoys reading, going to concerts, hiking, and experimenting with makeup! Music means everything to her, so make sure to check out her playlists to get a sneak peek into what inspires her!

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Welcome to Freya's Fairy Tales, where you 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 read 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'm 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 Laura John about her novels.

Over the next two weeks, you will.

Hear about starting your writing career as an adult.

Writing to help your mental health, letting your characters do the talking, getting your books in audio navigating your career after Chaos finding the software that works best for you the importance of building a community and revealing details in your story when it's necessary for the story summer Dreams age is just a number.

Or is it?

Jax growing up, I had it all.

I never had to want for anything.

Everything was great and I had a family who cared.

But getting tangled up with the wrong crowd ruined that.

For years, I lived an addiction, battling the constant need for my next hit and doing shady things.

Someone saw more than that wasted addict and helped me get my life back together.

With dedication and sheer hard work.

I'm finally in a good place.

At 40, I own a bar.

My bar and my employees are what keep me focused.

I let nothing come between me and what I treasure until a small man with light and sass threatens everything I believe.

When Kev comes into the picture, though, I realize sometimes addiction and obsession are one and the same.

He works his way into the very fiber of my being.

Burrows in my soul, I'm starting to feel things I thought I had buried years ago coming back to the surface.

I want him, but he's 21 years younger than me and everything I'm not.

Kevin my plans are set.

The moment I turn 18.

I'm off to see anything outside this small NC town.

I'd escape the sleepy closed minds and search for acceptance and love elsewhere.

Funny thing about declaring plans sometimes the universe has other ideas.

Despite myself, I find love, support and even a family amid the small town community.

Finding my forever family, I realized I can't leave.

They're helping me grow and be the person I want to be.

Growing my wings.

I find Jax Grumpy no nonsense silver fox bar owner.

He is my opposite, cold, brooding, and distant.

But something about him draws me in.

Unfortunately, he wants nothing to do with me because of my age or maybe because our courtship started with a lie.

Once he finally lets his guard down and pulls his head out of his a**, we start to explore our relationship.

Just as everything starts leading in the direction we both want, our fresh romance has turned on its head.

Can I keep Jack's beside me?

Or are we bound to break apart?

So the podcast is Freya's Fairy Tales, and that is fairy tales in two ways.

Fairy tales are something that we watched or listened to or read as kids.

And it's also the journey for you to spend weeks, months, years working on your novel.

To hold that in your hands, finally is a fairy tale for you as well.

So I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale when you were a kid and did your favorite change as you got older?

A little bit.

I mean, I loved Little Red Riding Hood.

Okay.

And I feel like it has somewhat stayed the same.

Just took in a filthier turn.

Okay.

Yeah.

So at what age did you kind of start thinking about writing?

Start I think usually I hear short stories and stuff like that is what people usually start with.

But at what age did you kind of start writing?

So for me, I'm kind of like an anomaly.

I didn't start writing until maybe a year before I published.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And I started as kind of like an emotional outlet just to kind of help with my mental health.

And I had been reading a lot, and all of these ideas started popping into my head, but I had no plans on publishing whatsoever.

It was just for myself.

And I was just writing to kind of get these stories that were popping up in my head.

But I had no plans on releasing them until a group of other aspiring writers and authors, I somehow ended up in the group with them.

And somewhere in your head, you had thoughts of publishing or that wouldn't happen.

Yeah, something happened.

One day.

I ended up at this Facebook chat and I was like, how did I get here?

But hi.

And.

Then someone was like, they were telling their journeys.

And I was like, Can I give you these five chapters that I've written and you tell me if it's good?

If it's good, I'll finish it and publish it.

If it's crap, I'll just continue to do what I'm doing.

I seriously just did the same thing with the book I'm working on.

Yeah, not in a Facebook group I stumbled across.

I roped two authors I narrated for into reading it.

I was like, hey, since I spent all this time on your series, can you read this real quick.

Yeah.

So you sent it to them and what was their feedback?

They were like, you need to finish this book because I need to know what happens.

And they're like, It's not crap.

It's really good.

And that's how Secret Smiles saw the light of day.

So you have five chapters done.

You get feedback to absolutely continue, which for me, same feedback I got.

Right.

So you finish writing your book.

How long did it take you for those first five chapters and then to finish the rest of it?

So I'm a pretty fast writer, especially if the characters are talking to me.

So I think it took maybe three months.

Okay.

Pretty fast.

Go ahead.

That was about the speed I was writing at that time.

Now I'm even a little bit faster.

But now you kind of figured out how to develop the story in your head.

Yeah, like I said, unless the characters aren't talking.

Like, I just recently had one book that I ended up putting to the side, and it's probably never going to see the light of day because the characters just stopped talking.

So I was working on that one for three months and maybe was halfway through.

And then as soon as I put it to the side and started on my next book, I think I got the next book done.

The majority of it in a month.

Oh, gosh.

So it's like it depends on the characters.

Yeah, I think I found that I started one, got 30,000 words into it, and then another book started writing itself around Christmas.

And I'm like, I think I was just writing the wrong genre.

And that's the thing.

I think sometimes either it's the characters or it's the genre or the subgenre or whatever it is, and it's just not flowing.

And I think for me, especially, the more I force myself to write something, the harder it becomes, and then it just takes longer, and sometimes that book just isn't going to get finished right.

Or you're going to spend so long on it, you could have finished five other books in the time you've been slogging through.

Exactly.

So where do the ideas for your books come from?

I know you said it started as like a mental health kind of thing.

Where did the stories come from?

What inspired them?

So the first story came to me in a dream, like a lot of authors say, and it really did.

I had this dream about this rock star, and I was like, oh, I need to write this story.

And for a lot of my other books, I think that the stories come from a bunch of different places.

Sometimes it'll come from a meme.

Sometimes it'll come from somebody being like, hey, I'm looking for this kind of book.

And I'm like, I could write that kind of book.

And then it starts snowballing, and the characters eventually pop up in my head.

And like, hey, that's my story.

So you type the end on book number one and then what did you do after that point?

Did you immediately publish?

Did you take it to an editor?

What did you do after that?

Yeah, so I did the whole hired an editor while I was writing.

I had people reading it.

So my alpha readers, I had some beta readers after it was finished before it went to the editor.

And then yeah, I got edited proofed.

I hired a cover designer.

I did all of the stuff because I wanted to put out the strongest book possible.

And for me I think the one thing I would never skimp on is editing.

I would always make sure I hired an editor and paid for an editor because I would never put out a crappy cover, but I would put out like a plain cover.

I would put out just like a black cover with the title over something that was cheaply made.

But people would buy that if it had great reviews.

Some beautiful covers made on canva where the author did it themselves.

And I'm like that fits the genre perfectly.

Exactly.

Anything exactly.

And some people are really great at that.

I'm not, I'm okay with canva, but if I say I didn't have the money at all, right, I would just put out like a really plain cover because I feel like people would still pick that up over something that had a ton of reviews being like this book poorly edited.

Yeah, or even if people weren't writing that in reviews, they wouldn't be putting positive reviews out either.

Because I know from my personal standpoint I don't put out negative reviews.

But I would say to a friend, oh, this book was a little hard to read because of this.

Just to let you know going into this it might be difficult to get through.

I get that.

I've had a couple of narrating ones that I had to essentially reject for that reason.

It's like I don't know what's happening.

It takes like ten times longer to narrate it when the sentences are all like weird.

Right.

So to me editing is like the one thing that to like a newbie author I would like say don't ever skimp on.

And the thing is you can actually find some really good editors for not a bad price, but if they are cheaper you have to put in more work to find the good ones.

Because I would say the ones that are priced lower, there are some really amazing ones, but you need to make sure you're doing the getting them a sample edit and all of that and really searching through because I would say the lower the price, the harder it is to find the really good ones.

I have to say it's the same for so far my books are still in the production in production writing stages.

But for narrators it's the same.

There's a lot of narrators that do royalty share, but finding a Narrator that does royalty share, that doesn't sound like they're reading down a hallway or there's a bunch of crackling and popping going on with their audio because they didn't edit it, or like, right.

They sound super monotone and boring and no one's going to want to listen to that book.

It's really hard for narrators, too, to find, or for authors to find Narrators that are, like, within their price.

I work with a lot of indie, like, brand new getting started authors.

So not big budgets to pay all the money up front.

No, I get that.

I have one audiobook out, and I've.

Told Marcus and Macy did it, and.

It'S amazing and I love it so much.

But I have told everyone to wait at least a couple of years for any more audiobooks.

I'm like, well, here's one.

Happy birthday.

It'll be a while.

I have authors that I'm like Narrating series for, and I'm like, their books are so well done.

I'm like, can I just be like, can you just exclusively sign with me as your narrator?

Because I want to do everything you put out, right?

I mean, if it wasn't like a series of interconnected standalones, I would have hired Marcus and Maisie for all of them.

But obviously each book has different couples, so it does need different narrators.

Yeah, I did research because I got hired on to do this series that's like, it's a bunch of brothers, like, siblings together.

And so I was like, how does one do I'm like, are there series like that where the same Narrators have done it?

And so I kind of did my research on it, and there's actually a couple that does Narrate and they just do the characters for the rest of the series and just keep on going.

And I was like, okay, it can be done with just one narrator.

Yeah, I think it absolutely can be.

I'm just like one of those people that I'm doing all unique.

Yeah, well, and I just have such different voices in my head for the characters, so it's like, I want different ones.

So you had it edited, you had your cover professionally done.

That was all for book one.

When did you release book one?

The first 1 September, I believe, of many years ago.

Not quite that long, but 2019, I think.

Okay, so before COVID yes, it was.

Before COVID Okay, so you have quite.

A few books that you've put out since then.

So you got that first one done.

What did you do to kind of promote that first book?

So back then, Facebook parties were really hopping.

You could do a lot.

I mean, I think they're still happening.

I just don't think they're as worth the effort as much anymore.

I still like to participate in them because I love interacting with people.

So that's, like, my happy spot.

But it's just like back then, that was just a great free marketing tool.

And now I wouldn't say it's as.

The trends have changed.

Yes.

And people yeah.

They're just not interacting as much and stuff.

And people are elsewhere also, so they're not as often in Facebook.

They're on different social media platforms and stuff.

So when I first started, that was really a great way to market.

And it was free.

Free is good.

Yeah.

Secret Smiles really took off to begin with.

And then even before Secret Smiles was released, as soon as it was done, I pretty much started on Book Two.

So I had most of book Two written even before Book One was released.

So that kind of also helped with momentum was you have this other book.

That came out shortly after.

Yeah, since I started, I've been releasing faithfully every three months since I started.

Okay.

And then moving into this year, I'm crazy.

And I'm going to be releasing every two months this year.

I just had a release two days ago.

Oh, gosh, March.

By the time this airs, I'm going to have to be like, what?

Book just released?

Yeah, because we'll have a new release in May.

And then July, September, November, December, and January.

Yeah.

I have three months in a row because I'm doing a Christmas novella.

My personal assistant has been she's like, I can't believe you're doing this.

I'm like sh.

It's fine.

That's what I tell a lot of my authors when they're like, why are you doing so many audiobooks?

Like, you need to relax.

And I'm like, but my brain likes the chaos and it calms.

It when I have to focus on one task at a time, as opposed to sitting on the couch just reading, which is what I did prior.

Not that reading is slacking off or anything, but it's like your brain can wander a lot more.

And that's me too.

I give myself fake deadlines because also yeah, I'm indie.

Well, they're early because if I don't have a deadline, my ADHD is just like, we can do whatever we want procrastination.

But if I give myself a fake deadline, I'm like, I have to have this book done.

Then my ADHD is just like, we have to get the book done.

It's due by this date.

It doesn't matter that the date isn't real.

My ADHD still is.

Like, we said this was the date we told ourselves we're going to get this done.

So it pushes me into getting it done.

I think that's how my narrator schedule works too, where I just have, like, books back to back to back to back.

And if I finish one early, do I take the day off that I could take?

No, I just start the next one and just keep going.

And then I move them all up my calendar to fake myself into thinking, you have to get these all done.

Now.

And I see authors, they're like, I just finished a book, so I'm going to take like a couple of weeks off.

I'm like weeks.

I might take a day off.

I've talked to a few that take the couple of weeks off from that book so their brain is fresh into it when they jump back in after a couple of weeks.

Yeah, I do that.

Not necessarily like, I'm not going to write at all for two weeks.

It's more like this book needs a break for two weeks.

I do do that.

Usually what I do is when I finish a book, I start on the next book that I want to write, and then I work at that one, depending on where my actual deadlines are.

So when it's due with the editor and stuff.

I let the last book breathe for a bit, just sit, and then I come back to it a couple weeks before it's due with the editor, go through for my final self edit.

And.

Then either finish the other book I like to finish the one book I was working on before I go back.

Sometimes it doesn't work that way, and I have to go in between.

So either go back to the book I was working on, do like a self edit, or finish it or whatever, and then I kind of work back and forth a little bit while it's in editing processes and stuff.

Okay, so you are rapid releasing is what I would consider.

What you do all these books, and have you kept it up or did you have a break?

Because if you started in 2019, I didn't actually count how many books you have on Amazon.

How many have you released so far?

So eight, I think I just released book 16.

Okay.

That's a lot of books.

Yeah.

So you had these books.

How did the audiobook come about?

A little bit of a bunch of things.

A crazy thing happened.

I've always kind of wanted to get my book into audiobook.

I think it was a little bit of FOMO as well, though, which is why I chose Secret Smiles when in retrospect, I should have chose a different book that had maybe only one or two in a series and not eight because they are so expensive.

But I'm still really happy that I did it.

But I was looking for a narrator, and I had found one.

And then this crazy thing happened on TikTok I thought was a really good thing.

It turned out to be a gong show, and then I ended up finding Marcus.

So in the long run, it ended up working out really well.

And I learned a lot about audiobooks and about the whole process because there was a lot of false information in the author world.

We were told these ridiculous numbers.

And so when I had found my first narrator that I ended up not using, I was like, oh, this is a great deal.

And then I was like, once I found out the real information, I'm like, oh, it wasn't and then I ended up losing money, so it really wasn't a great deal.

But you live and you learn, and I was really happy to find out the real information and then to meet some awesome narrators in the process.

Like, I met Marcus, I became really close friends with Corvin King, who I want to narrate one of my books.

And I have a very specific book, but it's in the middle of the series first, because Corvin keeps like, what?

Are you going to hire me?

I'm like, soon ish not really, but eventually.

So my husband is writing a book, and very good writing.

He's way further ahead than I am, but it's so weird.

He's dyslexic, so he writes super slow because he's being very careful to make sure that he's using the right words and editing it as he goes.

And that is what his dyslexic brain needs to make sure that he's putting.

Out the best book.

So I'm like you.

Do you?

But he had never heard me narrate before.

I'd been narrating for about a year.

He'd never heard me narrate before.

And I have this one book I do for this author who his publisher hired me, and he's very type A, and he was like, I don't know if I can listen to the audiobook before you send it to the publisher.

And I'm like, okay.

So I'm like, Husband, I need you to listen to this book, because it was a fantasy Sci-Fi.

There was over 300 made up words in this book.

I'm like, I need to make sure that those words sound natural in the speech.

I need to make sure that I don't sound insane.

Like, this was the biggest project.

It was three books that I did in a row.

And I'm like, I need someone to make sure, besides just me, that I am not crazy thinking that I'm doing this good.

He listens, and he's like, you can narrate my book.

Now, unfortunately, there's, like, ten accents in the book that I don't know how to do.

And I'm like, I can't do the but Corvin is the his is a dual POV, or it like it switches between male and female POV.

It's not just two, though.

But I'm like, you need one male and one female narrator but I know Corvin learns accents really easily, so I'm like, you should use him and then Paige accents.

I'm, like, lobbying for, like, Paige Reisenfeld to be the female one, because I'm like, I love her voice, too.

I love Paige.

And I talk with Paige, and I haven't even told her this, that I want her to do Hidden Kisses, which is book two and eleven, CNN.

But I just know I have no money right now.

I'm not even, like, telling you're, like.

Yeah, well and so I was on Alive.

I was on their books and audio a couple of weeks ago.

And Paige is like, I mentioned something about my husband writing a book.

And she's like, oh, are you going to narrate it?

And I'm like, actually, I want you to narrate it.

But I don't know.

It may be a situation where I end up having to narrate it until we can save the money for someone else to do it kind of situation.

Because with his Dyslexia, audiobooks is how he consumes books.

So it feels very weird to not have one at all.

So I have no idea what he's thinking.

He does accents very well.

So I'm like, maybe I can do because all the males are the ones with accents.

So I'm like, maybe I can do the female parts and you can do the male parts.

Who knows?

He's still probably six to eight months from being finished.

So we'll see.

You got lots of time.

There's tons of time.

There's tons of time.

So you stumbled along not right narrator, and then you found the right narrators for the job.

And how was that?

What was kind of the misinformation that you were given beyond, like, it?

I mean, I've heard crazy numbers for like, it's going to cost you $10,000 to make your audiobook.

I heard all the time was $10,000.

And I was like, there is no way that this is happening.

I don't have $10,000.

And if you add it up for Royalty Share audition, you're probably going to get a bunch of like, I've heard everything from they auditioned with a different book to they just recorded some random song to like, they used AI to do the audition.

I'm like, who knows what you're going to get if you put it up for Royalty Share?

Yeah.

And I was pretty adamant that I didn't really want to necessarily do Royalty Share, and I didn't really want to do it especially, like, royalty Share through ACX because I was like, I don't want to be in there when you're stuck with them or ACX exclusive or whatever.

I didn't want to do that.

Right?

So I was like, okay, I need to have the file, all of mine, so that I can upload it and then put it on whatever platforms I want to put it on, right?

And so I was like, hey, then I have to pay for it outright.

And I'm like, do I have $10,000?

No.

I guess I'm never having an audiobook.

Which is where I fell into the crazy rabbit hole of the insanity that happened on TikTok.

Because when you're told it's going to cost $10,000 and someone comes and we'll pay you to have your buck, you're like, oh, no.

You were part of the app.

I was okay.

I had no idea.

Well, see, that is nothing against you.

They made it look like a beautiful dream.

They did.

And I was not a part of management.

I had no say in anything.

I mean, they had a very charismatic group of front runners on that, I will give them that.

Yes, they didn't know how to answer.

A question, but very charismatic, yes.

But then when crap hit the fan, they disappeared, and Corvin and I were left to deal with the damage.

But because Corvin and I did it so well and we're such amazing human beings, we actually garnered a lot of love, and that's how we met a lot of people and connected with stuff.

But I kept saying to my husband, I was just like, I'm not sure if my career is over because I made a mistake, because I fell into this thing, but because Corvin and I were answering to the best of our knowledge and giving everyone the best that we could.

And we weren't involved in management in any way, shape or form.

We were just like the lowly people at the bottom who got roped into these charismatic people.

Right?

I have to say, not just this thing.

Any drama on book talk that goes down at all, I have so much more respect for the ones that are like, I'm sorry I screwed up.

Here's what I'm going to do to fix it, as opposed to that, I didn't do anything wrong.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

That never happened.

And people are like, we have screenshots.

Like, what are you talking about?

I even came forward and I even made an apology video.

But the thing was, I really didn't have much to apologize for, but I was just upset that it had happened.

So I just wanted to be like, I'm sorry for my part in it.

Not that I had much of a part in it, but Corbin and I were very publicly known to kind of have been connected, so we had to say something.

We had to do something so that people didn't think we were in cahoots, because we weren't.

I think the board, at least that I know of, was like, Chance and Willow and then Thor were, like, the only three that I knew.

And then, like, the one jokey guy.

So Willow and Thor I never see, actually, not even on the board.

The board.

That's the thing.

But here, everyone thought because that's how they presented it.

Well, yeah, but when I was presented it, willow's name was never mentioned to me when I was presented it.

I didn't know about Willow till the day of the lie.

And I was like, Wait, what's happening?

And then I was like, because I already knew not to be connected with her.

So I was like, what is happening?

So I didn't know about it until pretty much the day of the live, or I think slightly before that, she had made a video, and I was like, what?

To be quite honest, I can't.

Keep track of.

I know she's on the bad list because she was getting so many people banned at that time that I knew she's blocked on all my accounts so that I don't have that problem.

I should say all hundred of her accounts are blocked on my account, so that doesn't happen.

But you could be one of the most controversial authors and I would have no idea because I can't remember name that's.

Me too.

I'm like, can someone give me a list, please?

Right.

Yeah, we need a list.

Of beta readers, too.

I need a list of like, ark and beta readers to never use, too.

Like this one.

Pirates stuff.

Don't use them.

I need that list, too.

Yes, there is definitely a list.

So you guys got stuck cleaning up?

We got stuck cleaning up, but it ended up for Corvin.

And I being a positive, but I remember literally, there was one live that Corbin and I were on right after it had happened.

I want to say maybe it was the day after.

So before the death threats?

Yes.

No, it was after the death threat.

I'm going to put that in quotation marks because there was a lot figured out about that as well.

I never believed it.

I was like, that's awful convenient for you.

So I can't remember if it was before or after the death threats, but it was after everything collapsed.

Carvin and I were on alive together, and we were both literally just crying because we didn't know what we were going to do.

We didn't know what was going to happen.

Well, because he was supposed to be one of the narrators involved in it.

So we were both told that we were going to be getting large amounts of money, money that was literally life changing for our families.

And then obviously that wasn't happening anymore.

So, yeah, it was just something that we had to cry over.

But it connected us in a way that I don't think others kind of could connect with.

We trauma bonded.

I mean, there are others involved that could have bonded in more sinister ways.

Exactly.

It was just a whole gong show.

But I always like to look at the silver lining and the positivity of things, and through it all, I met some amazing people.

Obviously, that's how I met Marcus, and that's how I met a bunch of authors on TikTok sorry.

Narrators on TikTok like Ruthie and Paige and so many amazing human beings and developed friendships and connections and positive things came out of it for us.

And it didn't ruin my career, thank God.

I mean, you're still putting out books.

But yeah, it was a big learning curve.

But also I feel like I was kind of looking at the world with rose colored glasses before that happened, and that took my rose colored glasses off and slightly did jade me a little.

I'm very cautious about things now.

Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily.

No, I don't think so.

But I'm not just jumping into things anymore.

I do a lot of research about people and things, and I don't say just, oh, this is amazing.

Yes, anymore.

My rose closet colored glasses have been thrown away.

I can't tell you the number of times.

So my general process when I get a contract on an audiobook because I do a lot through ACX, where like, you don't know who's actually sending you this offer on this book.

You have no idea.

So I always which when you work for big publishers, it's a no no to reach out to the author separately.

But on ACX, I got to make sure that I'm actually dealing with someone who's authorized to be making this audiobook.

Right.

So what do you do?

You Google the author because the author is going to know, does someone have the rights to make the audiobook or not?

Yes.

So I google the author.

I reach out to the author via whatever social media I can.

Just yesterday, I emailed an author because I got an offer on her audiobook.

And I'm like, hey, super excited to see your book.

I'm waiting to hear it back on your publish from whoever sent me this contract on if the timeline can be a few months later.

But I just wanted to check in with you and make sure that you even know this is happening.

And she's like, what's the name on the contract?

So I tell her.

She's like, okay, that's my publisher.

We're good.

We're good.

But this is not the first time I've heard this.

I'm the first person who's ever reached out to her about, is this okay that I'm doing this with whoever is.

Sending me this stuff?

I've been doing it since I started doing fiction, reaching out to them.

One ACX messaging system sucks.

So, like, half the time you don't get your messages.

So I'm like, I'll reach out on Instagram, some other social media where I can message them and be like, hey, or sometimes we're friends on TikTok or whatever, but those messages always get buried.

I can't ever keep track of those.

I say if someone's going to message me, Instagram probably if we're not friends, is the easiest way to get through because I check my Instagram quite regularly, and it's like right at the top if it's in the other folder.

So I see it right away if there's something in my other folder.

Whereas Facebook, you have to go into another thing to find if something's in your other folder.

And I might forget to do that.

And the issue with Facebook is it's under my legal name, and you can't message out from a page until they've messaged you, and then you can reply back.

So if they don't have anything but Facebook, I have to send it from my legal name and then explain who I am.

It's just an extra annoyance to have to go through Facebook, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

I didn't even think of that.

But yeah.

Instagram.

I'm always like it's kind of the easiest if people are going to reach out to me.

We've never communicated before.

Or email.

Yeah, my email is usually listed kind of everywhere.

Or if you're on my website, you can set no, don't do that.

I don't check those very often.

I was like, you can send a message through my website.

I don't check.

It might take a while.

Instagram.

Well, I should say all the social medias are set up to send me notifications if I get a message, TikTok is unreliable and it's telling me and then emails.

I always tell authors that I work with, I'm like, if you message me and I don't respond within a couple of hours, something seriously has happened to me.

Unless it's like the middle of the night and I'm sleeping.

But if it's like the middle of the day and I don't message within a couple of hours, assume I died because my phone is always with me.

Same.

I would say either assume if it was your first time messaging me and I haven't responded within a couple of hours, or emailing me, assume it went to my junk and reach out a different way.

Or resend because I am constantly on my phone or on my computer and if I haven't responded to an email within a couple of hours, it went to junk.

Or if we've already been talking back and forth and I don't respond in a couple of hours, again, just send another email because I forgot to respond.

I read it and in my head I responded and then I just didn't.

While it makes me cringe when someone comments on a post of mine and says, check your DMs, blah blah blah, if you've sent me a legitimate DM, not a scammy, I want you to pay me to boost your account.

Don't message me and comment on my post.

But if I'm okay with it, if you are legitimately trying to get a hold of me and I haven't, go comment on a post of mine because that's another way that I can see like, hey, I tried to send you a message and you haven't responded.

Like what's going on?

Exactly.

That is okay as long as you are not trying to spam me with your weird pay to promote your account stuff.

But like you were saying with the authors, like reaching out to them for narrating and stuff, one thing I don't think a lot of authors know, and I'm not sure how who told me this, but I've known this for a really long time about claiming your titles on ACX.

Even if you're not going to do an audiobook, just go and claim them because they're your books.

And then that way someone else can't go and claim them because you've already done it and they can't try and do your book without your permission.

Now, to my understanding, because I've never seen the author side of it yet, but you can go claim your book, but that's not where you choose the exclusive or not exclusive to Amazon part.

That's just saying, like, this is my book.

No one else can make this into audio but me.

Whatever.

Okay.

I was like, I'm pretty sure that's how it works because it's in the contract where you have to then say whether it's exclusive or not and all that fun business.

Yeah, pretty much.

There's a couple of things that it feels like you're setting up an audiobook and you're like, no, I don't want to set up an audiobook.

Just follow through.

Don't worry, don't put it up because you can click either putting it up for audition or not.

So obviously you're not putting it up for audition because you don't want auditions because you're not doing an audiobook yet, right?

But you're just claiming your title.

So you would just click not up for audition.

And then you fill out all the information and then just save it because you're not going through all the way.

And then once you do decide to go through all the way, it's like a slightly different process too, because I figured that out when I was putting up secret smiles because I was like, now what do I do?

I need to step.

I just had a recent new thing happen.

So I narrated a book a year ago.

It was the 10th audiobook I had ever done.

And so 10th fiction audiobook I had ever done.

I didn't really know what I was doing fiction narrating wise.

It was like in the spring I did it and late summers, kind of when I hit my stride and finally actually learned how to read a book, I'm like, hey, Book Two is coming out here in a month.

And I'm like, okay, we're going to do book two's audiobook.

But I'd kind of like to go make Book one a lot better.

So we just had to figure out how to reopen Book One so I could remake Book One royalty share.

It makes sense to make it better because that pays me and it's part of a series.

So I'm like, I imagine at the end this publisher is going to want a box set with all four audiobooks together.

And I'm like, it'll be really weird if Book One is like me and then the other ones are good.

I'm like, let's make Book one good so that it matches the rest.

Yes.

Also some of the character voices.

So yesterday I started the first day of redoing Book One, and some of the character voices, I'm like, why did I use this character voice?

It doesn't fit this character at all.

And the author said the same thing.

She's like, I always pictured this one higher pitched.

And I'm like me too.

Why did I do this?

I don't know why.

So then I'm literally sending her voice clips on Instagram.

If I was going to recast this today, this is what I would do.

And she's like, all of them.

Yes.

I nailed it the second time.

Who knows what I was doing back in those days?

I don't know what I was doing a year ago.

I think we all get stronger in whatever path we're doing as we grow and do more, right?

Secret Smiles was my first book, although I would say after listening back with the audio.

So that was the first time I had reread that book, probably since it released, because I don't reread my books.

So I was reading it while listening to the audio, making sure it was all right.

And I would say I still think that book is still pretty strong, especially for being like a debut novel, right.

Because I've heard other authors like, oh, I need to go back and rewrite my beginning stuff, or whatever, rework it.

I don't know if I would just because first of all, that book means a lot to me.

I put a lot of myself into the characters and stuff.

I think I put a little bit of myself in all of my characters.

But that book, I would say Tia is a lot of me.

Her bullying isn't necessarily like the way I was bullied, and I didn't have a sexy rock star sharing Secret Smiles with me.

Some of it was fiction, but I guess a lot of her personality, though, is me.

And so that book will always hold a super special place in my heart.

And the fact that I think it still stands up pretty well to me, I just don't feel the need to rework it.

So you have to also take into consideration, though, like, some authors that started like, say, ten years ago may not have had beta readers look at it the first time, they may not have had editors look at it the first time.

And now that they've learned, we need to have other eyes on it besides us, because I can't tell you how many books that I've read that it's quite clear they wrote it and hit publish without ever looking back at it.

And you're just like, Why?

That is true.

There's a little bit of a difference.

I feel like most of the ones that rewrite it, that's how they started, because I've talked to several that are like, I didn't know to send it to an editor at the beginning, or I thought it was good enough until the bad reviews started rolling in.

Yeah, there's a little bit of a difference there.

Well, and that's true.

And that's not to say I wouldn't ever rework a book because I've actually done it.

Fighting Attraction is my spin off series of Love and Sienna essential Protection duology.

And the book that's out now is actually Second edition because I had to go back and rework it because I had reviews coming in.

Not that the editing was Sienna.

There was a Sienna book up for audition recently.

I have those all claimed there shouldn't be a love in Sienna.

Take it out for me, though.

Yeah, I'm about to search it.

Was it your book?

I don't know.

Let's see.

No, it was Vienna calling.

There we go.

I was like something with Iana.

No, I definitely have all of these Sienna books claimed, so it shouldn't be.

But I was thinking maybe you accidentally set it up for audition.

I was not thinking someone else stole it.

Okay, yeah, that's actually true.

That sounds a lot like accidentally doing something.

But yeah, so fight the attraction.

The reviews were coming in, and unfortunately and I knew right away that that book was rushed.

I had rushed it because life had happened.

I had hit a very bad depression, so I wasn't writing for a while.

I was just in a really crappy headspace.

And so I rushed the book and it got edited, but it wasn't as strong a piece.

And even putting it out, I was like, this isn't my best work.

And then when the review started coming back and a few people said that I had kind of put a little bit of harmful rhetoric because it is an Mm romance, and I had that book only sensitivity read by a female and not a gay man.

Now, all of my Mm romances are sensitivity read by a really great author friend of mine.

So he does all of my sensitivity reading now.

But at that time, I hadn't done that.

Also didn't, at that time, fully know all about sensitivity reading and that kind of stuff.

So I thought what I was doing was enough, and then it wasn't.

So I went back, reworked it, obviously listened to the people because I'm like, I don't ever want to put something out that would be harmful.

I've always said that since day one.

Judging from the other one, I'm sure you did some kind of an apology.

Yeah, I didn't necessarily do a public apology, but I just immediately pulled it and put out the new edition and was like, this is a better version.

This is actually like I've put in the work.

This one, actually.

And since then, I've said it time.

And I've said it on multiple podcasts and lives, and everyone who knows me knows that I put in the work, because it's like, yeah, someone says something.

I think it shows actions sometimes even speak louder than words.

So the fact that as soon as I saw those reviews, the book was immediately not on Amazon anymore, right?

It was immediately pulled.

I wasn't profiting from it.

I wasn't doing anything.

Whereas other authors who have put out problematic material, they're like, oh, I'll change it eventually.

I'm sorry.

It's so disingenuous.

And then the thing that really gets me is like, yeah, the apology is disingenuous.

And then the book is still available and it's like, yeah, did you mean that apology, like, at all?

No.

The answer is no.

As far as the rewriting I just did, well, I'm in the process of rewriting.

I wrote the first two chapters of my book, loved those, started writing the third where I'm like, introducing the male main character and I'm writing it as, like kind of a journal entry kind of thing for his introduction into it.

And I'm like, it's like a Beauty and the Beast retelling.

Okay, so in the original Beauty and the Beast, like the actual original, original Beauty and the Beast, she is with the Beast, obviously, but then she has these dreams where she's with the human version of the Beast.

And so it's kind of a back and forth where the human version keeps saying, looks can be deceiving, and things like that.

And then she goes back to the Beast and she's like, well, I'm falling in love with the guy in my dreams.

And then, of course, as we all know the story goes she ends up falling in love with the Beast.

So I'm like, we're going to kind of twist it a little bit and we're going to introduce him through this journal entry kind of situation.

And so I took the old Beauty and the Beast and I'm just, like, basically rewriting the actual text.

And I'm like, this has no personality in it.

This is not okay.

Thankfully, it's only like, maybe 1000 words that I'm having to rewrite.

I'm on chapter three.

I'm not that far into the book, but I'm like, I don't like this at all.

I was like, yeah, I totally get the put in the work part of it because I feel like my first two chapters very good.

In fact, my best friend who read chapter two, I get to the end of it and it's like and then I opened up the journal and started to read and she's like, what does the journal say?

You'll find out when I finish the third chapter.

So I have usually two to three alpha readers that read my books while I'm writing.

And then, depending on how it's kind of going, I will sometimes have a beta or two read it after with the one I'm currently working on because of how I've structured it with my alphas.

So I've sent chapters to one alpha and then once they were done with their notes, then I've sent it to the next.

And once they were done with their notes, then I've sent it to the next.

So because of how I've structured it this time I'm not sending it to betas after.

I'm just sending it to two sensitivity readers because they're like betas also, in a sense.

And then I have two different editors now because I have a new editing team.

So I have my developmental editor who reads it twice, and then it goes to a completely separate line editor, and then it goes to a completely separate proofreader.

So I have even after I have three more sets of eyes after, so I am confident that it will be okay.

I'm doing it essentially the way you would do it if you were publishing on Kindlevella.

Write one chapter completely, go back through that chapter.

And then I just bought the pro writing aid so I can pop it in there for more specific stuff.

And then once that's gone through and I've reread it through again, then I send it to them.

So it's like, as edited as I'm going to be able to get it until I'm totally done and read through everything altogether.

They're getting a clean copy.

My alphas are getting rough copy.

Well, I had originally done that.

I had sent the first chapter as a is this worth continuing to write?

I sent the first chapter where I had just basically sped wrote through.

It was like, maybe 1200 words, and I sent it to them completely.

Like, I hadn't even reviewed it at all.

And so one of the authors that I was working with had pro writing aid, and she ran it through there and had all these changes and stuff.

And then I had like so she's like, some of these sentences are really long.

I'm like, okay, so I get pro writing aid.

I pop it in there.

It's like, you have this sentence is longer than, like, 40 words.

Oh, no.

And then my paragraphs are just like, giant chunks of gigantic like, you should really break that into, like, four paragraphs.

And I'm like, yeah, I get why she was like, this is kind of hard to read.

I'm like, the words all make sense for the most part.

Like, you could tell where I had accidentally swapped out a word, but it was like, just the format of the paragraphs and sentences was awful.

But also, I mean, that is where you pay an editor.

They know that that happens.

My editors also, like I said, they're brand new to me.

Super amazing.

Way more than I'm used to spending.

I was a little like but I needed new people in my life.

So it's good.

It was just a little bit of, oh, it's more than I wanted.

Summer dreams.

Age is just a number.

Or is it?

Jax growing up, I had it all.

I never had to want for anything.

Everything was great, and I had a family who cared.

But getting tangled up with the wrong crowd ruined that.

For years, I lived an addiction, battling the constant need for my next hit and doing shady things.

Someone saw more than that wasted addict, and helped me get my life back together with dedication and sheer hard work.

I'm finally in a good place.

At 40, I own a bar.

My bar and my employees are what keep me focused.

I let nothing come between me and what I treasure until a small man with light and sass threatens everything I believe.

When Kev comes into the picture, though, I realize sometimes addiction and obsession are one and the same.

He works his way into the very fiber of my being.

Burrows in my soul.

I'm starting to feel things I thought I had buried years ago coming back to the surface.

I want him, but he's 21 years younger than me and everything I'm not Kevin.

My plans are set.

The moment I turn 18, I'm off to see anything outside this small NC town.

I'd escape the sleepy, closed minds and search for acceptance and love elsewhere.

Funny thing about declaring plans sometimes the universe has other ideas.

Despite myself, I find love, support, and even a family amid the small town community.

Finding my forever family, I realized I can't leave.

They're helping me grow and be the person I want to be.

Growing my wings, I find Jax grumpy, no nonsense, silver fox bar owner.

He is my opposite, cold, brooding, and distant.

But something about him draws me in.

Unfortunately, he wants nothing to do with me because of my age or maybe because our courtship started with a lie.

Once he finally lets his guard down and pulls his head out of his a**, we start to explore our relationship.

Just as everything starts leading in the direction we both want, our fresh romance is turned on its head.

Can I keep Jax beside me?

Or are we bound to break apart?

The Willow Ren and the Bear once in summertime, the bear and the wolf were walking in the forest and the bear heard a bird singing so beautifully that he said, brother wolf, what bird is it that sings so well?

That is the king of birds, said the wolf, before whom we must bow down.

In reality, the bird was the willow ren.

If that's the case, said the bear, I should very much like to see his royal palace.

Come, take me.

Thither that is not done quite as you seem to think, said the wolf.

You must wait until the queen comes.

Soon afterwards, the queen arrived with some food in her beak and the lord king came too, and they began to feed their young ones.

The bear would have liked to go at once, but the wolf held him back by the sleeve and said no, you must wait until the lord and lady queen have gone away again.

So they took stock of the hole where the nest lay and trodded away.

The bear, however, could not rest until he had seen the royal palace and when a short time had passed, went to it again.

The king and queen had just flown out, so he peeped in and saw five or six young ones lying there.

Is that the royal palace?

Cried the bear.

It is a wretched palace, and you are not king's children.

You are disreputable children.

When the young rens heard that, they were frightfully angry and screamed, no, that we are not.

Our parents are honest people.

Bear.

You will have to pay for that.

The bear and the wolf grew uneasy and turned back and went into their holes.

The young willowrens, however, continued to cry and scream, and when their parents again brought food, they said, we will not so much as touch one fly's leg.

No, not if we were dying of hunger.

Until you have settled, whether you're respectable children or not, the bear has been here and has insulted us.

Then the old king said, Be easy.

He shall be punished.

And he at once flew with the queen to the bear's cave and called in old growler, why have you insulted my children?

You shall suffer for it.

We will punish you by a bloody war.

The swar was announced to the bear and all four footed animals were summoned to take part in it oxen, a****, cows, deer and every other animal the earth contained.

And the willowrin summoned everything which flew in the air.

Not only birds, large and small, but midges and hornets, bees and flies had to come.

When the time came for the war to begin the willowren sent out spies to discover who was the enemy's commander in chief.

The GNAT, who was the most crafty, flew into the forest where the enemy was assembled and hid herself beneath a leaf of the tree where the password was to be announced.

There stood the bear, and he called the fox before him and said fox, you are the most cunning of all animals.

You shall be general and lead us.

Good, said the fox, but what signal shall we agree upon?

No one knew that.

So the fox said, I have a fine, long bushy tail which almost looks like a plume of red feathers.

When I lift my tail up quite high, all is going well, and you must charge.

But if I let it hang down, run away as fast as you can.

When the nat heard that, she flew away again and revealed everything down to the minuteest detail to the willow ren.

When day broke and the battle was to begin, all the forefooted animals came running up with such a noise that the earth trembled.

The willow ren with his army also came flying through the air with such a humming and roaring and swarming that everyone was uneasy and afraid and on both sides they advanced against each other.

But the willow rin sent down the hornet with orders to settle beneath the fox's tail and sting with all its might.

When the fox felt the first sting, he started so that he lifted one leg from pain.

But he bore it and still kept his tail high in the air.

At the second sting, he was forced to put it down for a moment.

At the third, he could.

Hold out no longer screamed, and put his tail between his legs.

When the animals saw that they thought all was lost and began to flee each into his hole, and the birds had won the battle.

Then the king and queen flew home to their children and cried, children, rejoice.

Eat and drink to your heart's content.

We have won the battle.

But the young ren said, we will not eat yet.

The bear must come to the nest and beg for pardon and say that we are honorable children before we will do that.

Then the willow ren flew to the bear's hole and cried, growler.

You are to come to the nest to my children and beg their pardon, or else every rib of your body shall be broken.

So the bear crept thither in the greatest fear and begged their pardon.

And now, at last, the young rens were satisfied and sat down together and ate and drank and made Mary till quite late into the night.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.

Be sure to come back next week.