Show Notes:
Today is part two of two where we are talking to Anne Kemp about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about her journey of writing since she was a kid at writing camp, finding an agent, launching a book, getting the right publisher, her very own meet cute, making sure to keep proper posture to avoid health problems down the road, finding your tribe, and enjoying your journey along the way.
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Anne’s Website – Anne’s Facebook page – @annekempauthor on Instagram – @missannekemp on Twitter – Anne on TikTok
Anne Kemp is a bestselling author of romantic comedies. She loves reading (and she does it ridiculously fast, too!), gluten-free baking (because everyone needs a hobby that makes them crazy), and finding time to binge-watch her favorite shows. She grew up in Maryland but made Los Angeles her home until she encountered her own real-life meet-cute at a friend’s wedding where she ended up married to one of the groomsmen. For real.
Anne now lives on the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand, and even though she was married at Mt. Doom, no…she doesn’t have a Hobbit. However, she and her husband do have a terrier, George Clooney, and a New Zealand heading dog, Charlie and when she’s not writing, she’s usually with them taking a long walk on the river by their home.
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Transcript:
Speaker A: Welcome to Freya’s fairy tales, where we believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.
Speaker A: 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.
Speaker A: At the end of each episode, we will finish off with the fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author’s version as possible.
Speaker A: I am your host.
Speaker A: Freya victoria I’m an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.
Speaker A: I’m also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.
Speaker A: We have included all of the links for today’s author and our show in the show notes.
Speaker A: Today is part two of two where we are talking to Anne Kemp about her novels over last week and this week you will have heard about her journey of writing since she was a kid at writing camp.
Speaker A: Finding an agent, launching a book, getting the right publisher, her very own meat cute, making sure to keep proper posture to avoid health problems down the road, finding your tribe and enjoying your journey along the way.
Speaker A: Sweet summer nights.
Speaker A: I friend zoned Wyatt Hogan years ago, but this 4 July brings fireworks.
Speaker A: It’s been a few years since I left my hometown, but somehow Lake Lorelei and my closest friend Wyatt have become even more gorgeous.
Speaker A: He’s a fireman now.
Speaker A: That’s going to come in handy with all the sparks flying between us.
Speaker A: Wait, it’s Wyatt.
Speaker A: There are good reasons we’ve kept love off the table.
Speaker A: Life has served up some big decisions and I have enough on my plate without getting sidetracked by a trusty hunk of a man who had let put out my fire anytime he likes, if you know what I mean.
Speaker A: I can’t be the ridiculous girl who falls in love with her best friend, right?
Speaker A: Sweet summer nights.
Speaker A: The friends to lovers romcom with laugh out loud moments, relatable characters and a happily ever after you won’t want to miss.
Speaker A: Fall in love with Lake Lorelei and its residence and savor the swoony sizzling chemistry with this closed door romance.
Speaker B: So where do you we talked a little bit about your books.
Speaker B: How do you come up with the ideas for your books?
Speaker B: Where does that come from?
Speaker C: It let’s see, what the Indy ones, the ones that I’m writing now.
Speaker C: It always starts just with an idea of like, well, that would be funny.
Speaker C: That is honestly how it’s like, what if I did this with that person?
Speaker C: That could be funny.
Speaker C: And it usually ends up spiraling out from there.
Speaker C: The current series that I’m writing in, Lake Laurelai series, that one began and that’s got Freya and Wyatt are my I remember when I looked, I was like, freya is sending me a note.
Speaker C: My character is coming for me.
Speaker B: I needed a name.
Speaker B: So I have another name that I narrate under that I had done, like, nonfiction and cleaner books.
Speaker B: And then I landed a spicy romance.
Speaker B: And I’m like, at the time, I was contracted on, like, a Christian nonfiction, and I’m like, maybe they’re not going to like me doing spicy books, too.
Speaker B: So Freda is the god of love in Norse mythology.
Speaker B: So I came up with the name, and my sister actually came up with Victoria.
Speaker B: So I’m like, there’s a reason for it.
Speaker B: And then I always have to when I’m picking a name, I’m like, it needs to not be a famous person or someone already narrating audiobooks because I don’t want my name to get searched.
Speaker B: And their books.
Speaker B: I had picked a name at one point and I had told all the authors I was working on books.
Speaker B: I’m like, oh, I’m going to start narrating under this name now.
Speaker B: And one male author comes back to me and he goes, have you narrated a ton of explicit books?
Speaker B: I’m like, no, I did not do that.
Speaker B: Luckily, I had not actually published.
Speaker B: None of them were done yet, so I do not have any under that name.
Speaker B: But I’m like, man.
Speaker B: So from then on, I’m like, search the name first.
Speaker B: Double check.
Speaker C: Yeah, she just don’t know.
Speaker B: Oh, my God.
Speaker B: I won’t say the name being used because it’s one that I would think a few people probably use it as their throwaway name, but yeah, it was just so funny.
Speaker B: Are you the one that narrated like, 50 explicit audiobooks?
Speaker B: No, not me.
Speaker B: Not this girl.
Speaker C: Don’t know who you’re talking about, but.
Speaker B: Thanks for warning me.
Speaker B: I’m going to go find a different name now.
Speaker C: Thanks for researching that.
Speaker B: Thumbs up.
Speaker B: Now I have, like, a search through Audible and make sure that there’s no other narrators using the name.
Speaker B: Got a search.
Speaker B: Make sure I can own the domain for the name of checklist social media there’s.
Speaker B: Good luck with any name in the entire world finding one that no one has.
Speaker B: I just usually throw narrates at the end and I’m usually safe.
Speaker C: Easiest way to do it.
Speaker B: It is its own world now, pretty much everything.
Speaker B: So my other pseudonym is pretty much just nonfiction.
Speaker B: And then this one is all the fiction and stuff.
Speaker B: I stick under the fray of Victoria name.
Speaker B: And so that’s the one that’s keeping me booked these days.
Speaker C: Brilliant.
Speaker C: Brilliant.
Speaker B: It’s fun.
Speaker B: And so, Freya, I went with Norse mythology.
Speaker B: My husband, his family is from Norway, so I’m like, it fits my actual legal last name, which is Norwegian.
Speaker C: So it all works.
Speaker B: Together.
Speaker C: I got Freya because I did a contest on Tik Tok from booktock and asked everybody to name the town and to give me a name because I was stumped.
Speaker C: The original name was actually harbor, and I had just read the series.
Speaker C: The Abbey series is Chiclet, where the Lake Lorelei series is more sweet romantic comedy.
Speaker C: So it’s definitely more on the sweeter side.
Speaker C: Closed Door and I just read a book that was a sweet rom.com with the main NC with Harper, so I was like, oh, I don’t want to do that.
Speaker C: Must be a popular thing.
Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C: And I was like so I put out a call and somebody suggested Freya and I just remember it just landed just right.
Speaker C: I’m like I love that.
Speaker C: That’s a fun name.
Speaker C: That’s Book Talk helped me name Freya and also help me name like Lorelei.
Speaker C: Laura Lie is the daughter of a woman that lives in Texas and the town is named after her.
Speaker B: Cool.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: So you put that out.
Speaker B: Have you done that with other books?
Speaker B: Putting out character naming help?
Speaker C: What did I do with the sweet spot?
Speaker C: Because The Sweet Spot is when I didn’t count that in my book.
Speaker C: It’s actually my 8th book because that’ll be coming out soon.
Speaker C: It’s a part of a box set right now that I did with eleven other authors.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker C: And I can’t remember with The Sweet Spot, I know that I did that because I do like coming with each book to Book Talk and going, what is do you have a name?
Speaker C: Only because of the fact that I love getting everyone involved and I love sitting here at night because by the time I’ll usually put the call in the morning.
Speaker C: So by the time I get down.
Speaker C: Sit down on the couch at night.
Speaker C: I have all these answers coming in and it’s so much fun to see the names people come at you with for the book that I’m writing.
Speaker C: The next one in the series, When Sparks Fly, I am writing a cat in that one and I just did it for the cat’s name and that was just hilarious because seeing the names that came in for this cat, we were sitting here crying because there are a couple of them.
Speaker C: Oh my God, these are hilarious.
Speaker C: My favorite one, and this is the one that technically is the winner, but I’m trying to decide because this cat might actually get another book because the name was so good.
Speaker C: Fleas with Her Spoon.
Speaker B: Oh my gosh, how did they come.
Speaker C: Up with this stuff?
Speaker C: You guys are incredible.
Speaker B: I would never have come up with that.
Speaker C: I love going because whenever, if I do a giveaway like that one is involving the community, they get a thank you in the book.
Speaker C: They get the books that are in the series as well.
Speaker C: But the big thing is like, I do a nice thank you page for any of my book talk ins.
Speaker C: That chime in my arc team, my dance review team, they came from Book Talk this time and they were strong and they showed up and they are amazing.
Speaker C: And I challenge all authors.
Speaker C: My art team is better than your art team because they are amazing.
Speaker C: They are feisty, and they keep coming.
Speaker B: So my husband just started writing a book, and he actually found an app for Name Generation that he used.
Speaker B: So he’s been writing this book in his head since he was a kid.
Speaker B: So he had some of the names that he already had picked out, but he’s Dyslexic.
Speaker B: And so he always thought, oh, I can’t write a book because I’m Dyslexic.
Speaker B: It won’t work.
Speaker B: And I’m like, Write your book, and me and your brother will edit it.
Speaker B: Like, his brother went to school for English and all this.
Speaker B: I’m like, I’ll be like the first editor.
Speaker B: And then he can do like, the polished up editing, and then we’ll call it a day.
Speaker B: But I’m, like, write your book.
Speaker B: That’s what grammar checks are for.
Speaker B: Now he’s got where he has it, read it back to him, and so it’ll read back to him.
Speaker B: And so he was listening back to it one day, and he said, yeah, there were some words in there.
Speaker B: It read it back to me.
Speaker B: And I went, that’s not the word that I meant to put there.
Speaker B: So he knew to go in and fix it.
Speaker B: That’s so awesome.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: So he uses for a few of his names.
Speaker B: He already knew the name that he wanted.
Speaker B: And then a couple of the names he randomly generated from this app.
Speaker B: I think you pick, like, the region and other things.
Speaker B: I keep trying to get them on to tick tox.
Speaker B: I’m like, you’re never going to sell copies if you don’t promote it somehow.
Speaker B: So plus, I’m like being Dyslexic and writing a book.
Speaker B: That’s a platform that people will love.
Speaker C: People would love to hear that story because it’s something that is different to them and it gives a whole other.
Speaker B: Angle, something in the social media, teaching people to do that.
Speaker B: That’s part of find your thing and exactly lean into it.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: Like if you find that little thing that you can come in with that you’re bringing that fresh view on something like that.
Speaker C: Like coming in with talking about Dyslexia and how you’re writing a book.
Speaker C: I cannot think of the book talker right now, but he just appears on my feet, and we’re friends, and he’s reading poetry, and he’s just really enjoying reading poetry to everybody.
Speaker C: So he’ll pick a poem and read the poem.
Speaker C: And that’s how he’s showing up.
Speaker B: I don’t remember his name, but I’ve come across him one time reading a poem because it must have been the first one he had done because it was like, I’m going to start doing this thing now.
Speaker C: I think it’s the same guy because he just kind of shows up in his bedroom and he was sitting down reading.
Speaker C: And now he’s discovered he’s better when he stands up reading.
Speaker C: Because there’s part of me as I’m watching it, my PR side of it, I’m like, oh, he might be a narrator.
Speaker C: Because he’s starting to discover like, oh, if I stand up I sound better.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: I’m on a kneeling chair because it helps.
Speaker B: It’s similar to standing.
Speaker B: But I’m in a closet with a very short roof.
Speaker B: So I’m like five, seven, I can’t stand in here without hitting my head.
Speaker B: Yeah, so I’m on a kneeling chair, which same thing.
Speaker B: It keeps you sitting upright currently in singing lessons to help with like breath control in general.
Speaker C: Very cool.
Speaker C: I love it.
Speaker C: All these other layers into the narration job because all that’s like what Broadway actors do.
Speaker C: You do all of these different things to keep I mean, this is your muscle.
Speaker C: That’s the money maker.
Speaker B: This week’s lesson was what do you mean you don’t warm up your voice ahead of time?
Speaker B: We’re going to learn a warmup.
Speaker B: And you know what?
Speaker B: She got a message the very next day saying oh my God, that was amazing.
Speaker B: My voice went so much longer.
Speaker B: And switching between voices too, from male to female and back.
Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, you have to warm.
Speaker C: It’s just like with anything, you’re working out a muscle so you have to warm that up.
Speaker C: Just like for writers.
Speaker C: We forget if you’re going to sit down at that computer.
Speaker C: If you’re doing this and you want to make this a sustainable lifestyle for yourself and not just sit down and be frantic and writing all the words and hunched over and feeling horrible.
Speaker C: I sit down and do have arm stretches that I do for my hands and my wrists and my fingers and the way that I even structure my writing sessions.
Speaker C: Today I’ll sit down for 3 hours and they’re all Pomodoro’s.
Speaker C: So I do the 25 minutes where I’m writing five minutes off and in that five minutes I’ll stand up, I stretch, I do my arms and make sure my wrists and everything are getting a workout and then sit back down for 25 minutes and I do that for 3 hours and that’s how I get my writing chunks done.
Speaker C: But you have to I remember watching another author a year ago yeah.
Speaker C: At a writing convention I went to and she was talking about mechanical keyboards and getting a better chair and all these little things that I’m starting to do now, like come back and reinvest into the office space because I’m looking at it going like you would with your booth.
Speaker C: Like if I’m going to be doing this for a while, this is what I want to do.
Speaker C: All that time I invested, you know, in my business a few years ago, I’m now investing in into the business of Anne because I want to keep this as my instrument.
Speaker C: I want to make sure that my neck and shoulders aren’t aching and that I’m not hunching over.
Speaker C: I don’t know about you, but I know with sitting that way and doing the warm ups, I’m wondering if you’ve noticed in doing all these extra things for your voice and the things you’re doing for your career, you almost get energy from it as you then walk away to come into your personal world.
Speaker C: You come out of work and I’m not feeling as beat up as I would when I was hunched and not taking care of my body, I guess.
Speaker B: Because we have to yeah, there’s so many things in writing, too.
Speaker B: You just don’t think about it.
Speaker B: I mean, how many people have risk issues and stuff because so many of us have office jobs of some sort that you’re typing and sitting and all that and you just don’t think about it.
Speaker B: I also have to see a chiropractor from neck and spine issues and that’s a whole crazy industry by itself.
Speaker B: I mean, when you know you’ve got the right one, when he can look at your X rays and go, did you fall on your tailbone about ten years ago?
Speaker B: And you’re like, how the heck can you tell that from a picture?
Speaker B: But yeah, I did twice within like six months.
Speaker C: Just when you know you have a good doctor.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: And I still see him because this will be about two years in at this point.
Speaker B: And I’m like, I’m going to keep going because I still have issues from working sitting down and working at a desk and the way that I sit on my couch.
Speaker B: You don’t think how all these things no.
Speaker B: You don’t affect you no.
Speaker C: I just came out of a scary couple of years where it started with which part of my body did it start with?
Speaker C: I think it was my hand.
Speaker C: My hand started to have we thought it was carpal tunnel from the right.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: And I was thinking just from computer work, period, and I’ve always been one of those people that I traveled with my laptop pardon me, and would hunch I’d sit on the couch, I could get in the chair and just hunch over.
Speaker C: And it started with my hand.
Speaker C: And as I was doing hand therapy, they realized I had a gangly and cyst.
Speaker C: So they removed that because that was starting to pop up.
Speaker C: And then something happened with my nerves in my hand.
Speaker C: Then it started to travel up my arm.
Speaker C: And then once we got that all sorted out, my shoulder tried to lock up.
Speaker C: About a year ago, like all of these little things started happening to the right side of my body and then I ended up a few months ago with problems happening in my hip and my sciatic.
Speaker C: But it all led back to as I talked to each therapist I was working with, it was how I’d been holding myself for a few years at my desk.
Speaker C: And that was just that thing.
Speaker C: I’m like, this is my wake up call.
Speaker C: Because I’m just now, again, probably like right when because in New Zealand, we locked down where the rest of the world had a lockdown.
Speaker C: New zealand.
Speaker C: We shut the gates.
Speaker C: We told everybody, you’re not coming in.
Speaker C: And we were actually sent to our houses until we go in your room, you come out when we tell you to.
Speaker C: It all stopped here.
Speaker C: And I really had time in 2020 to kind of look and assess all of that and go, okay, I’m going to be doing this.
Speaker C: And I want to make this a serious thing now because this is what I love.
Speaker C: I’m going to start building back into it.
Speaker C: And so that’s yoga every other day if I can, if I can’t do it.
Speaker C: Making sure I stretch.
Speaker C: Always doing some type of work with my hands and my shoulders and arms because it’s really important.
Speaker C: Even just like sitting at the desk and making sure I roll my shoulders back and standing up.
Speaker C: It’s like I’m paying so much more attention to that part of my life now.
Speaker C: I was nervous because there was 1.2 with my hand and I was in a brace for a long time, and I still had clients that we were working with.
Speaker C: And I had just started writing again.
Speaker C: And it was depressing because I couldn’t sit down and actually, like, my pinky hurt for me to be typing and it was too painful to be sit down.
Speaker C: And I got scared because I was like, what if I’ve waited too long?
Speaker C: But if I think now, I’ve hurt my hand and I’m going to have to figure another way out, which of course, there’s dragon and ways that you can speak to text.
Speaker C: But I’ll be honest, I have tried doing when I was hurting, I was trying to do the speak to text.
Speaker C: I was not having a very good time.
Speaker C: It was not going to work my.
Speaker B: Way at all, I have to say.
Speaker B: My dad, who passed in November, but prior to that, he had been blind for a few years.
Speaker B: And so he would talk to text.
Speaker B: All of the text messages he would send us, but 99% of them, you would read it.
Speaker B: And it was like Mad Gab the game.
Speaker B: I don’t know if you know, you would read it and you’re like, don’t pay attention to what the words are.
Speaker B: If you smear all this together, what’s the meeting?
Speaker C: What’s the meaning in here?
Speaker B: I feel like that’s how most talk to text things are.
Speaker B: You’re like, what does it mean?
Speaker B: Like, what is it trying to say?
Speaker C: Where is this coming from?
Speaker C: What is decipher?
Speaker B: When I started narrating, I sat in, like, a kitchen chair, like a wooden kitchen chair, but I would lean to the side around my mic trying to read off my computer screen.
Speaker B: And so then after a couple of weeks of that, I go into the chiropractor and he’s like, what on earth did you do to your lower back again?
Speaker B: And I’m like, oh.
Speaker B: Then I started sitting on a beanbag chair so that I had to sit up straight but then getting up and down hurt my knees.
Speaker B: Now we’re in the kneeling chair which is a little awkward to get in and out of but doesn’t hurt any body parts.
Speaker B: It’s just awkward to get in and out of.
Speaker B: And this I’ve been in for like a month or so now and I haven’t had any issues.
Speaker B: So coming back to books, what is some advice that you would give to either someone who is thinking about writing or someone who just started writing and thinking about how they should go about their books?
Speaker C: My first bit of advice would be find your tribe, find your support people, find a couple of people that you really trust.
Speaker C: I have that.
Speaker C: I think everybody needs that three or four people around you because where we were talking about you get assaulted by the info on social media and even if you join a writing group, everyone means well and wants to give you the information that I think you find it’s overwhelming people.
Speaker C: It really is and it’s a lot to sift through and especially in the beginning I think we take everything for gospel and we’re trying to show up and do everything and you’ll find if you go to do that and you’re not prepared, I think people can burn out very quickly.
Speaker C: And again, like I come back to that.
Speaker C: Be sustainable, do not do what I.
Speaker B: Did, do what I say, not what.
Speaker C: I do very much.
Speaker C: That’s how all of my I’m prepping a book talk workshop that Ali AK and I are going to be teaching in August and we’ve just been laughing so it’s going to be a lot of okay, do what we say to do.
Speaker C: Definitely.
Speaker C: I think finding your people because if you’ve got three or four trusted people that you can go to and ask questions of and share information with, I think that’s gold because they’ll be your people to lift you up when you need it and that you’ll be in turn being their cheerleader at some point.
Speaker C: Very give and take.
Speaker C: But I think the big thing I tell people is to look into, if you’re looking into romance, find a romance writing group, whether it’s a local chapter, something within your community that you can go to where they’ll have resources, that’s a great place to start.
Speaker C: Otherwise there are a couple of people that I’ve met recently that I’ve just said get on Book Talk and just start watching.
Speaker C: Look on Author Talk, see like put hashtags in for the genre you’re writing in, see what you can find.
Speaker C: There’s so many good resources but honestly I think it depends on at this point I’ll ask somebody do you know if you want to sell wide, do you want to go on just Ku?
Speaker C: Where how do you see your career going?
Speaker C: Because I think depending on if they want to be indie, traditional or hybrid and what they have in mind that’s kind of the path that I always send people down.
Speaker C: And if they don’t know what they’re doing, where to start to say, okay, start with a writing group.
Speaker C: Find a romance or a writing group close by where you can go and cull information from people and start figuring out what lands for you.
Speaker C: Because I think too, with every writer, we each have our own journey with it.
Speaker C: I laugh at that girl who ten plus years ago was writing this book and having a great time writing the book, but I was writing her marketing plan on the side, like, okay, let’s put the sale.
Speaker C: I cannot wait.
Speaker C: This is going to be amazing.
Speaker C: I’m going to sell all the books, it’s going to do all the things, and then the reality of it comes in where it is.
Speaker C: It’s going to be amazing and you’re going to sell the books and you’re going to get to do all the things, but it’s going to look a lot different.
Speaker C: And I actually really like the path that I’ve taken because I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t done this.
Speaker C: And it’s been a lot of learning, a lot of learning along the way and seeing a lot of amazing.
Speaker C: I mean, when I started, self publishing was just beginning.
Speaker C: So it’s been really cool to watch it take over how it has and it’s powerful.
Speaker C: And that’s the thing that I think I really like about it is that there’s just such empowering, so empowering.
Speaker C: I love seeing the entrepreneurship that’s coming out of booktock.
Speaker C: I mean, even talking to you and knowing your story, how you started not even a year ago, I mean, this is incredible to me.
Speaker C: This is where, again, like my PR and social media, my entrepreneurial side gets excited for people like you.
Speaker C: And it’s become like this a whole other place on there for us to discover different parts of ourselves.
Speaker B: One, too, I like watching a lot of same as authors.
Speaker B: Authors will do like, the live stuff or whatever.
Speaker B: A lot of narrators will do that too while they’re narrating.
Speaker B: So I’m like, I have a book coming up mid June.
Speaker B: It’s actually a three book series coming up mid June.
Speaker B: He’s working on book four and he created his own language.
Speaker B: So like, right now all my videos are like, hey, follow me if you want to see how a narrator does this.
Speaker B: Because I literally had to have him send me voice clips of him saying all these words he made up because he sent me the pronunciation guide.
Speaker B: That doesn’t mean I can tell what it says.
Speaker UNK: Cool.
Speaker B: That’s all my TikToks right now.
Speaker B: It’s like, give me to a thousand.
Speaker B: I can do this.
Speaker B: Let me show you guys.
Speaker B: This is months.
Speaker B: I got this book back in.
Speaker B: I actually got book two.
Speaker B: First.
Speaker B: Book one had another narrator on it.
Speaker B: His publisher hired me on book two and I’m like, oh my gosh, there’s all these words that are like, clearly he made them up.
Speaker B: And so I’m like talking to the author and I’m like, we’re talking back and forth and whatever.
Speaker B: And then the book one narrator.
Speaker UNK: She.
Speaker B: Had health issues first and all these other things that came up.
Speaker B: And so I told the publisher, like, hey, if she drops out or if you decide to cancel cause she taking too long, I would love to do this whole series now that I’m putting all this work into learning all these words.
Speaker B: So now I’m contracted on three books.
Speaker B: He’s got the fourth one in the works.
Speaker B: And they’re like, we’ll let you do all of them because this is clearly a monster of a series, which I would love to be able to do live because I’ve got his voice clips cut up into like each word as a file so I can go listen to it.
Speaker B: And it’s insane.
Speaker B: But I mean, just being able to be on TikTok and watching and learning, I have not doing the singing coaching.
Speaker B: Now, I’m very much a I understand in theory you should do coaching first.
Speaker B: I understand how that is helpful.
Speaker B: I am very much a let me find out what I’m doing wrong and then go to someone to fix that person.
Speaker C: Yeah, me too.
Speaker C: Much.
Speaker B: Like my day job that I still do.
Speaker B: This is something I do on the side.
Speaker B: But I’m like at this point in my life, I’m like, I do this as something fun that I love to do.
Speaker B: I feel like if I suddenly got to like, working for big publishers and stuff, it would lose some of that fun.
Speaker B: And so I’m like but other than the issues so far that people have commented on are things that a singing coach can also fix.
Speaker B: And those are local.
Speaker B: I don’t have to find one somewhere.
Speaker B: So I’m like, we’ll start with that, go from there.
Speaker B: So we’re working on warm ups and things.
Speaker B: And I probably won’t go to her for very long.
Speaker B: We’re a couple weeks in at this point.
Speaker B: But it’s just one of those things I’m like I’m just like the way that my mind works is find out what’s going wrong and then go to someone to fix it because you don’t know what to fix.
Speaker B: Now.
Speaker B: If I was trying to go full time and the same if I was trying like.
Speaker B: I intend to self publish.
Speaker B: But if I was going to go to a publisher.
Speaker B: I’m going to talk to authors that have gone through publishers to find out and ideally help along that process.
Speaker B: Saying if I wanted to narrate for big publishers.
Speaker B: I’m going to find someone that knows how to go about getting hired in that process.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: You find the person that can help you with the map instead of trying to draw the map yourself.
Speaker B: So it’s the same that you’re saying for books, find the people that.
Speaker B: Can help you along the way.
Speaker B: Ideally the people that advice makes sense to you.
Speaker C: Yes, and I feel like too, honestly, Facebook groups, I will say are a great place for that because we’re with Tik Tok, we get really good snippets of information.
Speaker C: I do feel like if you want to dive in a little deeper and take the conversation a little bit, extend the conversation out and engage a little more, find Facebook groups.
Speaker C: And there are so many I mentioned that wide for the win.
Speaker C: Elena Johnson has one as well.
Speaker C: Alessandra Torre has the Alessandra Torre inkers?
Speaker C: And all of these are pages you can go on and you’ll be able to search and find information from how to load your book to marketing questions to covers.
Speaker C: You can find groups on Facebook for this now and find people that are specifically in your niche genre as well.
Speaker C: So you’re able that’s why I was so pleased to find I was already in a chiclet group, but then when I found Sweet Romcom Writers had a Facebook group that I was able I’m able to chime in on and find other Romcom authors too, so we can kind of help lift and support each other.
Speaker C: It’s really cool because that’s also something like I love being able to support other authors, so it’s nice to be able to find, like, minds that we’ve recognized that we’re a community and we’ve got to all just keep lifting each other up left and right because that’s what it’s about.
Speaker B: Even.
Speaker B: I mean, Tik Tok is such a supportive now there’s a few outliers that like to kick the nest and stir up trouble, but for the most part, everybody, from the readers to the authors to the narrators, to anyone that has anything to do with books, is just a very supportive community.
Speaker B: The recent thing I keep seeing, there’s one I don’t remember her name person that keeps talking about, if you want to find the readers on TikTok, you need to do this.
Speaker B: And I’m like and I saw someone else commented on her video saying, so authors don’t read.
Speaker B: Now.
Speaker C: That’S always been somebody said to social media before TikTok that they were talking about.
Speaker C: But if I post that, it’s going out to authors.
Speaker C: And I’m like, okay, I read.
Speaker C: What?
Speaker C: I’m an author and I read books.
Speaker C: I buy books.
Speaker C: I go to the library for my books.
Speaker C: I download my books, I read, and I’m an author.
Speaker C: Hi.
Speaker C: Yeah, we’re awesome.
Speaker C: It’s amazing.
Speaker B: Like, we forget how many authors probably none.
Speaker B: Any authors that don’t read anything.
Speaker B: I mean, if you’re not reading stuff in your genre and you’re not reading, like you don’t what are you doing?
Speaker B: If you’ve never read a fantasy book and you’re trying to write a fantasy, you don’t know anything about what you’re doing.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: You’ve got to be reading in your genre.
Speaker C: Because I write across several genres and POVs, and sometimes I’m writing two different genres and two different POVs, which I’m finally starting to scale back that schedule because, thank God, usually I’m revising in third person while I’m writing, and first and right now, I’m revising a third person and I put the first person stuff off until the revisions are done.
Speaker C: I’m like, that is just mind melting for me.
Speaker C: And it really breaks me when I do that.
Speaker C: And I end up with migraines and not able to come up for air for weeks.
Speaker C: I’m like, oh, God, what has happened?
Speaker C: But yeah, when you’ve got that, I know for me, if I’m writing in third person right now, I won’t pick up anything.
Speaker C: I’ve learned if I’m reading, I’m going to read in the same or similar genre, and I’m going to stay reading in that same POV because otherwise it just messes with my vibe.
Speaker C: I start to hear things in my head differently, and we have to be reading.
Speaker C: I mean, even I’m constantly reading something.
Speaker C: I’ve got my Kindle, I’ve got my phone, I’ve got books, I’ve got my computer.
Speaker C: If you’re not reading your genre in the books, make sure you are reading about the genre.
Speaker C: Make sure you are reading.
Speaker C: Always be educating yourself.
Speaker C: But yeah, people say when they say that they’re not reading, how are you writing then?
Speaker C: Yeah, how are you writing?
Speaker C: How do you know what’s happening in your genre?
Speaker C: How do you know what the trends are and what’s going on?
Speaker C: I don’t understand.
Speaker B: Yeah, the same like with audiobooks.
Speaker B: I listen to other female audiobook narrators to get, like, my recent thing.
Speaker B: So when I started narrating, for some reason, I would stop recording, take a deep breath, record a sentence, stop recording, take a deep breath.
Speaker B: Like, my breath didn’t get recorded.
Speaker B: And then I’m like, reading Proper Narration Protocol or I came across it in a narrator’s Facebook group or something, and they were talking about how you’re supposed to leave the breaths in because in person, as you talk, you breathe.
Speaker B: And so as someone listening to it, they’re not going to understand why it’s weirding them out.
Speaker B: They’re not going to know what’s wrong with the book, but it will be the fact that there’s no breaths, and it just sounds kind of unnatural.
Speaker B: And so my thing now I’m listening to audiobooks with the specific purpose of how do they do their breaths in the audiobook?
Speaker C: Yeah, I feel like you’re going in because you want to hear something and you’re educating yourself.
Speaker C: It’s market research.
Speaker C: It’s our due diligence that we have to do.
Speaker C: It’s like, every week, I sit down, I look at covers, I look at blurbs, I look at if this person is writing first person POV, is their description in third person or first person?
Speaker C: And these are all things that are so ridiculous to the normal person, but they’re part of our business.
Speaker C: We need to know about these things so that we can understand and that’s where for me, I know when I stepped away, even just for that little bit of time when my life kind of got topsy turvy, when I went to come back into self publishing a year ago, which is basically when I came back and started self really doing it, so much had changed.
Speaker C: Like, I had put out two novellas during that time, but I was just kind of slapping them up and not doing anything.
Speaker C: When I came back with Lake Lorelei and I was redoing my cups and my blurbs and just getting my head back in the game, things had changed.
Speaker C: They had changed things swiftly.
Speaker C: And self publishing and then social media and marketing and with the way that we do things.
Speaker C: For instance, when Rum Punch Regrets came out for being chiclet, illustrated covers were still being still had love in them, but not much.
Speaker C: Like I can definitely say within a year or two illustrated covers people were rolling their eyes at, 2013 ish 2014.
Speaker C: Now you come back a couple of years later and the trends come back around again, which is really exciting for me because I’m able to work across my own book covers and I enjoy because I love the good, the illustrative ones, because they also scream, you know, romcom.
Speaker C: They scream chiclets when they’re done a certain way.
Speaker C: A lot has changed in ten years, but a lot circles back too, in a weird way.
Speaker B: Alright, well, I think we are about done.
Speaker B: We got a quite the so you’ve been writing for about ten years and you’ve had quite the amount of changes.
Speaker B: I mean, ten years is quite a bit.
Speaker B: So what are your upcoming plans for?
Speaker B: I know you said you’re kind of scaling back a little bit, but what are your upcoming book plans in the near future?
Speaker C: I do scaling back.
Speaker C: It’s such a funny word for me because it’s like.
Speaker B: You could be going from $10 a year to eight books a year.
Speaker B: That’s still scaling back.
Speaker C: I still will be putting because I’m in the thing of the old saying of make k while the sun shining.
Speaker C: And that’s kind of I’m in a place where I feel the energy to put it out there.
Speaker C: So I’m just trying to write.
Speaker C: I mean, honestly, I’m going to write my b*** off.
Speaker C: I’m just writing my b*** off.
Speaker C: But I do have once this revision is in, I have two or three books that I’m trying to get done before the end of the year.
Speaker C: One will be a Christmas Nobela for the Abbey series.
Speaker C: Lake Laura Lie still has two books that I’m aiming to try to get out before the end of the year.
Speaker C: At least one will happen, not both.
Speaker C: And the Abbey George series, I want to finish that one as well.
Speaker C: Her last book will be coming out next year, so I have several books in the works to come out starting as soon as august, September this year they’ll start trickling out.
Speaker B: Okay, I have to ask, as a narrator, any plans for audiobooks in the near future?
Speaker C: There will be, yeah.
Speaker C: I put a little note on my calendar, I think about November when we’re going to sit down to look at the narration and audiobooks.
Speaker C: I was like, okay, let’s put that one down so we can start talking about it at the holidays.
Speaker C: Because I planned this year on taking off.
Speaker C: I think I’ve done my schedule.
Speaker C: So about mid December I’ll be able to stop and I’m actually going to try to take like six weeks off at that time and at least try to just have fun and have a vacation, right?
Speaker B: Yeah, I do.
Speaker B: I typically take like Christmas week and next week.
Speaker B: Well, typically last year while I was narrating, I took the two weeks around Christmas off, but then I took longer off because I got covered and I couldn’t talk.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker B: This year I’m like, because I’m a little more popular than I was last year.
Speaker B: I have books scheduled until I’m fully booked until September, but then I have a couple of series where we’re staggering, like every other month we’re releasing the next book or whatever.
Speaker B: So I’m like, I have books on the schedule through May of next year, but it’s not like totally booked all the way through there.
Speaker C: Oh my gosh.
Speaker B: I do the same.
Speaker B: I have a podcasting conference in August that’s a week long thing.
Speaker B: Like, I’ve given myself that whole week off because I’ll be in a hotel room and I can’t be doing an audiobook in a hotel room.
Speaker C: Yeah, now you cannot.
Speaker B: And now I don’t know what podcast because I registered under one podcast name and now I have this podcast and I’m like, I don’t know my name’s.
Speaker B: Hog is going to be like, this name, this name.
Speaker C: Big question mark.
Speaker C: I don’t know who I am today.
Speaker B: Well, then neither of them are my legal name.
Speaker B: So I’m like, I registered under not my legal name.
Speaker B: And then I asked them, I’m like, is that okay?
Speaker B: They’re like, just bring your email confirmation because your ID will be your legal name.
Speaker C: As long as you guys can figure it out.
Speaker C: It’s me.
Speaker C: I just don’t know which me you’re getting.
Speaker B: Yeah, you’re getting me.
Speaker B: And they’re all basically alternate.
Speaker B: So there’s like the me me.
Speaker B: And then there’s the nicer, like the public domain book, nice podcast and the nonfiction books.
Speaker B: And then there’s like dirty spicy romance book.
Speaker B: Me.
Speaker C: Different.
Speaker C: You’ve got your own Pin names for everything.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker B: When I publish, I’m like, I fully intend to publish under the fray of Victoria name.
Speaker B: I’ve worked on my signature for that to make sure that it’s ready for when people want me to sign books.
Speaker B: They’re not going to know who my actual name is.
Speaker C: Who is this?
Speaker C: I don’t know.
Speaker B: Who is this person that signed my book?
Speaker B: You got a collector’s edition.
Speaker B: OK.
Speaker B: All right.
Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for talking to me today.
Speaker B: So have a good rest of your day and enjoy the time with your family.
Speaker B: And thank you so much.
Speaker C: Thank you so much.
Speaker B: Brea you have a great day.
Speaker B: You too.
Speaker B: Bye.
Speaker A: Anne’s favorite Story getting Older with Snow White snow White is a 19th century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world.
Speaker A: The Brothers Grim published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and numbered as Tale 53.
Speaker A: The original German title was Snowchen, a Low German Form, but the first version gave the high German translation Sneewichen, and the tale has become known in German by the mixed form Sniwichen.
Speaker A: The Grims completed their final revision of the story in 1854.
Speaker A: The tale features such elements as the magic mirror, the poisoned apple, the glass coffin, and the characters of the Evil Queen and the Seven Dwarfs.
Speaker A: The Seven Dwarfs were first given individual names in the 1912 Broadway play Snow White in The Seven Dwarfs and then given different names in Walt Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Speaker A: The Grim story, which is commonly referred to as Snow White, should not be confused with the story of Snow White and Rose Red, another fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm.
Speaker A: In the ARN Thompson folklore classification, tales of this kind are grouped together as Type 709 Snow White.
Speaker A: Others of this kind include Bellavinesia mercena novary Hadig gold tree and silver tree.
Speaker A: The young slave and lapit toot.
Speaker A: Bell.
Speaker A: Today we’ll be reading Belovenesia by Atalo Calvino.
Speaker A: Don’t forget we are also continuing the original story of Beauty and the Beast on our patreon.
Speaker A: Bella Venezia, a mother and a daughter, kept an elegant inn where kings and princes passing through town would stop.
Speaker A: The innkeeper’s name was Belovenesia, and while travelers sat at the table, she would strike up a conversation.
Speaker A: What town do you come from?
Speaker A: From Milan.
Speaker A: Do you ever see any women in Milan lovelier than I am?
Speaker A: No, I’ve never seen a soul lovelier than you.
Speaker A: When it came time to settle the accounts, Bella Venezia would say normally that would be ten crowns, but you need to give me only five.
Speaker A: For she charged anyone only half price when he told her he’d never seen a lovelier woman than herself.
Speaker A: Where are you from?
Speaker A: Torren.
Speaker A: And is there anyone in Toron lovelier than I am?
Speaker A: No, a woman lovelier than you I have never seen.
Speaker A: Then at reckoning time, Belovensia said, normally I charge six crowns, but you need give me only three.
Speaker A: One day the innkeeper was asking a traveler the usual question and did you ever see a lovelier woman than myself?
Speaker A: When her daughter went through the room, and the traveler replied, Indeed I have.
Speaker A: Who your daughter?
Speaker A: This time, in making up the bill, Belovensia said, it’s normally eight crowns, but I’m asking you for 16 that evening the mistress called in the Kitchenboy go to the seashore, built a hut with just one tiny little window, and close up my daughter in it.
Speaker A: The spell of Anisia’s daughter was imprisoned day and night in that hut by the sea.
Speaker A: She heard the breaking of the waves, but was able to see no one other than the kitchen boy, who came to her daily with bread and water.
Speaker A: But in spite of being shot up there, the maiden grew lovelier by the day.
Speaker A: A stranger riding along the beach on horseback saw that hut all boarded up and drew closer.
Speaker A: He peeped through the tiny window and made out in the dimness the most beautiful maidenly face he had ever laid eyes on.
Speaker A: A bit frightened, he spurred his horse and galloped off.
Speaker A: That night he stopped at Belovenesia’s Inn.
Speaker A: What town are you from?
Speaker A: Ask the innkeeper.
Speaker A: Rome.
Speaker A: Did you ever see anyone lovelier than myself?
Speaker A: I certainly have, replied the stranger.
Speaker A: Where?
Speaker A: Closed up in a hut by the sea.
Speaker A: Here’s your bill.
Speaker A: It’s only ten crowns, but I want 30 from you.
Speaker A: In the evening, Belovenesia asked the kitchen boy listen, would you like to marry me?
Speaker A: The kitchen boy couldn’t believe his ears.
Speaker A: If you want to marry me, continued Bellevania, you must take my daughter into the woods and kill her.
Speaker A: Bring me back her eyes and a bottle of her blood, and I’ll marry you.
Speaker A: The kitchen boy was eager to marry the mistress, but he didn’t have the heart to kill her daughter, who was all beauty and goodness.
Speaker A: So he took the girl to the woods and left her to get eyes and blood to carry back to Bellevange.
Speaker A: Yeah, he killed a lamb which is innocent blood, and the mistress married him.
Speaker A: Alone in the woods the girl screamed and cried, but no one heard her.
Speaker A: Toward nightfall she spied a light in the distance, drawing near.
Speaker A: She heard many people talking and, frightened to death, hid behind a tree.
Speaker A: It was a rocky, desolate place, and twelve robbers had come to a halt before a white boulder.
Speaker A: One of them said Open up, desert.
Speaker A: And the boulder swung outward like a door.
Speaker A: The inside was all lit up like a large palace.
Speaker A: The twelve robbers went in, and the last one said Close up, desert.
Speaker A: And the boulder swung too.
Speaker A: The girl, hidden behind the tree, bided her time.
Speaker A: In a little while the voice inside said open up, desert.
Speaker A: The door opened and out filed the twelve robbers, the 12th ordering Close up, desert.
Speaker A: Once the robbers were out of sight, the girl went to the white boulder and said open up, desert.
Speaker A: And the door swung open for her.
Speaker A: She stepped into the lighted interior and commanded Close up, desert.
Speaker A: Inside was a table laid for twelve, with twelve plates, twelve loaves of bread and twelve bottles of wine.
Speaker A: In the kitchen, twelve chickens were on a spit, ready to roast.
Speaker A: The girl tidied up the place, made the twelve beds and roasted the twelve chickens hungry by then, she ate a wing from every chicken, took a bite of every loaf of bread and a sip of wine from every bottle.
Speaker A: When she heard the robbers coming back, she hid under a bed.
Speaker A: The twelve bandits didn’t know what to think when they saw the house so tidy, the beds made and the chickens roasted.
Speaker A: Then they noticed a wing missing from every chicken, a bite from every loaf and a sip from every bottle, and said somebody must have come in here tomorrow.
Speaker A: It was agreed one of them would remain behind to stand guard.
Speaker A: The smallest of the robbers stayed, but he went outside to watch, while the girl meanwhile came out from under the bed, put everything in order, ate the twelve chicken wings, the twelve chunks of bread, and drank the twelve swallows of wine.
Speaker A: You’re good for nothing, said the ring.
Speaker A: Later, when he returned and saw that the house had been visited again, he assigned someone else to stand guard the next day.
Speaker A: But this man also remained outside while the girl was indoors.
Speaker A: So for eleven days straight, every robber tried keeping watch, but failed to discover the girl and was bawled out by all the others for being so stupid.
Speaker A: On the 12th day, the chief decided to stand guard.
Speaker A: Instead of watching outside, he remained inside and thus saw the girl come out from under the bed.
Speaker A: Grabbing her by the arm, he said, don’t be afraid.
Speaker A: Now that you are here, you can stay and we will treat you as our little sister.
Speaker A: So the girl remained with the robbers, keeping house for them, and every evening they brought her jewels, gold pieces, rings and earrings.
Speaker A: The youngest robber delighted in dressing up as a grand nobleman to commit his robberies, and he would stop at the best ends.
Speaker A: He thus went to Bellevanisia’s one evening for dinner.
Speaker A: Where do you come from?
Speaker A: Asked the innkeeper.
Speaker A: From the heart of the forest.
Speaker A: Have you ever seen any woman lovelier than myself?
Speaker A: I certainly have, replied the robber.
Speaker A: Who is she?
Speaker A: A girl we have with us.
Speaker A: Subbella venezia knew her daughter was still alive.
Speaker A: Every day an old woman would come to the inn asking for alms.
Speaker A: And this woman was a witch.
Speaker A: Bellafonnesia promised one half of her fortune to the witch if she could track down and kill that daughter.
Speaker A: One day, while the robbers were out, the girl was standing at the window singing, when an old woman came by and said brooch is for sale.
Speaker A: Brooch is for sale.
Speaker A: Lovely maiden, may I come in?
Speaker A: I’ll show you a pin.
Speaker A: That’s a real gem for your hair.
Speaker A: The maiden invited her in, and the old woman, going through the motion of showing her how nice a pin would look in her hair, thrust it into her scalp.
Speaker A: The girl died when the robbers came home and found her dead, they all burst into tears.
Speaker A: Tough as they were, they chose a tall tree with a hollow trunk and buried her inside it.
Speaker A: Now the king’s son was out hunting.
Speaker A: He heard the dogs barking and, moving closer, saw them all scratching on the trunk of a tree.
Speaker A: The king’s son looked inside and found a very beautiful maiden who was dead.
Speaker A: If you are alive, I would marry you, he said.
Speaker A: Even though you are dead, I can’t tear myself away from you.
Speaker A: He sounded his hunting horn, assembled his hunters, and had her taken to the royal palace.
Speaker A: Without his mother, the queen’s, knowledge, he had the beautiful maiden put in one of the rooms and would stay there the whole day, admiring her.
Speaker A: Suspicious, the mother burst into the room.
Speaker A: So that’s why you didn’t want to come out.
Speaker A: But she’s dead.
Speaker A: How could you possibly be interested in her?
Speaker A: Dad or not, I can’t live apart from her.
Speaker A: You can at least have her hair fixed, said the queen, and sent for the royal hairdresser.
Speaker A: He came and combing her hair, broke his comb.
Speaker A: He picked up another comb and broke that one, too.
Speaker A: Thus, one right after the other.
Speaker A: He broke seven combs.
Speaker A: What on earth does this girl have in her head?
Speaker A: Asked the royal hairdresser.
Speaker A: I shall take a look.
Speaker A: And he touched the head of a pin he pulled ever so gently.
Speaker A: And as the pin came out, the maiden regained her color, opened her eyes, drew her back and said, oh.
Speaker A: And stood up.
Speaker A: The wedding was celebrated.
Speaker A: Tables were also set up in the streets.
Speaker A: Whoever wanted to eat, ate.
Speaker A: Whoever didn’t want to, didn’t.
Speaker A: Oh, Lord, a hen for every sinner and for me sinner of sinners, a hen and several roosters.
Speaker A: Thank you for joining Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker A: Be sure to come back next week to hear Ali’s journey to holding her own fairy tale in her hands.
Speaker A: And here one of her favorite fairy tales.
Speaker C: You.
