Show Notes:
Today is part two of two where we are talking to Jess Bryant about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about her journey of writing since she was as kid, keeping possession of your embarrassing stories, writing whenever you have spare time, overcoming self doubt, and her advice to be a reader first in your genre before writing in the genre.
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Jess’s Website – Jess’s Facebook group – Jess’s Facebook page – @jessbryantbooks on Instagram – @Jess_bry on Twitter – Jess’s TikTok
Jess Bryant is an avid indoorswoman. A city girl trapped in a country girl’s life, her heart resides in Dallas but her soul and roots are in small town Oklahoma. She enjoys manicures, the color pink, and her completely impractical for country life stilettos. She believes that hair color is a legitimate form of therapy, as is reading and writing romance. She started writing as a little girl but her life changed forever when she stole a book from her aunt’s Harlequin collection and she’s been creating love stories with happily ever afters ever since.
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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 adventures 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 am 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, today is part two of two, where we are talking to Jess Bryant about her novels.
Speaker A: After today, you will have heard about her journey of writing since she was a kid, keeping possession of your embarrassing stories, writing whenever you have spare time overcoming self doubt, and her advice to be a reader first in your genre before writing in the genre unmistakable.
Speaker A: Book four we make our own family.
Speaker A: Xander Leary gave up on the idea of family a long time ago.
Speaker A: He grew up bouncing around the foster care system, never finding a home to call his own.
Speaker A: He has no ties to anyone or anything, so the last thing he expected was a phone call saying his estranged older sister made him guardian to a niece he’d never known existed.
Speaker A: With no idea what else to do with a child, he heads for Nor, Louisiana, in search of the younger halfsister he barely remembers.
Speaker A: But what he finds in the little bayou town will change his life forever.
Speaker A: We make our own fate.
Speaker A: Maya DeLuca gave up on the idea of fate a long time ago.
Speaker A: She has no use for a fate that let a crazed wolf kill her parents, kidnap her sisters and torture her.
Speaker A: She’s worked hard to overcome her traumatic past, to grow into a strong, independent woman and a fierce alpha wolf.
Speaker A: She makes her own decisions, not some supernatural force.
Speaker A: She has her own plans.
Speaker A: And they don’t include the very human mate who just showed up on her doorstep with no idea that the supernatural world even exists.
Speaker A: We make our own happily ever after.
Speaker A: He’s human.
Speaker A: She’s a shifter.
Speaker A: But their connection is unmistakable.
Speaker A: Can Xander accepts this new world that he stumbled into?
Speaker A: Can Maya accept the possibility that fate chose right?
Speaker A: And if they can find common ground, will they discover that sometimes it’s our mistakes that lead us to exactly where we were always meant to be?
Speaker B: I saw you at least have several of your books in audio.
Speaker B: How do you go about doing obviously, I know as a narrator, how the audiobook part happens, but how did you get to that?
Speaker C: Well, it literally happened because the first few books in the Faded Mate series that do it, that I started with it was doing so well that Tantor Media actually just reached out to me and was like, we want to make these into audiobooks.
Speaker C: Yes, please do that.
Speaker C: Which was I mean, it was so cool.
Speaker C: I got to help pick the narrator and the covers and all of it, and I really enjoyed the process.
Speaker C: So the first books that I wrote after that, I was like, I really want to put these in audio.
Speaker C: I think they were mail mail romance.
Speaker C: And I was like, I listened to a lot of mail mail romance audiobook.
Speaker C: I think they would do really well in that format.
Speaker C: So for those two, I actually went through ACX with Audible, and that’s what I mostly use.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So I went through them, did those myself.
Speaker C: Found an awesome, amazing narrator who I love, jonathan Stigger.
Speaker C: He was new to it.
Speaker C: He was kind of just getting started himself.
Speaker C: I think he follows me on TikTok, maybe.
Speaker C: He probably does.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: He does voiceover stuff.
Speaker C: He’s a voiceover actor and was just getting into figuring out that, hey, there’s these, like, mail mail books that I could be narrating.
Speaker B: Yes, please.
Speaker B: Pretty much any romance men do very well as romance narrators.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: And he’s so good and he’s so easy to work with.
Speaker C: And I’ve already told him I’m like you’re mine.
Speaker C: Don’t go anywhere when I do more mail mail.
Speaker C: You will be doing them for sure, because I don’t put all of them immediately into audiobook.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: But the ones I think will do well, I definitely do.
Speaker C: And those are my after the Fate of Mates duet the 400 Block series, which is my two mail mail books set in, like, the same apartment complex kind of thing.
Speaker C: They’re more like college aged people.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker C: They’re my best sellers after the fated mate.
Speaker C: So it made sense to put them to invest that money in them in order to see the return.
Speaker B: That makes sense.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: Well, I found, too, like, some of the books that I’ve gotten to Narrate have been, like, books that have been out for a couple of years, and people keep asking the author, when is this coming to audio?
Speaker B: And they’re like, wow, no.
Speaker B: So here comes me along.
Speaker C: Yes, exactly.
Speaker C: I’m not at the point in my career where I can afford to be like, I’m making an e book, a print book, and an audiobook all at the same time out of this, not knowing if it’s even going to do well.
Speaker C: So, yeah, it’s that back end thing for me of like, okay, this has been doing well in these other formats.
Speaker C: Now let’s move it into audio and see how it does.
Speaker B: Right, well, and I work with a lot of new authors that are just getting off the ground, so I do a lot of, like, royalty share stuff.
Speaker B: If they’re actually putting in the effort to have good books with good covers and promoting on social media and all that.
Speaker B: I’m like, I will 100% do that.
Speaker B: Royalty share or royalty share plus if you want to pay something upfront.
Speaker B: Because if you’re putting in the effort to promote it on the thing to be promoting on at the time, it’s going to sell copies.
Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C: I hope John doesn’t mind me saying Johnny.
Speaker C: Sorry, Johnny.
Speaker C: But I’m going to tell them that we do royalty share plus is how we work it out.
Speaker C: So he gets some upfront, and then he gets part of the royalties, and it works really well for us.
Speaker C: And I can’t wait to work with him again.
Speaker B: There’s a lot of narrators that do that.
Speaker B: And every narrator has their own selection process for when they’ll go royalty share versus royalty share plus or whatever.
Speaker B: And so, like, me as someone auditioning, I’ll audition for a book, and sometimes a different narrator gets it.
Speaker B: But I’ll know, like, oh, that was listed as a royalty share book because I auditioned for that at the time.
Speaker B: Yeah, big one.
Speaker B: I don’t know if you’ve seen what is it?
Speaker B: Gabriel.
Speaker B: J gabriel girl of Hearts is the book he’s promoting right now on TikTok.
Speaker B: That one was listed as a royalty share.
Speaker B: But I’m like, man, he’s doing, like, so many videos to promote that book.
Speaker B: So I’m like, I didn’t get it.
Speaker B: Page did.
Speaker B: But he said when I talked to him a couple of weeks ago and he was like, when she was auditioning, it was exactly like he had it in his head.
Speaker B: So I’m like, man, when you find the narrator, that’s that sign them up.
Speaker C: That character.
Speaker C: Yeah, that’s how it was when I found Johnny.
Speaker C: He was reading the audition piece was from Declan’s point of view.
Speaker C: And he’s this snarky kind of doesn’t trust anybody, man.
Speaker C: And he hates his roommate.
Speaker C: Not roommate, his neighbor across the hallway because he has these barking dogs that wake him up all the time, of course.
Speaker C: And then he meets him for the first time, and I was like, oh, crap.
Speaker C: He’s a hottie.
Speaker C: I still hate you, but I kind of want to kiss you, too.
Speaker C: And there was just Johnny’s voice doing Decklan.
Speaker C: I was just like, That’s Declan right there.
Speaker C: That is immediately him.
Speaker C: And I think he was only, like, the third audition that I listened to, and I had tons on my list, but I was like, no, I’m done.
Speaker C: This is it.
Speaker B: I don’t even have to listen to the rest.
Speaker B: I’m done.
Speaker C: I’m so sorry for everyone else who’s in our auditions, but this is my guy.
Speaker C: I just knew when I heard him.
Speaker B: It was so funny.
Speaker B: So I posted a video up, and Amberly Henning commented on it on TikTok.
Speaker B: And she was like, oh, I’ve thought about it, but I’m poor, so I can’t afford it.
Speaker B: And I’m like, she promotes all the time on her stuff.
Speaker B: And so I’m like, I’d be willing to do it royalty shared, like, if you want to do it.
Speaker B: And so she listed up for audition and I auditioned and she’s immediately talking to me through messenger like, oh, let’s get it done.
Speaker B: Whatever.
Speaker B: Well, then other auditions came in and she was like, I didn’t think anyone else was going to audition for it.
Speaker B: It ended up between me and one other.
Speaker B: It’s an imposter syndrome.
Speaker C: I can’t believe that nobody else is going to like it or want to be part of it.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: I was the same way.
Speaker C: I put it up and was like, if I get a couple, it’ll be fine.
Speaker C: And then I think, like 57 auditions came in the first day and I was like, these people want to read my book.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker B: Now, I’ve also heard I talked to one author and she said she had put her book up for audition, like several months before I found her on TikTok.
Speaker B: She’d put it up for audition and she ended up with a couple, but they weren’t very good.
Speaker B: And then one guy was messaging her but being very condescending toward her and she was like, I don’t even want to do it.
Speaker B: So she was like, never mind, took it off, said, I’ll deal with this later.
Speaker B: And I find her on Tik tok talking about her books, and I’m like, you catch way more flies with honey.
Speaker B: There is no need to be rude to anybody, especially if you’re trying to create a business relationship with that person.
Speaker B: Be nice, be helpful, whatever.
Speaker B: I don’t care what you’re doing.
Speaker B: That is always the better way to go.
Speaker B: And so I talked to her, walked her through and ended up she emailed me the script, I emailed her my audition and she was like, you nailed it.
Speaker B: We’re good.
Speaker C: You got it.
Speaker C: We’re good to go.
Speaker B: So it’s a weird process.
Speaker B: I hear a range of either they don’t get a lot of auditions at all to like they got an overwhelming amount of auditions.
Speaker A: It’s a very wide range.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: Trying to think, I put up another one that I was going to do for one of my small town romances and nothing came in for like days.
Speaker C: And I was like, did I do this right?
Speaker C: What is going on?
Speaker C: And then it was just like a button flipped and they all went through.
Speaker C: And then I decided I wasn’t going to do it right now, quite honestly.
Speaker C: Thank you.
Speaker B: I think sometimes ACX holds it because I have an author that I’ve done a book for before and she sent me the link to go audition for the one.
Speaker B: But then when I went and looked at the auditions available, the book doesn’t show up anywhere.
Speaker B: So I think they like, selectively hide some of them for some reason.
Speaker C: Oh, that could have been it.
Speaker B: Yeah, because I’ve noticed that with a couple of books where the author was like, hey it’s up, go audition or whatever and I can’t find it without searching the specific book name in the thing and then it’ll pop up.
Speaker B: In theory they should be in order, but they’re not sometimes.
Speaker C: I mean, it’s just like how Amazon hides books from people and of course Audible is going to do it because they’re part of the same company.
Speaker B: So what is your away from audiobooks?
Speaker B: What is your kind of strategy?
Speaker B: Or do you have like a base plan that you follow for all of the books and then modify based on the type of book or the book specifically?
Speaker B: How do you go about creating your marketing plans?
Speaker C: My marketing plan is very vague.
Speaker C: I have certain PR companies that I work with on certain releases.
Speaker C: There are some that only do paranormal romance.
Speaker C: There are some that only Domants and then there’s the ones I use for my regular NF small town contemporary.
Speaker C: So it kind of just depends on which subgener I’m writing in, which ones I’m using and what works for those.
Speaker C: But it’s a lot of a lot of self promotion as an indie author.
Speaker C: A lot of going on to your social media and begging people to preorder and like and add it to your goodreads, right?
Speaker C: Other than that, it’s a lot of newsletter blasts, getting in on the fussy, librarian, bargain booksee, all of those that go out to hundreds of thousands of readers and just getting into their inboxes to say, hey, I exist, and trying to tease them into maybe at least clicking on the button to take a look.
Speaker C: And a lot of that is the blurb well written?
Speaker C: Is the cover going to pull them in?
Speaker C: So I spend a lot more time on those things than I do on picking where I’m going to put it, I guess I should say.
Speaker C: I mean, I should probably spend more time picking where I’m going to put it, but I put it everywhere I can go.
Speaker B: Even if you only end up with one person from that platform, that’s one more person than you had.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker B: When I’m like for like podcast promotion, I’m like, I know I do it the way that they don’t recommend posting the same thing across all the platforms.
Speaker B: But I’m like, you know what, I don’t have time in my day to come up with four different posts to post across the four different platforms I use.
Speaker C: Yes, I can’t remember who it was.
Speaker C: Somebody messaged me a while back and was like, okay, the new thing is Instagram Reels.
Speaker C: You’re not going to get any traction on anything if you’re not doing reals like, I don’t have time to do Reels.
Speaker C: I’m already making videos on TikTok.
Speaker C: I’m already doing Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and the Facebook page and the Facebook Group and BookBub and all of these other things.
Speaker C: I don’t have time to make a real and they were like, well then you’re not going to get anything on Instagram.
Speaker C: I was like, well then you know what, it is what it is at this point because I can either write a book or I can make an Instagram reel.
Speaker C: And I think one is more important than the other.
Speaker C: Only recently I figured out that you can repurpose.
Speaker B: Yeah, that’s what I do.
Speaker C: That’s what I’ve started doing.
Speaker C: That’s what I have started doing.
Speaker B: I don’t even do the fancy way where like you put it in some random website and then it pulls it down without the link.
Speaker B: No, it gets the TikTok with my Tik Tok name bouncing around on it.
Speaker C: Yes, I don’t have to.
Speaker C: I did find I think it’s an app and you download it like you link it into their iPad and then it’s like without watermark and it saves it without the Tik Tok logos.
Speaker C: More often than not, when you try to repost it to Instagram, the sound gets off from the mouth about it.
Speaker C: Like something in that process is just a little bit off.
Speaker C: And I’m like, I’d rather leave the Tik Tok thing on there than have it look like my mouth doesn’t line up because that bugs the crap out of me.
Speaker C: So I’ve just been being like, okay, I posted this here, here, throw it over on Instagram too.
Speaker C: Well, now I have time for yeah.
Speaker B: Well, I saw a TikTok about these accounts on YouTube stealing your Tik Tok videos and posting them up as a YouTube shorts.
Speaker B: And so now because they’ll do it without your logo so I’ve started putting like my little logo with it’s transparent in the bottom right corner or depending on what else is on the video, but in the bottom right corner there’s typically my little logo that I’m like.
Speaker B: If they download it and try to put it up on YouTube shorts, my name is still on it.
Speaker C: Yeah, that’s true.
Speaker C: That’s smart.
Speaker C: I had not even heard of that.
Speaker C: That’s crazy.
Speaker B: Yeah, there’s a couple of accounts and most of the ones that I saw talking about it were like ones that do like painting and art stuff and so they’ll steal it and claim it’s like their own or whatever.
Speaker B: But I figure for like writing and not necessarily narrating, but for the writing part too.
Speaker B: There was a couple of writers I saw talked about their videos got stolen, so I’m like, yeah, we’re just going to hold I post it to Shorts too.
Speaker B: So like, it’s up there as well.
Speaker C: But yeah, now I don’t use YouTube at all.
Speaker C: Everyone was constantly like, you need to do something over there.
Speaker C: And I’m just like, again, I could finish writing the book or I could get on another social media platform, which is more important.
Speaker C: Yeah, it’s going to be writing the book for me.
Speaker B: Mine is literally I have a company that I pay to make the little minute long voice clips from the podcast episodes and they auto post it.
Speaker B: Like my podcast cover and a fun, like, it’ll say the name of the episode and it auto posts it.
Speaker B: So I don’t even have to do it.
Speaker B: I had to set it up.
Speaker B: But then it does post the podcast for me.
Speaker C: That’s cool.
Speaker B: The video from these, I could spend hours editing that.
Speaker B: But I don’t.
Speaker C: I do not blame you.
Speaker C: Let’s add another 5000 things to my to do list.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker B: I’m like no.
Speaker B: And funny enough, my sister is actually a paid YouTuber and she spends hours editing her stuff.
Speaker B: And I’m like, no, I don’t want to do that.
Speaker C: No.
Speaker B: But I do spend hours editing my audiobooks for people.
Speaker B: So you got to pick your thing you’re going to spend hours on.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: You got to have that hierarchy of what is the important thing.
Speaker C: And some of it somebody’s top of the mountain is not your top of the mountain.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker B: In fact, I was planning my day for today and I’m like, oh, I’m a little bit behind in editing audio and I’ve got to get like my Monday podcasts done.
Speaker B: And we’re like, we’re going to put a time cap.
Speaker B: Anything that’s not done by like 05:00 is just waiting until the next day because I need to breathe.
Speaker C: Yes, exactly.
Speaker C: That’s what I’ve been just crunching to get this book finished because it comes out the 21st.
Speaker C: The fourth book in that Faded Mate series this month.
Speaker C: It comes out the 21st?
Speaker C: Yes, the 21st.
Speaker C: And when I was plotting out my writing schedule, I forgot to take off writing days for the ten day vacation that I took in June.
Speaker C: Oh, gosh.
Speaker C: So it was literally ten days, like 20,000 words behind deadline.
Speaker B: Oh, no.
Speaker C: I have been majorly crunching on all of that.
Speaker C: So I’m trying to do that and get it done and get it uploaded and get it out in arcs and all of that crazy stuff.
Speaker C: I’ve been telling people for weeks.
Speaker C: I can’t do anything except go home.
Speaker C: Right?
Speaker C: And that’s it.
Speaker C: I can’t talk to you.
Speaker C: I don’t have time for you.
Speaker C: I’m sorry.
Speaker C: I love you.
Speaker C: I will see you in August.
Speaker B: Right?
Speaker C: So today I called my mom because she’s been asking if I want to come and hang out in the pool with her at their house.
Speaker C: And I was like, you know what?
Speaker C: I was like, I am recording with a friend this morning.
Speaker C: And then, you know what?
Speaker C: I’m taking the afternoon off because it is like 108 degrees here.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker C: Saying I’m done.
Speaker C: I can’t do another whole day of working inside.
Speaker C: I’m going to come and I’m going to get sunburned probably.
Speaker C: And then I’ll be miserable tomorrow.
Speaker C: And I’ll stay inside and do writing stuff.
Speaker C: Then right after this, I’m done for the day.
Speaker B: So my time issues happen.
Speaker B: So I started doing Narrating in September and I would like book jobs.
Speaker B: And of course, at the beginning of starting something, you have no idea how much narrating you’ll be able to get done in a day.
Speaker B: So I’m just like going and going and I have no idea.
Speaker B: I mean, I was getting them all in on deadline when I was supposed to, but then December hit and I had like four books I think I finished in the two weeks leading up to Christmas, and one of those was like a six hour one.
Speaker B: And I’m like, beginning of the year hits, we went on vacation for Christmas.
Speaker B: I come back, I have covet, or like a week later I get COVID.
Speaker B: And so then I come back and I’m finally able to audition again.
Speaker B: I’m auditioning for fiction.
Speaker B: And I’m like accepting everything because I’m like, yes, people are finally hiring me to do fiction narrating.
Speaker B: And then I’m like, deadlines are coming up really fast.
Speaker B: And at the point from September to December, I figured out I could do comfortably about an hour and a half to 2 hours of audio in a day, like narrate it and listen to it and edit it and all of that.
Speaker B: I could do about an hour and a half to 2 hours.
Speaker B: And so beginning of the year hits and I wasn’t scheduling anything other than put on my calendar when it’s due by that’s all I would do.
Speaker B: And so then I’m getting all these fiction books like booking, booking, booking.
Speaker B: And I finally went, I have a lot of books.
Speaker B: How long is it going to take me to get these?
Speaker B: So I had to figure out, if I’m recording an hour and a half a day, how many days is it going to take me to record each of these so that I can get them all done on time without losing my voice, recording too much or going insane?
Speaker B: And so I figured out how to schedule my time in March of this year.
Speaker B: And now if an author hires me on a book, I’m like, hey, it’ll take me this many days to record it.
Speaker B: This is when it’ll be done.
Speaker B: And they’re like, okay, cool.
Speaker B: So I have yet to have a decent author be like, oh, no, I don’t want to wait for it.
Speaker B: I’ve had a couple of scammy ones or publishers be like, I want to pay you royalty share and I need it done in two weeks.
Speaker B: And I’m like, and no, that is.
Speaker C: Not actually how it works.
Speaker C: No, I actually found this super cool website because Rowan Parish posted a TikTok about it.
Speaker C: And I love her.
Speaker C: She’s amazing.
Speaker C: And it’s called pacemaker.
Speaker C: And you can go in and say this is the title of the project.
Speaker B: I think Golden Angel just posted about that.
Speaker C: Probably, yeah.
Speaker C: So I’ve been using that for the last year.
Speaker C: And you can put in your writing goals and if you want to take weekends off or if you want to do more words at the beginning or more words at the end or keep it steady or whatever.
Speaker C: You put all that info in, and it tells you exactly how many words you have to write that day and every day until your deadline.
Speaker B: Too.
Speaker B: Like, if you get not enough words in or, like, extra words in, it adjust your timeline too.
Speaker C: It adjusts as it goes.
Speaker C: So if you get I had a day I missed completely, get added back in, and if you get ahead, then you have a ladder load on later days right towards the end of it.
Speaker C: And I’m just like, this is a game changer for me, because until I saw that video, like, a year ago, I was just writing, like, when I had time.
Speaker C: And then once it was done, I’d be like, okay, now I need four weeks to get all the marketing in place, and then we release I had no set schedule whatsoever of an actual plan in place of how to write the book other than write as much as you can.
Speaker C: That was really it for me.
Speaker C: So, yeah, I was like, Rowan, you saved my life.
Speaker C: This thing is amazing.
Speaker B: Now, how does it get the because you don’t actually write in.
Speaker B: That right.
Speaker B: You have to put the word counts in from wherever else.
Speaker C: Yes, you put your word count in.
Speaker C: I actually write in word.
Speaker C: I’m super simple.
Speaker C: I’ve tried, like, the Scrivener thing.
Speaker C: I use Google Dom.
Speaker C: Yes, that’s a great way.
Speaker C: I do that sometimes if I’m, like, at work.
Speaker C: No, I don’t write at work.
Speaker C: I don’t know what he’s talking about.
Speaker B: Well, that’s how I got my husband.
Speaker C: Too, because he can do it running around.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: And my husband, he works for a restaurant, and so he’ll, like, on his breaks or whatever.
Speaker B: He’ll either pull out he has an iPad that he has a Bluetooth keyboard he can ride on, or he’ll pull out his phone if he has, like, a quick minute.
Speaker B: He’s waiting on an order or whatever.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker B: I like it because it does sync across all the different things.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So I’ll do a writing session and then go in, and I just keep that website open on my laptop all the time and just pull up the day, and it says, Add progress.
Speaker C: And I selected in Word and say, oh, it was this many words, and put it in.
Speaker C: And then even the same day, I might go in two, three, four times, and you just press little plus button and add another set of how many words.
Speaker C: Like, you don’t have to total it yourself or anything, which is nice.
Speaker B: No, it doesn’t do the difference.
Speaker B: You don’t have to put in, like, oh, I did 200 words more.
Speaker B: You would just put in, like, the total.
Speaker B: Total.
Speaker C: You just put in the total.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: I was kind of trying to figure it out, but I’m still researching and reading I’ve kind of settled on it’s going to be a Greek mythology twisted retelling starting the main series because Greek mythology will be the most information of all the mythologies.
Speaker B: And then I’m going to have like side stories, like Norse mythology that will kind of weave in and out of it too.
Speaker C: I love Greek mythology so much.
Speaker B: So today, actually, once we get done with this, we’re going out to lunch and then we’re going to a bookstore so I can find an actual physical copy of a couple of these.
Speaker C: I understand sometimes you just need it to sit there so you can page through and highlight.
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker B: I bought highlighters yesterday.
Speaker C: Oh my God.
Speaker B: I like walking to Walmart and all the school supplies were like in the entryway.
Speaker B: And I’m like, we’re going to get notebooks and highlighters and colored pens.
Speaker B: This will be great.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: I’m obsessed.
Speaker C: We’re going to the Apollon signing at the end of the month in DC.
Speaker C: And I’m like, I need all new markers and pens for signing.
Speaker B: And I need multiple in case one dies.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: I need two of everything at least and every color matchable because they might want their book signed in orange.
Speaker C: I don’t know.
Speaker C: You don’t know?
Speaker B: It’s so funny.
Speaker B: So when I decided on the name Freya Victoria, one of the first things I did was figure out my signature for it because I’m like, I’m going to have to sign things now and I got to have a signature ready for it.
Speaker B: I sent a nice little thank you to all the authors that I talked to on here that has the Freya signature on there.
Speaker B: But I’d also seen another author that uses his legal name and his, I guess, publisher told him he couldn’t use his normal signature.
Speaker B: He had to use a different one for legal reasons.
Speaker B: I don’t know.
Speaker B: That would be my assumption.
Speaker B: You don’t want people to be able to duplicate what you write on your checks.
Speaker C: That’s true.
Speaker C: That’s a very good point.
Speaker C: Now I’m rethinking how I sign all my books.
Speaker C: I’m so sorry.
Speaker C: It’s a very valid point.
Speaker C: I had a friend post on Facebook, I think it was just yesterday, and she was talking about how she uses the pen name and she decided that she doesn’t like the way she does her as.
Speaker C: So she’s changing her signature.
Speaker C: And I was like, I don’t think I find mine the same ever.
Speaker C: It’s just like whatever mood I’m in is how I read out my name.
Speaker C: And that’s what you get.
Speaker C: Like, there is no uniformity to it at all.
Speaker B: But what if you make it super famous and your book become a collector’s item and they can’t verify your signature because it’s all different.
Speaker C: Now.
Speaker C: They will never know.
Speaker C: Just the people who are in front of me will know that I find that book.
Speaker C: That is it.
Speaker C: Sometimes it’s like just a J and a Bryant and sometimes it’s.
Speaker C: Just Bryant and sometimes it’s Jess B.
Speaker C: I have ADHD, especially at signings when there’s so many people coming at you and you’re trying to have a conversation with them and explain like, yes, I do know you from social media.
Speaker C: It’s so great to meet you in person and sign your name at the same time.
Speaker C: I’m not just writing.
Speaker C: What I’m saying to you is kind of my theory.
Speaker B: My legal name signature devolved very quickly.
Speaker B: At the time, I was working in a restaurant and I was a manager, so I had to sign my name a lot.
Speaker B: And my first name is not Long, but my last name is Long and weird.
Speaker B: And so, like, I started I get married and what’s the first thing you do?
Speaker B: You’ve got to come up with your new signature, of course, after you’ve confirmed you’re married on Facebook, of course.
Speaker C: Priorities, priority.
Speaker B: I’m like, we’re going to use this fancy name, we’re going to write the whole thing out.
Speaker B: It’s going to be great.
Speaker B: And then I was signing my name, so much for work.
Speaker B: It turned into, like, my first initial and then last kind of last initial and like squiggle, squiggle, squiggle at the end.
Speaker B: That is what it is now.
Speaker C: It’s literally J squiggle, b squiggle.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: Hey, if it works.
Speaker B: If it works.
Speaker B: And so now, if you had any advice for because you’ve been writing for a while now, so if you have any advice for either new authors or authors maybe looking to shake up their writing process, what kind of advice do you have?
Speaker C: My advice is the same advice that I would have given you first.
Speaker C: Me writing the end does not mean that you are ready to publish.
Speaker C: There’s a lot more that goes into it.
Speaker C: Someone trying to get into the industry.
Speaker C: I would tell them, first of all, that they need to be part of it as a reader first.
Speaker C: Figure out how things work, make those connections, make friends.
Speaker C: And you can say, I’m a reader.
Speaker C: I would hope that if you’re writing a romance, you’re also a reader of romance, because otherwise I think you’re just probably doing it for the wrong reasons and you’re not going to go very far anyways, right?
Speaker C: But, yeah, just be part of the community, be active in it, help other people, and you will be surprised how far those connections and relationships can get you and how kind this community can be and welcoming to someone that does their part, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.
Speaker B: And what are good ways to find that you’ve found to find your Alpha, Beta and Arc readers?
Speaker B: Because not everyone’s going to have an inner circle of people to choose from.
Speaker B: What are good ways to find those?
Speaker C: I didn’t have one when I first started.
Speaker C: The way that I have them now is just because they are my readers.
Speaker C: They’ve been with me for a really long time at this point.
Speaker C: And I trust them to give me their honest feedback.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: And they know my style of writing.
Speaker B: And they know your storyline, too.
Speaker C: Yes, they’ve read it as many times as I have, probably.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: So yeah, it’s friendship really is the basis of everything in this industry is making friends, being part of the community, and being active in it.
Speaker C: And that’s how you will find your people.
Speaker C: And then your people will help you find your readers.
Speaker C: And that is the ultimate goal.
Speaker B: All right, I guess to sum that up, if you’re new, don’t upload right after you finish writing.
Speaker B: The end.
Speaker B: And I’ve had another author on here, said that she actually found her beta readers on Fiverr because she didn’t know how else to find someone that could give her unbiased opinions on her story.
Speaker C: No, that’s smart.
Speaker B: But also I’ve seen people on TikTok, mostly arc readers.
Speaker B: Mostly I see people looking for arc readers, but I’ve also seen some looking for beta readers.
Speaker B: Put call out on there.
Speaker C: Yeah, a lot of people are doing that these days.
Speaker C: They want new beta readers.
Speaker C: People that aren’t or maybe haven’t read their previous stuff so that they can get that unbiased feedback of these aren’t people that are going to feel indebted to me or like they’re going to hurt my feelings, but I just pick people that are blood.
Speaker C: You might be my friend, but I also know that you’re also just going to be like, jesus, makes no freaking sense.
Speaker C: Rewrite this.
Speaker B: Yeah, actually, both of the people that I have
