Show Notes:
Today is part one of two where we are talking to AK Mulford about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about telling stories for yourself, spending 10 years researching HOW to write a book and self publish it, finding an agent, landing a 7 figure book deal, writing in the time available to you, taking care of your mental health, and focusing your energy on the people that enjoy the things you like and inviting them into your world.
Get Author’s Book or Audiobook
A.K. ‘s Website – A.K. ‘s Facebook group – @akmulford on Instagram – A.K. Mulford’s TikTok
A. K. Mulford is a bestselling fantasy author and former wildlife biologist who swapped rehabilitating monkeys for writing novels.
She/they are inspired to create diverse stories that transport readers to new realms, making them fall in love with fantasy for the first time or all over again.
She now lives in New Zealand with her husband and two young human primates, creating lovable fantasy characters and making ridiculous TikToks (@akmulfordauthor).
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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 a 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 one of two, where we are talking to A.
Speaker A: K mulford about her novels.
Speaker A: Over the next two weeks, you will hear about telling stories for yourself, spending ten years researching how to write a book and selfpublish it, finding an agent, landing a sevenfigure book deal, writing in the time available to you, taking care of your mental health, and focusing your energy on the people that enjoy the things you like and inviting them into your world.
Speaker A: The novel the Five Crowns of Ocruth.
Speaker A: Book three, the action moves west and a K malford’s romantic actionpacked epic fantasy series the Five Crowns of Akrith.
Speaker A: As young fi warrior Brie investigates the murder of her queen while protecting the beautiful princess she may be falling for.
Speaker A: Determined to uncover who killed the Western queen, faye warrior Briotic Catalyst sets out on a mission to defeat the witch hunters and safeguard her princess.
Speaker A: But when she arrives at the Western court, things are even worse than she feared.
Speaker A: The icy reception from the Fae is the least of her problems.
Speaker A: They’ve heard the prophecy that Brie will seize the crown from its sovereign, and the last thing they want is for her to usurp the throne.
Speaker A: No, the witch hunters are out for royal blood, and it will take everything Brie has to keep them at bay.
Speaker A: It doesn’t help that still grieving the loss of her mother, princess Abelina Thorne is reluctant to allow Brie into her confidence, only agreeing to let her serve as one of her guards at the behest of the princess’s cousin.
Speaker A: As the threat of the witch hunters grows, they find themselves thrown together, working closely to uncover the secret plot of their enemies.
Speaker A: Along the way, the princess realizes that Brie is one of the few people she can trust.
Speaker A: But Brie is determined to forge her own path and prove the prophecy wrong, not letting the beautiful Lena distract her from defeating the witch hunters.
Speaker A: She has a duty to the princess, a duty to the Western court, and a duty to her own destiny.
Speaker A: But what about the duty to her heart?
Speaker B: So the name of the show is freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker B: And that is fairy tales two ways.
Speaker B: Fairy tales are both something that we watched or read or listened to as kids and then also the journey of spending weeks, months, or years writing your book to then finally get to hold it in your hand is also a fairy tale for you.
Speaker B: So I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale when you were a kid or short story?
Speaker B: And did that favorite change as you got older?
Speaker C: Yes, definitely.
Speaker C: Well, when I was a kid, I loved all the Disney movies.
Speaker C: I think probably when I was really little.
Speaker C: The Little Mermaid was my favorite disney story.
Speaker C: Princess story.
Speaker C: I loved all the Grim Brothers fairy tales and things like that, you know, like Little Red Riding Hood and all those things.
Speaker C: My mom would read to me heaps.
Speaker C: And then when I was a little bit bigger, it kind of shifted more into like fantasy and longer books, like, you know, The Hobbit and Pulkin and things like that.
Speaker C: And I still have a love for kind of high fantasy, epic fantasy to this day.
Speaker C: So, yeah, it’s carried on my whole life for sure.
Speaker B: Now I do have a question for ask another question for you.
Speaker B: What do you do?
Speaker B: Because I’ve seen a lot of controversy around this.
Speaker B: What’s the differentiation between high fantasy and other fantasy like for you?
Speaker B: What does that mean?
Speaker C: I mean, high fantasy tends to be other worlds, right?
Speaker C: So you can have urban fantasy, which is usually, like, set in our world, a city or contemporary world.
Speaker C: High fantasy tends to be more like a different world, a different realm, a different system of magic.
Speaker C: It doesn’t necessarily have to evoke medieval themes, although most high fantasy does, where it’s kind of set in this magical made up version of medieval times.
Speaker C: But you do see high fantasy that is set in other kind of eras of history, which is really fun.
Speaker C: But yeah, that’s kind of high fantasy for me is other worlds completely made up.
Speaker B: Yeah, I saw something on TikTok this week about like, that’s not high fantasy because of I don’t remember what the reason was.
Speaker B: Maybe like Google.
Speaker B: What’s the difference?
Speaker B: At what age did you think you wanted to write or know that you were going to eventually write?
Speaker C: I always wrote stories, like forever.
Speaker C: I think that I didn’t know if I’d ever publish any of them, but I always like to tell stories for myself and write those down just because it was fun and a nice outlet for me and something I enjoyed.
Speaker C: It was probably the first thing that I was really into.
Speaker C: And I always said as a kid, I’d either be an author or work with animals.
Speaker C: And so I’ve gotten to do both in my career.
Speaker B: And so when did you start that?
Speaker B: How long did that one take you to write?
Speaker C: The Hang On Court actually didn’t take that long to write because I got down this ADHD rabbit hole about ten years ago of thinking about self publishing and reading all the books and listening to all the podcasts about self publishing and kind of becoming a hobbyist about it.
Speaker C: And I realized that one of my biggest problems with writing was I never got to the end.
Speaker C: Like, I had a million manuscripts that were about 30,000 words done the first five chapters, and then I think, oh, I’m going to start this new idea.
Speaker C: And so I had a chronic problem with not finishing the thing I was working on, so I took a few years just to finish those old projects that I kind of knew I’d never use or never publish, but just because I wanted to get in the habit of writing till the end.
Speaker C: And so by the time I realized I wanted to put out a book and start publishing.
Speaker C: I kind of thought maybe I’ll hold off on the kind of stories of my heart.
Speaker C: The ones that I really like had been thinking about for a decade.
Speaker C: And do something completely fresh and new.
Speaker C: Kind of like wipe the slate clean a little and start from scratch on something that could be my kind of like.
Speaker C: Dip my toe in the water of publisher book.
Speaker C: I say with a laugh.
Speaker C: Now, I think it took me like three or four months to write The High Mountain Court and then had many, many, many rounds of editing with different editors and beta readers and things.
Speaker C: And yeah, it took probably like eight months from starting to write it to putting it out.
Speaker B: Okay, now you obviously have I actually for transparency, we had to redo this interview I actually talked to, which I didn’t tell you last week, I actually talked to another author who told me about your book deal.
Speaker B: So I found you on Tik Tok.
Speaker B: I’ve never heard of you before, but then I heard you do these great, like, I Have a Secret That I can’t tell you videos.
Speaker B: And so I knew that you had gotten a book deal, but I didn’t know what kind of a book deal.
Speaker B: So why don’t you tell us?
Speaker B: Kind of like so you put out your first book and you selfpublished that one, right?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: And you talked about it the first.
Speaker C: Two in the series.
Speaker C: And when The Hamburg Court came out, it was doing quite well, and I started having agents contacting me about representation.
Speaker C: And it was something I was looking into at the time because I always wanted to be a hybrid author, meaning, like, I both self published and traditionally published.
Speaker C: And so I found my awesome agent, Jess, and I kind of said, what do you want?
Speaker C: What kind of a book do you want me to write for you to sell?
Speaker C: I have these ideas.
Speaker C: And she said, yeah, that one, go with that one.
Speaker B: Was this one of your paused series, or was this a totally new idea?
Speaker C: It was a totally new idea that this time was circulating in the back of my brain that turned into something completely else.
Speaker C: And it basically started from, like, a kind of writing prompt I gave myself of an idea of what if Sleeping Beauty had a secret twin sister and it was her job to save her.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: And, yeah, talk about fairy tales.
Speaker C: And then that kind of started the whole series.
Speaker C: Now, the first book is called river of Golden Bones, which is coming out next year.
Speaker C: So I wrote that for my agent and to sell, to shop around, and thought, traditional publishing takes a really long time.
Speaker C: We’ll see if anything even comes of this, maybe even fully.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: Six months before I hear from one person.
Speaker C: And so had very regulated expectations, and I was doing quite well with my self publishing, so I wasn’t too concerned.
Speaker B: About, you know, explain very well what was very well for you.
Speaker C: I was making into six figures, sold about 100,000 copies of my books at.
Speaker B: That point when we were going such a small thing.
Speaker C: I think it’s Kiwi and me.
Speaker C: I sound American, but I live in New Zealand, and we’re not very good at talking ourselves up.
Speaker C: We’re very bad at being braggy.
Speaker C: So I’m like, oh, yeah.
Speaker B: No big deal.
Speaker B: Two books, no one had heard of me.
Speaker C: Yeah, six months publishing.
Speaker B: So your agent is selling this book.
Speaker C: She sold that book, so she put it out on submission, and two days later, I get a message saying, Call me.
Speaker C: And I thought it was a spam number, and I blocked it.
Speaker C: And then she emailed me, being like, hey, did you check your messages?
Speaker C: And I realized it was sorry.
Speaker C: So I called her back, and she said, david pamering at Harper Voyager wants to talk to you about this new series.
Speaker C: And I was like, oh, my gosh, that’s so exciting.
Speaker B: That’s a big publisher.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: And I love the Poppy War, and I love all the other books.
Speaker C: And so it was just they also now publish Tolkien’s books.
Speaker C: So I was like, you know, the Tolkien nerd fantasy nerd in me was just like, OOH, and they specialize in Sci-Fi fantasy.
Speaker C: So it was, like, the perfect place.
Speaker C: So I hopped on the Zoom call and had a chat with him, and more and more, I just realized how perfect it would be for this new trilogy that I just wrote.
Speaker C: And so we kind of worked all the details of that out, and at the end of that whole deal, they were like, would you be interested in selling your current series too?
Speaker C: And I kind of was like, I don’t know.
Speaker C: Maybe.
Speaker C: I guess it depends.
Speaker C: It depends on what you offer me.
Speaker C: I have a number in my head of how much I think I’m going to make with this series, but I also have a sense in my head of how many hours of work that’s going to take on my part to make that happen.
Speaker C: And so the idea of working with a whole professional team of people who know how to produce books and can do so much of the stuff that I couldn’t do on my own and was struggling to do in a very short amount of time was just super appealing.
Speaker C: And so, yeah, so then we ended up making a deal for that series, that five book series as well.
Speaker C: So it ended up being eight books total and two deals and a multi seven figure deal.
Speaker B: What were you doing?
Speaker B: Clearly, that was a good zoom call for you that day.
Speaker B: So what have you done since then?
Speaker B: What did you do to celebrate that you had to do something?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: For the most part, we’re like, well, we’ll save the money to help pay off the mortgage and stuff.
Speaker C: The one big splurgy thing I did was I bought my mom a car.
Speaker C: So she lent me $2,000 last year to help me buy, like, book covers and editors and things for the first book, and she jokingly said, you can pay me back when you make your first million.
Speaker C: Just as a joke.
Speaker B: Not knowing it’s going to take less than a year for that to happen.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: It’s almost coming up on a year now.
Speaker C: Crazy.
Speaker C: And so I said, I want to pay you back.
Speaker C: And she said, oh, good, because I want to put it towards this car I want to buy.
Speaker C: Like, I’ve been waiting to buy this car for ages.
Speaker C: And I said, how much does that car cost?
Speaker C: Just out of curiosity now, does she.
Speaker B: Know at this time?
Speaker B: What does she know about the book deal?
Speaker C: She knew that I got these book deals, but she didn’t know the amount they were.
Speaker C: So I asked her how much the car was, and then I sent her the money for the whole car.
Speaker C: And that’s when I told her, well.
Speaker B: I’m sure I know if it had been my mom one at first, my mom would have been like, no, it’s too much, it’s too much.
Speaker B: And then once you’re like, well, in our family, there’s this whole thing about like, for example, my mom just graduated from, like, a college kind of course program thing.
Speaker B: And so we all go out to dinner and she tries to grab the check, and me and my husband are like, this is your graduation.
Speaker B: You’re not paying for everybody.
Speaker B: Right?
Speaker C: The traffic mom move?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: In my family, that’s pretty standard.
Speaker B: They’re like, no, that’s too much.
Speaker B: And then you’re like, no, you’re going to take it.
Speaker C: There was a lot of, you know, the mom angry, whispering your names.
Speaker C: She just kept saying, ally, you can’t send me this much money.
Speaker C: I said, if you don’t need it, use it for a plane ticket to come visit us, because it’s super expensive to come fly New Zealand from the state.
Speaker C: So I said, put it aside for traveling to come see us next time.
Speaker C: But she was the one who always thought would never say no when I wanted a new book.
Speaker C: It was like the one thing we found a way to always have the money for was like we were always going to the library, we were always reading.
Speaker C: And she was the one who really encouraged me to write and said.
Speaker C: One day I’m going to see your book on the shelves in here when we were in bookstores and stuff and was so encouraging and so it felt like really emotional.
Speaker C: Actually.
Speaker C: And really wonderful and humbling to be able to do that for her when she was the one who’s been encouraging me my whole life to make this a career.
Speaker B: I have to tell you, last week after the failed recording, I was telling my husband about your story and I was like tearing up talking about it.
Speaker C: So sweet.
Speaker C: Still syncing in.
Speaker C: That’s just the fact that I love writing.
Speaker C: It’s my first love, really.
Speaker C: And to be able to make a career out of doing it is just the greatest blessing.
Speaker B: So where did you find the time to write?
Speaker B: How did you then get your books out there?
Speaker B: Because clearly a publisher is not going to want you if no one’s buying your book.
Speaker B: How did you find the time to write?
Speaker B: And then once you had written that book, or even before writing that book, how did you tell people about the book?
Speaker C: Yeah, I’m a stay at home mom and I have two little kids and the High Mountain Court I wrote at 04:00 A.m.
Speaker C: On my kitchen table before my kids woke up.
Speaker C: And I didn’t have a desk or any place to go, really.
Speaker C: However long until my then two year old would wake up was how long I had to write each day.
Speaker C: So sometimes it was still 07:00 a.m.
Speaker C: Sometimes it was still like 05:00 a.m.
Speaker C: 1 hour.
Speaker C: And that was my only working time was before they woke up.
Speaker C: And then as time went on, we were able to kind of like shift my husband’s work schedule back a little and so I have more time in the mornings now and we’re still kind of like puzzling our days together.
Speaker C: We’re moving in September to Australia and one of the reasons we’re going is so that we can have more support with our kids and find some really awesome.
Speaker C: Like.
Speaker C: Schools and different people for them because they’re both neuro divergent and kind of like need a place that really gets them and respects them and encourages them.
Speaker B: And other kids to be around too.
Speaker C: Other kids and friends and things.
Speaker C: And so we just have none of that here.
Speaker C: So they’re home all the time and we have really no child care.
Speaker C: So we’re both trying to work full time and parent fulltime and it’s been kind of like tag team passing in the night.
Speaker C: I’m looking forward to getting into more of a nine to five routine with riding, but so far it’s just been puzzling in the time.
Speaker C: My main marketing is Tik Tok, and most of my Tik Toks are lip syncs where you can’t hear the background noise because it’s like cartoons and children shouting and dogs barking.
Speaker C: And it’s just a very, very close up of my face because I tilted even an inch left or right.
Speaker C: It’s just like absolute chaos.
Speaker C: Toys everywhere, like, you know, child stomping crackers into the carpet.
Speaker C: The chaos that is my actual life.
Speaker C: So that was my marketing, was making silly Tik Toks while I was hanging out watching cartoons with my kids, you know, and that’s how I found the time to promote my books.
Speaker B: Now, did you wait until the book released or did you start doing stuff ahead of time?
Speaker C: No, I started right away.
Speaker C: While I’m in, like, I finally got up the courage to post a Tik Tok in March, I think, of last year.
Speaker C: And then the book came out in August.
Speaker C: So I had a few months leading up to it where I was just making funny videos about drinking lots of coffee and forgetting how to write and think of good ideas in the shower and all those relatable author life moments that I thought it was so awesome because I had people to share them with who got it.
Speaker C: I was like, in my day to day life, you can’t really just bump into someone and being like, oh, you know, that really spicy scene in this book.
Speaker C: You can’t just, like, talk about fantasy, romance and things like that.
Speaker C: So to jump on TikTok and be like, oh, here they are.
Speaker C: Here are my people.
Speaker C: They get it.
Speaker B: Why is it so much more awkward to talk about that to people in your real life than an administrator to.
Speaker C: Kind of look at you?
Speaker C: And they say, we still have family members who barely know that I’m an author.
Speaker C: And they’ll say, what do you do?
Speaker C: And I’ll say, I’m an author.
Speaker C: And they go, oh, kids books.
Speaker C: They just assume it’s children’s books because I’m a parent.
Speaker B: And you’re like, don’t ever read my books, please.
Speaker C: What is it?
Speaker C: And I said, New adult fantasy, kind of.
Speaker C: And they’re like oh, like Game of Thrones.
Speaker C: I’m like, Sort of, kind of, yeah, I guess.
Speaker C: Sure.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: But with, like, less violence and more sex.
Speaker B: Hopefully less incest too.
Speaker B: Man, that series is I remember watching that show Maddock.
Speaker B: I remember watching that show and being so disturbed by the first episode of that show.
Speaker B: And I’m like, surely I get the books for Christmas.
Speaker B: And I’m like, Surely that’s not in the books.
Speaker B: They just embellished for TV.
Speaker B: No, that’s in the books.
Speaker C: There’s a lot of shock value things in there.
Speaker C: People just dying left and right.
Speaker C: But my books are more romantic fantasy, and that’s more for me.
Speaker C: My favorite part is the relationships, emotions, you know, feelings, like how people connect with each other and people discovering it, like about themselves and kind of finding their voice and their power and things like that.
Speaker C: So those are the stories I like to tell that are a bit more emotional and feeling space, but also have some good epic fighting scenes, right?
Speaker B: If it’s a fantasy, there’s got to be epic fighting.
Speaker C: Like, that’s got to be magic and you’ve got to have a battle.
Speaker B: So you’ve been talking about your book on Tik Tok.
Speaker B: Your book finally drops.
Speaker B: What were you expecting when your book finally I mean, you have to have some kind of an idea based on comments and stuff on your posts, but what were you kind of expecting?
Speaker C: I was hoping a few people would read it and like it.
Speaker C: I had very regulated expectations, probably because I had done such a deep dive into selfpublishing for so long.
Speaker C: And so I knew so many self published authors at that point.
Speaker C: And so I had this idea of like, okay, I have my five year plan.
Speaker C: Hopefully by five years I’ll be starting to make some sort of income.
Speaker B: I’ll have list for people to read.
Speaker C: At least three series out I’ll be doing.
Speaker C: And so I had my kind of plan of how I could get from maybe one or two readers to maybe 100 readers to maybe 10 readers.
Speaker C: But I knew that that would take a lot of time because that’s the research for the most part, what happens, right?
Speaker C: You don’t plan to be like, take off and be successful.
Speaker B: It’s like a dream, but it doesn’t happen for everyone.
Speaker C: It would be cool, but that’s not what I’m planning for.
Speaker C: My contingency plan is like, slow and steady growth over time.
Speaker C: And so when I put out a TikTok about the pre order for the High Mountain Court.
Speaker C: At that point.
Speaker C: I’d already written a prequel novella that was on my newsletter so people could go and read like a little snippet of my writing.
Speaker C: Like this little story.
Speaker C: And kind of see if they liked it so that by the time the first book came out.
Speaker C: They could kind of have a sense of what my author voice was if they like the way I tell stories.
Speaker C: And a lot of people really liked that.
Speaker C: And I had a bunch of people subscribed to my newsletter.
Speaker C: And so when I announced the pre orders on Tik Tok, I think I had like twelve preorders that day and I was just like twelve in one day.
Speaker C: I was about to cry.
Speaker C: It was so impressive for me.
Speaker C: And by the end of that week, I think I had a hundred.
Speaker C: And it just at that point, I think that’s when, like, I started to go, this might be something, this might turn into something.
Speaker C: This might be more than I planned for.
Speaker B: Pre order to how many preorders did you get before it actually released?
Speaker C: I think I got like 250.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So not like heaps.
Speaker C: And then each preorder after that I would do a little more than double.
Speaker C: So like 500 pre orders and then the rogue crown I had to cancel the pre orders for because we had the sale to Harper and we switched the release date and stuff.
Speaker C: But I think I had like a little over 2000 pre orders for the rogue crown.
Speaker B: So what happens to the when you cancel?
Speaker C: They get their money back, they get refunded and a new preorder gets set up.
Speaker C: And I was so sad.
Speaker B: Yeah, I’ve done.
Speaker B: Pre orders for I don’t think they charge you until you actually get the book.
Speaker B: Until the book, yeah.
Speaker C: So nobody got charged, but basically they.
Speaker B: Just said they got an email saying, hey, this got canceled.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: They’re like, what?
Speaker C: And I’m like, yeah, it’s not coming out until October now.
Speaker C: I’m sorry.
Speaker C: It’s getting like a new cover and a new edit and all that.
Speaker B: You’re very cryptic about all that because you didn’t talk about the publishing deal at first.
Speaker C: It wasn’t all signed yet, so I had to cancel the preorders before everything was like the inquisitive, which was so stressful to me because I’m the only person who doesn’t count their chickens until they patch.
Speaker C: And so I was, you know, but it was coming up to the release day and I didn’t want to strength people along and so, yeah, I kind of took a leap of faith and canceled those and I’m like, I promise it’s for a good I can tell you what it is.
Speaker B: Yeah, with audiobooks, too, I say the same thing.
Speaker B: Like, I won’t put you on my schedule for your audiobook until you’ve sent me a contract.
Speaker B: Because, like, unless I make I make exceptions for like, authors I’ve already narrated for, but like, if it’s a new author, I’m like, I’m not going to hog some other author’s time away if you’re not going to commit.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker B: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker B: But yeah, it would be really stressful.
Speaker C: But also I really wanted to say to them, but I couldn’t.
Speaker C: You’re going to be able to walk into a bookstore and just grab it now.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: You know, you’re going to be able to find this book places now.
Speaker C: It’s going to be so much easier for you to get your hands on it.
Speaker C: I’ve had so many amazing, like, loyal, supportive readers who really struggle to find copies of my books, even though, like, in the States you can get them pretty easy print on demand.
Speaker C: But a lot of other countries, it’s hard to find indie author’s book.
Speaker C: And so now it’s going to be so much easier for them and so much more accessible for all of them.
Speaker C: And just the idea too, that people who don’t know me through tik tok or other places can just walk into a bookstore, see a book on the shelves and be surprised that they can actually see themselves in these stories.
Speaker C: Like, they probably thought that they were signing up for one sort of romantic fantasy and then realizing that there’s representation in the books that actually is them and they get to be the hero of this story.
Speaker C: So, yeah, I’m excited.
Speaker B: Now, I have to ask, as an audiobook narrator, how did you go about getting the narrator for?
Speaker B: Because I know your first two have been narrated.
Speaker B: How did you go about finding them?
Speaker C: Yeah, so I was contacted by Podium Audio and a few other audiobook production places.
Speaker C: And Podium was one that I really liked and respected.
Speaker C: And I knew they did a lot of other Sci-Fi fantasies.
Speaker C: So I figured they have a good sense of like, I feel like fantasy audiobooks are their own thing.
Speaker C: Kind of like if you have different.
Speaker B: Cadence when you’re doing fantasy versus romance.
Speaker C: And they have to not think it’s weird that there’s witches and Faye and humans and magic and glamours and all these words and things.
Speaker C: And so I really wanted to work with someone who got it because if they came from more contemporary worlds, they might be like, what is going on?
Speaker C: Also because I really wanted a narrator who could kind of, like, represent the series as a whole.
Speaker C: So it was really important to me.
Speaker C: Remy is based on a real person that I used to work with in Guatemala.
Speaker C: And so I really wanted somebody that had AfroLatina roots and could represent her.
Speaker C: And so when the podium gave me options of all these amazing people and I found Melalee, who’s my narrator for the series, I think her grandmother is from the same islands that my friend who’s based on Remy, is from.
Speaker C: And I was just like, oh, my gosh, it was so meant to be.
Speaker C: You know what I mean?
Speaker C: It was one of those beautiful moments.
Speaker C: And she does the voices of so many Mortal Kombat and all of these amazing characters and TV shows that my kids watch and stuff.
Speaker C: And I was like, okay, she gets it.
Speaker C: She gets the fantasy world.
Speaker C: And so it was just kind of like the perfect person.
Speaker C: So, yeah, that was exciting.
Speaker B: Harper has their own audio thing.
Speaker B: Are they letting her continue to do the audiobooks?
Speaker C: Yeah, so she’ll be doing that whole series, the backgrounds of Akris series.
Speaker C: And then Harper will be supervising the audiobooks for the river of Golden Bones books.
Speaker C: So the Golden Court trilogy that I sold to them.
Speaker C: So the brand new trilogy, they’ll be doing the audiobooks for.
Speaker C: And Podium will be doing The Five Co, as we call them, the 5 grams of Akra.
Speaker B: Now, you talked about what were you doing?
Speaker B: So you’re from the US.
Speaker B: But you spent time in Guatemala.
Speaker B: Why?
Speaker B: And now you’re in New Zealand.
Speaker C: I’ve lived in.
Speaker C: So many countries.
Speaker C: I haven’t lived in the US since I was 18.
Speaker C: I moved to the UK.
Speaker C: And then South Africa and then Guatemala.
Speaker C: Now I’m in New Zealand.
Speaker C: We’re about to move to Australia.
Speaker C: But I used to work in wildlife rehabilitation and specifically studied primatology.
Speaker C: So yeah, I was in Guatemala working as a volunteer manager and working rehabilitating animals at a wildlife sanctuary rehabilitation center there when I met my husband, who’s a kiwi, and we came over this side of the world.
Speaker B: And how did you meet him?
Speaker B: What was he doing in Guatemala?
Speaker C: He came to volunteer at the wildlife sanctuary and I kind of had like a no sleeping with volunteers rule.
Speaker B: It’s a good rule.
Speaker B: It’s a good rule.
Speaker C: They just come in and out too often, like hundreds of people every few weeks.
Speaker C: And people in the volunteers industry are pretty fast and loose with it’s a pretty good effort, it’s a good way.
Speaker B: To keep up one night, staying fun.
Speaker C: But for me, I was just like, not interested.
Speaker C: So I didn’t really give him the time of day.
Speaker C: But we became best friends, which was it.
Speaker C: And when you live in a place with no internet, you get to know people pretty quickly, like makeup, everybody’s covered in animal poo and you know, you get the real version of people pretty quickly.
Speaker C: Eventually we had this rule.
Speaker C: Each of the rooms in the volunteer house, which I lived in with the volunteers, had two bunk beds.
Speaker C: And we had this rule that couples would get their own room.
Speaker C: You couldn’t put another volunteer in a room that was like one guy and one girl because that might be uncomfortable for people, which is gender is stupid anyway, so they had this rule and so I put Glenn, my now husband, in my room with me when we had this influx of volunteers because I didn’t want to have new people moving into my room every other week.
Speaker C: But then I think I’ve been there for almost a year at that point and you never know if they’re going to be a good roommate and they’re only there for a few weeks and you barely get to know them and then another person moves into your room.
Speaker C: So I moved him into my room as a way to kind of just have one roommate and he was my buddy, so it worked out that way.
Speaker C: And I might have had a thing for him too.
Speaker C: This is my move.
Speaker B: What do you mean you got moved into my room?
Speaker C: He’s like, don’t you control who moves into oh, strange.
Speaker C: No, I had no idea my supervisor.
Speaker B: Must have done that.
Speaker C: Yeah, funny.
Speaker C: And it wasn’t long after that that we finally started getting together and started dating and blessed.
Speaker C: He lived in the jungle with me for another like six months before I finished my contract there.
Speaker C: And then by then I was ready to move to a place with internet and being able to civilizations, being closer to amenities and things.
Speaker C: And I had dengue fever and was, like, not feeling so good and ready to go somewhere to recover for a bit.
Speaker C: So we moved to New Zealand, thinking we’d just travel around for a bit on a working holiday.
Speaker C: And that was over ten years ago and two kids ago.
Speaker B: So you moved to New Zealand with your not husband at the time, right?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: Okay, who you semi stalked.
Speaker C: Him.
Speaker C: We already live together.
Speaker B: You’re just living together in different rooms for a while.
Speaker B: I mean, similar to how, like, college roommates are.
Speaker B: You live with them for a couple of months, but, like, at least my college roommates, I didn’t know ahead of time.
Speaker B: I just lived with them for a few months.
Speaker C: It was good, though, because when you live with people, you kind of you get to know if you’re going to be a good couple or not.
Speaker C: Pretty, because when you’re dating people and you don’t live with them, you don’t really know.
Speaker C: And then you move in together and you’re like, oh, this isn’t going to work.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: That’S what I thought it was going to be.
Speaker C: So we kind of had the relationship, the living together before we had the romantic relationship.
Speaker B: You were living in bunk beds, like, very close quarters at that time.
Speaker B: You can’t stand each other, then you’re in trouble.
Speaker C: It was this game of chicken for ages to see who is going to admit they liked the other one.
Speaker C: We both were pretty confident that the other.
Speaker B: I did that with my husband to get him to tell me that he loved me.
Speaker B: I’d be like, is there something that you want to tell me that you haven’t told me before?
Speaker B: Like, all day long?
Speaker B: I would do this for, like, weeks, and finally I’m like, falling asleep on the couch and he finally says it, and I’m like, really?
Speaker B: You wait till now to say that?
Speaker C: I almost said it so many times, just like, leaving the room or being like, okay, bye.
Speaker C: And I was, like, so close to just being like, I love you, and then I’m like, no, you can’t say that.
Speaker B: I didn’t mean it.
Speaker C: I didn’t mean to say it first.
Speaker C: Yeah, same.
Speaker B: I had, like, a roadblock in my head, like, the guy why?
Speaker C: I don’t know.
Speaker B: The guy has to say it first.
Speaker B: The girl can’t say it first.
Speaker B: That’s in my head.
Speaker B: That’s what I thought, but it was.
Speaker C: A power move, whatever it is, but.
Speaker B: I was trying to drag it out of him.
Speaker B: We had been dating for, like, two months, I think, and my sister got married, and so he came with me.
Speaker B: I was a bridesmaid.
Speaker B: He came with me to my sister’s wedding.
Speaker B: And, like, afterwards, my mom was like, have you guys told each other you loved each other?
Speaker B: And I’m like, no, mom, we’ve been dating for two months.
Speaker B: Like, we haven’t done that.
Speaker B: It wasn’t too much longer.
Speaker B: We were let’s see, we were engaged by six months and married at like 13 months.
Speaker B: So it was very quick.
Speaker C: Yeah, we didn’t get engaged until after I had my first kid because we weren’t even thinking we’d really get married.
Speaker C: It wasn’t really something we’d even thought about.
Speaker C: We would like, living together and traveling the world together for ages.
Speaker C: And we’re planning on starting a family.
Speaker C: And then we’re like, we’re going to go away on holiday to like, rachana this island in the Cook Islands.
Speaker C: And my family’s like, oh, well, we’ll come.
Speaker C: And then his family’s like, we’ll come.
Speaker C: And they’re like, well, we might as well get married.
Speaker B: Everyone’s already here.
Speaker C: Yeah, this is perfect.
Speaker C: We’ll just make this a whole wedding thing.
Speaker C: And it was super cruisy and easy and yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker B: So what had back to the books.
Speaker B: So your publisher kind of took over these two books that you’d already published.
Speaker B: Did they send them back through another editor or did they have you change anything or like kind of what happened?
Speaker C: Hugely, the first two books because they wanted to bring them back out pretty quickly, just went through, like another round of proof editing.
Speaker C: So like commas and typos, that sort of level of editing.
Speaker C: Like the kind of finishing touches sort of stuff.
Speaker B: And they want their people to go through it.
Speaker C: On your show, they went through Haimaan Court only had a few small changes and the Witches Blade had, I think, a few more.
Speaker C: But it was great because it was like you would never catch every typo when you publish something.
Speaker C: So it was awesome to have them catch a few more things.
Speaker C: And then the rogue crown because the road crown hadn’t come out yet.
Speaker C: We didn’t do like a big edit on it.
Speaker C: All the story is the same.
Speaker C: But we did have a little more time to do more of a copy edit and like, go through and be like, does this make sense?
Speaker C: Like, did you explain who this person was?
Speaker C: Like, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker C: But because it had already gone through all of my rounds of editing because it was about to come out, it was pretty solid already.
Speaker C: So it didn’t really mean that much.
Speaker C: Whereas The Evergreen Air, which is the fourth book in the series, which I’m just finishing my revision through now, which will be sent to them soon, we’ll go through the whole editing process with them.
Speaker C: It will be the first book with them that we get to go from the very beginning, first version of the manuscript to publication together.
Speaker C: So I’m excited for that.
Speaker B: So you’re in the middle of this move and you’re still writing books.
Speaker B: You’ve got two books you’re working on right now.
Speaker B: Write book four and then book one in the other series.
Speaker B: How are you juggling doing that and moving at the same moving country, lots of caffeine.
Speaker C: Yeah, I know.
Speaker C: And then I’ve also the Five Crown series.
Speaker C: I’m still self publishing the novellas and shorter fiction attached to it, too, so I’m also doing that.
Speaker C: And I also have my patreon short stories that come out every month, too.
Speaker C: So I’m doing lots of things.
Speaker C: I have lots of different because it was awesome that Harper Voyager was so supportive of me.
Speaker C: Still doing my indie stuff, too.
Speaker C: So I have my traditional things.
Speaker C: I have my indie things, right?
Speaker C: It’s kind of more my playground I get to play in.
Speaker C: And I have the support of this awesome publisher for these bigger bucks.
Speaker C: And so I’m kind of like a little bit of a chicken with my head cut off in all the different directions.
Speaker C: But what’s good is that?
Speaker C: I finished river of Golden Bones.
Speaker C: That first book is done.
Speaker C: And so I’m going to finish writing book four and five of the Five Crown series and then pivot to write book two and three of the new trilogy after that.
Speaker C: Which is good because then I can stay in one world and finish that series and then pivot to the other world because it was really hard riding river of Golden Bones in the middle of this other series because it’s in a different point of view and it’s a different world and there’s different language.
Speaker C: And so it was like kind of jumbling my brain to do that.
Speaker C: So I’m excited I can do one series and then the other series.
Speaker C: So that would be good.
Speaker C: But I’ve been really relying a lot on my husband to help with all of, like the moving things, like kind of organizing stuff.
Speaker C: And we hired decluttering service people who are going to help us get rid of all of the things we’re not bringing with us.
Speaker B: So you’re telling them basically do what to get rid of?
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker B: I wouldn’t trust someone else to bring cleaning.
Speaker C: Yeah, where we’re like, you know, we’ve already gone through ourselves of all the boxes and things we don’t want.
Speaker C: And they’re going to find the right homes for them, like the right charities that will take them and stuff.
Speaker C: So that’s good because we don’t have anyone, like any child care for our kids.
Speaker C: And then they’re going to take over with the realtor to fix up a few things around the house and stage the house to sell once we’re gone.
Speaker C: Okay, so that’ll be good because I don’t think we would have been able to cope with open homes and stuff.
Speaker B: In our trying to write.
Speaker C: Because they have their routines and that would have been really disruptive for them.
Speaker C: So it’s a lot of, like just trying to puzzle our days together to fit all the things in because we’re both working full time and we’re trying to plan this international move.
Speaker C: So it is yes, it’s a lot.
Speaker C: Right now.
Speaker C: We’re a little bit loopy, but we’re also just so excited.
Speaker C: Also, we’re moving to Queensland where it’s, like, sunny and warm and hot weather and it’s winter here in New Zealand and it’s just depressing and rainy and cold.
Speaker C: So it’s a very good motivator to.
Speaker B: You know, I didn’t even realize last week you also had a sweatshirt on.
Speaker B: I didn’t even think about, like you’re in a different hemisphere.
Speaker C: Right now.
Speaker B: Yeah, like, my house is hot all the time because it’s Texas and it’s summer in Texas.
Speaker B: I didn’t even, like, piece that together last week.
Speaker C: I have all the FOMO of seeing all like, most of the people I interact with are in the US.
Speaker C: And, you know, on TikTok and things and I’m so jealous of all the sunny summer.
Speaker C: TikToks, right.
Speaker A: AK Mulforth liked many fairy tales when she was a kid but Little Red Riding Hood was one of her favorites.
Speaker A: Little Red Riding Hood is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf.
Speaker A: Its origins can be traced back to several pre 17th century European folk tales.
Speaker A: The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.
Speaker A: The story’s been changed considerably in various retellings and subjected to numerous modern adaptations and readings.
Speaker A: Other names for the story are Little Red Cap or simply Red Riding Hood.
Speaker A: It is number 333 in the ARN Thompson classification system for folktales.
Speaker A: Today we’ll be reading Little Red Cap by the brothers Grim.
Speaker A: Don’t forget we’re reading Lamont de Arthur the story of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table on our patreon.
Speaker A: You can find the link in the show notes.
Speaker A: Little Red Cap or Little Red Riding Hood?
Speaker A: Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her but most of all by her grandmother.
Speaker A: And there was nothing that she would not have given to the child.
Speaker A: Once she gave her a little cap of red velvet which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else.
Speaker A: So she was always called Little Red Cap.
Speaker A: One day her mother said to her come, Little Red Cap, here’s a piece of cake and a bottle of wine.
Speaker A: Take them to your grandmother.
Speaker A: She is ill and weak and they will do her good.
Speaker A: Set out before it gets hot.
Speaker A: And when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path or you may fall and break the bottle.
Speaker A: And then your grandmother will get nothing.
Speaker A: And when you go into her room, don’t forget to say good morning and don’t peep into every corner before you do it.
Speaker A: I will take great care, said Little Red Cap to her mother and gave her hand on it.
Speaker A: The grandmother lived out in the wood half a league from the village.
Speaker A: And just as Little Red Cap entered the wood a wolf met her.
Speaker A: REDCap did not know what a wicked creature he was and was not at all afraid of him.
Speaker A: Good day, little red.
Speaker A: Cap said he thank you kindly.
Speaker A: Wolf wither away so early, little red cap.
Speaker A: To my grandmother’s.
Speaker A: What have you got in your apron?
Speaker A: Cake and wine.
Speaker A: Yesterday was baking day, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good to make her stronger.
Speaker A: Where does your grandmother live?
Speaker A: Little red cap.
Speaker A: A good quarter of a league further on in the wood.
Speaker A: Her house stands under the three large oak trees.
Speaker A: The nut trees are just below.
Speaker A: You surely must know it, replied little Red Cap.
Speaker A: The wolf thought to himself, what a tender young creature.
Speaker A: What a nice plump mouthful.
Speaker A: She’ll be better to eat than the old woman.
Speaker A: I must act craftily so as to catch both.
Speaker A: So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Cap, and then he said, see, Little Red Cap, how pretty the flowers are about here.
Speaker A: Why do you not look round?
Speaker A: I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing.
Speaker A: You walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.
Speaker A: Little Red Cap raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeam dancing here and there through the trees and pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought, suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay.
Speaker A: That would please her, too.
Speaker A: It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time.
Speaker A: And so she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers, and whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one further on and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.
Speaker A: Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother’s house and knocked at the door.
Speaker A: Who s there?
Speaker A: Little red cup, replied the wolf.
Speaker A: She is bringing cake and wine.
Speaker A: Open the door.
Speaker A: Lift the latch.
Speaker A: Called out the grandmother, I’m too weak and cannot get up.
Speaker A: The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother’s bed and devoured her.
Speaker A: Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap, laid himself in bed, and drew the curtains.
Speaker A: Little Red Cap, however, had been running about picking flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered her grandmother and set out on the way to her.
Speaker A: She was surprised to find the cottage door standing open, and when she went into the room she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself, oh, dear, how uneasy I feel today.
Speaker A: And at other times I like being with grandmother so much.
Speaker A: She called out, Good morning.
Speaker A: But received no answer.
Speaker A: So she went to the bed and drew back the curtains.
Speaker A: There lay her grandmother with her cat pulled far over her face and looking very strange.
Speaker A: Oh, Grandmother, she said, what big ears you have.
Speaker A: The better to hear you with, my child, was the reply.
Speaker A: But, grandmother, what big eyes you have.
Speaker A: She said, the better to see you with, my dear.
Speaker A: But, grandmother, what large hands you have.
Speaker A: The better to hug you with.
Speaker A: Oh, but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have.
Speaker A: The better to eat you with.
Speaker A: And scarcely had the wolf said this.
Speaker A: Then with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up Red Cap.
Speaker A: When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he laid down again in the bed, fell asleep, and began to snore very loud.
Speaker A: The huntsman was just passing the house and thought to himself, oh, the old woman is snoring, I must just see if she wants anything.
Speaker A: So he went into the room, and when he came to the bed he saw that the wolf was lying in it.
Speaker A: Do I find you here, you old sinner?
Speaker A: Said he, I’ve long sought you.
Speaker A: Just as he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have devoured the grandmother and that she might still be saved.
Speaker A: So he did not fire, but took a pair of scissors and began to cut open the stomach of the sleeping wolf.
Speaker A: When he had made two SNPs, he saw the little red Cap shining, and then he made two SNPs more, and the little girl sprang out crying, ah, how frightened I’ve been.
Speaker A: How dark it was inside the wolf.
Speaker A: And after that the aged grandmother came out alive also, but scarcely able to breathe.
Speaker A: Red Cap, however, quickly fetched great stones with which they filled the wolf’s belly, and when he awoke he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at once and fell dead.
Speaker A: Then all three were delighted.
Speaker A: The huntsman drew off the wolf’s skin and went home with it.
Speaker A: The grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which Red Cap had brought and revived.
Speaker A: But Red Cap thought to herself, as long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.
Speaker A: It also related that once, when Red Cap was again taking cakes to the old grandmother, another wolf spoke to her and tried to entice her from the path.
Speaker A: Red Cap, however, was on her guard, and went straightforward on her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he had said good morning to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes that if they had not been on the public road, she was certain he would have eaten her up.
Speaker A: Well, said the grandmother, we will shut the door that he may not come in soon afterwards the wolf knocked and cried, open the door, grandmother.
Speaker A: I am little Red Cap, and am.
Speaker B: Bringing you some cakes.
Speaker A: But they did not speak or open the door.
Speaker A: So the gray beard stole twice or thrice round the house and at last jumped on the roof, intending to wait until Red Cap went home in the evening and then to steal after her and devour her in the darkness.
Speaker A: But the grandmother saw what was in his thoughts.
Speaker A: In front of the house was a great stone trough.
Speaker A: So she said to the child, take the pail, red Cap, I made some sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the trough red Cap carried until the Great Trough was quite full.
Speaker A: Then the smell of the sausages reached the wolf and he sniffed and peeped down, and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep his footing and began to slip and slipped down from the roof straight into the Great Trough and was drowned.
Speaker A: But Red Cap went joyously home and no one ever did anything to harm her again.
Speaker A: Thank you for joining Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker A: Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion of a K Moulford’s journey to holding her own fairy tale in her hands and to hear another of her favorite fairy tales.
