Show Notes:
Today is part one of two where we are talking to Sam Razberry about her poetry. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about writing love letters to her family and friends, starting with journaling her poems, struggles of self publishing print on demand companies, the emotions involved in writing, the similarities between plotting fiction and poetry, and her advice that you should do it.
Get From Soil to Sun and Back Again
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Sam feels her feelings like its her job….because it is. Crying often as a means to process and release, she strives to uncover all her deepest wounds, and salve them with aloe. You can find Sam at her local coffee shop (literally naned “Poets”) sipping an iced vanilla chai, and eating something delicious on a croissant while she scribbles poems into one of her many half-filled notebooks, living her best, main character life.
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Transcript:
Speaker A: Welcome to Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker A: 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, Freya Victoria.
Speaker A: 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’ve included all of the links for today’s author and our show in the show notes.
Speaker B: Be sure to check out our website.
Speaker A: And sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.
Speaker A: Today is part one of two where we are talking to Sam Raspberry about her poetry.
Speaker A: Over the next two weeks, you will hear about writing love letters to her family and friends, starting with journaling her poems, struggles of self publishing, print on demand companies, the emotions involved in writing, the similarities between plotting fiction and poetry, and her advice that you should do it from soil to sun and back again.
Speaker A: The seed, when sprouting, sees only darkness.
Speaker A: It grows blindly through the soil, the promise of light guiding its very existence.
Speaker A: Our author is a fan of two things in life, condiments and a really great, though painstakingly thought out at times, long winded metaphor.
Speaker B: Armed with restaurant ranch dressing, could I get extra sauce?
Speaker A: And a smooth writing clicky pen, she continued her journey to the core of her being disguised in, you guessed it, metaphors for plant growth?
Speaker A: We all have our growing season, sure, but what about the time spent nestled away from the world, pursuing our most evolved selves?
Speaker A: What of the growing pains?
Speaker B: The root rot?
Speaker A: The two small pots we had along through all her life cycles so far from a sapling back to a seed to bloom, to wither, to revive herself and grow from soil to sun and back again.
Speaker B: The podcast is Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker B: And that is fairy tales in two ways.
Speaker B: Fairy tales are something that we watched or read or had read to us when we were kids.
Speaker B: Also, the journey to spend weeks, months, or years working on your book is a fairy tale for you to get, to hold that in your hands.
Speaker B: So I always 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: Okay, so I was a weirdo.
Speaker C: Okay, so I have a couple there was one that I constantly gravitated towards when I was in elementary school, to the point that the librarian was concerned, okay, it was this creepy.
Speaker C: I wish I had it in here because I have two copies of it.
Speaker C: It’s called bony legs, and it’s about this witch in the woods and this little girl that has to go and escape this crazy, bony legged witch lady in the woods.
Speaker C: And I was just enamored.
Speaker C: This is so wonderfully weird and slightly off putting, but I love it.
Speaker C: I don’t know why, but I was always rooting for the little girl because I was like, yeah, you got yourself into this mess, but you know what?
Speaker C: You’re getting yourself out.
Speaker C: And I love that.
Speaker C: So there was that.
Speaker C: But then also my nana.
Speaker C: It’s my dad’s mom, she’s from England.
Speaker C: And so she had this delightfully lovely british accent that we all tried to mimic.
Speaker C: And she would roll her eyes and giggle at us.
Speaker C: And she hated it, but she loved it.
Speaker C: But anyway, she would just make up, right?
Speaker B: Oh, you.
Speaker C: But then, at the same time, she loves it, so she would just make up little fairy tales.
Speaker C: And there was this one that she would tell me all the time about this little girl that was.
Speaker C: I think she told this story because I was a little girl that was going through a lot and wanted just to escape somewhere where it wasn’t so scary and wasn’t so tumultuous around me.
Speaker C: And so this little girl is having a hard time, and she falls asleep in her backyard on a picnic table.
Speaker C: And then she hears this little noise, and she opens her eyes, and there’s this little leprechaun guy, and he leads her through their back, little white picket fence, into this little beautiful path in the woods, which sounds like kidnapping, but it was totally fine.
Speaker B: Grandma told it.
Speaker B: It’s okay.
Speaker C: Nana wouldn’t tell me something, so.
Speaker C: And then you get to another little white picket fence, and you go in, and all of these.
Speaker C: Oh, no.
Speaker C: You have to pass over a rainbow, of course.
Speaker C: And then there’s all of this little cobblestone road that’s made out of, like, cookie, and all of the fences are made out of peppermints, and all of the houses are like, gingerbread and all of these things.
Speaker C: And then this kindly old woman lets you come into her house, and she does not eat you, Hansel and Gretel style.
Speaker C: She serves you tea and bickies, which is just like tea and cookies.
Speaker C: And then you learn, like, a little lesson.
Speaker C: She says something different to you every single time, and it’s always something reassuring and uplifting and basically just something my nana wanted to say to me and to make me feel better.
Speaker C: And then she would just be escorted back home by her leprechaun friend.
Speaker C: And then she wakes back up at the picnic table, not knowing whether or not it was real or not.
Speaker C: But she knows that she feels so much better.
Speaker C: And even if she doesn’t get to go back to that place, she has the memory of something magic.
Speaker C: I think that that has to be my favorite fable, and it’s just something that came out of my nana’s brain.
Speaker B: Sorry.
Speaker B: What age did you start writing anything?
Speaker B: Short stories?
Speaker B: Anything.
Speaker C: I’ve been writing little stories and little songs and little poems ever since I was a kid.
Speaker C: Ever since I can remember.
Speaker C: I would bring things up to my family, or I would come out and sit everyone down.
Speaker C: We have a presentation, and I would just read like I liked writing little long form, like, basically essays or just, like, really long prose where everything was worded really beautifully and the cadence was really nice.
Speaker C: And I was generally always just pouring my heart out about how much I loved someone in my life, and I wanted them to know how much I loved and appreciated them.
Speaker C: And I would basically just write them a little love letter, and I would read it out in front of everyone and do little performances of my love and affection for that person.
Speaker C: I’ve been doing that ever since I could pick up a pen.
Speaker C: I remember I asked my mom.
Speaker C: I made a little poem one time, and I asked my mom, and this is whenever I was really little.
Speaker C: And you know how whenever you’re a kid, you sound things out and you’re like, I want to.
Speaker C: There’s always a little, like, extra.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So I spelled everything in my poem with an a or a u at the end, and so everything.
Speaker C: Aya, wanta summer cherry ice cream.
Speaker C: Even when I couldn’t spell, I was attempting.
Speaker B: So now your book that you have one book out, and one book is soon to come out, right?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: So at what point did you start writing the first full length book, whether.
Speaker A: That was one, that’s one of these.
Speaker B: Published ones or not?
Speaker C: So most of the poems in the first one, which is being human.
Speaker C: You signed up for this?
Speaker C: I have OCD.
Speaker C: And I wanted to challenge myself to not only write, but also to write and doodle with reckless abandon in permanent marker inside of a journal that I made for myself.
Speaker C: Not only is it something that I put my time and effort into, and then I put up on a shelf because I was like, oh, well, I don’t want to ruin it.
Speaker C: I don’t want to ruin it by putting something in it that’s bad, which bad is just mistake in my brain.
Speaker C: So I took that down off a shelf and started just doodling in it and writing little things in it in permanent marker.
Speaker C: And if I had to change something, I had to scratch it out and put the new thing.
Speaker C: And it was an exercise in letting go for me and also letting creative flow just happen and letting it be good, no matter if it needed revisions, just allowing it.
Speaker C: So that all started in 2020.
Speaker C: And then I filled up that journal, and I was like, oh, I think I’ll just take all of these and put them into my computer and maybe judge them up a little bit and just see what I see.
Speaker C: And I started to fill up another one, and then I put that into my computer, and then I realized, like, oh, d***.
Speaker C: If I wanted to specifically stick to a theme, I’ve got, like, five chat books just mostly fleshed out.
Speaker C: And being human, I had every single poem except for one from my first little journal.
Speaker C: So that started back then, but then one of them that I keep referring to, I wrote when I was 15, and I’m about to show my age right now, but back when Zanga.com was a thing.
Speaker B: Yes, I am Zanga old, too.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker B: Myspace, too.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker C: That top eight, crucial, crucial.
Speaker C: And if you were passive aggressive, also a weapon.
Speaker B: But anyway, yes, I won’t get into that.
Speaker B: Zanga.
Speaker B: Zanga taught me how to program websites, and I will be forever thankful because now I don’t have to pay someone to do that for me.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: Thank you, Zanga.
Speaker C: You taught us when we didn’t even know we were being taught.
Speaker C: So I got on there and I had a whole, well, I had my own personal, like, here’s me telling about my life and so important, and everybody’s.
Speaker B: Going to want to read it.
Speaker C: Everybody’s going to want to know about this and my trials and tribulations.
Speaker C: So here you go.
Speaker C: And then I had a separate one where I would put writing into that was anonymous, because at the time, I was just really shy about it.
Speaker C: And I wrote this one that when I wrote it, I didn’t understand what I wrote, but I knew that it was from me.
Speaker C: And of course, Zanga ceased being a thing.
Speaker C: You don’t remember your login information from 20 years prior?
Speaker C: 20 years prior.
Speaker C: Ow.
Speaker B: Ouch, ouch.
Speaker C: I couldn’t get on and find it, and I had tried to find it several different times over the last two decades.
Speaker C: And one morning, a couple of years ago, after, I think I had filled up about half of the journal.
Speaker C: So back in 2020, I had filled up half the journal.
Speaker C: And I woke up one morning and heard the end of the first stanza, and I was like, why does that sound?
Speaker C: And then I realized that poem.
Speaker C: What the heck?
Speaker C: And then throughout the rest of the day, I just kept repeating the snippets that came back to me, and I was able to piece the entire poem together after 20 years.
Speaker C: And, jeez, that was about the time that I was like, jeez, that feels important.
Speaker C: That feels significant that I would remember this.
Speaker C: And so then I decided after I finished and put all of the poems in my computer and I started revising all of them, I was like, okay, I’m going to do it.
Speaker C: I’m going to put out a book.
Speaker C: That’s my lifelong dream.
Speaker C: I want to be able to say, like, I’m a published author.
Speaker C: I want to put out a book.
Speaker C: It doesn’t matter if anybody reads it.
Speaker C: I just want to put it out there.
Speaker C: And I wanted to make art for.
Speaker C: I was streaming at the time on Twitch, and I wanted to do an art stream where I made art for different poems in the book.
Speaker C: And taste of transcendence is what I ended up calling the poem that I wrote when I was 15.
Speaker C: I painted this picture, and at the end of it, one of the people in my chat was like, girl, that looks like a woman floating in the air, like in the clouds.
Speaker C: And I looked at it again and I was like, holy crap.
Speaker C: Well, would you look at that?
Speaker C: So that ended up being my book cover for that book.
Speaker C: So it all sort of just happened accidentally.
Speaker C: And then one day last August, I was like, okay, I’m going to publish it.
Speaker C: I’m going to give myself a month, which is generally what I have to do, because ADHD have to surprise myself with my plans.
Speaker B: My book was like, work in progress.
Speaker B: Work in progress.
Speaker B: And I’m finally like, if I don’t give myself a deadline.
Speaker B: So I contacted the lady I wanted to use as my editor and was like, I’m sending the book to you at the beginning of October.
Speaker B: And she’s like, okay.
Speaker B: And then everything else, I’m like, now I got a backwards schedule.
Speaker B: Everything that needs to come before the editor.
Speaker B: So same.
Speaker C: It’s exactly how it went.
Speaker B: Unlike some authors that I’ve talked to that are like, I have to give myself a date, but I can always push it back.
Speaker B: I’m like, no, I have committed to this.
Speaker B: It is, yes, yes.
Speaker C: So many of my friends, whenever this time around.
Speaker C: Instead of just going with Amazon, I went with Ingram Sparks, because I wanted the distribution, and that process was much more involved, from the formatting of the book to giving it over to them, to approving proofs, and just all of this stuff.
Speaker C: It was a much bigger everyone.
Speaker B: I did not do separate formatting for KDP and Ingram.
Speaker B: I used the same interior files.
Speaker B: Now, the COVID template, I had to use a different cover template.
Speaker B: That was a pain in the a**.
Speaker B: But the other one, I used vellum to do my formatting, and so it had it where it was like, it already had the margins, where the spine of the book is, and it’s supposed to have a little bit of white page there.
Speaker B: So vellum kind of did that, and I ordered a proof from both places, because I’m like, first book out.
Speaker B: You don’t know.
Speaker B: I mean, you can use.
Speaker B: I specifically used vellum because I did not want to have to tweak and mess with it and do it myself.
Speaker B: And there are some things that I wish I could change that cannot be changed because of vellum.
Speaker B: But I’m, like.
Speaker B: I am, like, 99% happy with how it ended up.
Speaker B: There’s just those few little tweaky things.
Speaker B: I’m like, I really wish I could have changed the font for that particular section, and I couldn’t.
Speaker B: But it is what it is.
Speaker B: But, yeah, ingram.
Speaker B: Both the ingram and the KDP versions look the same.
Speaker C: Like, the interior looks fine, so they do now, because instead, the first time around, I went through, oh, what’s the program called?
Speaker C: It’s basically KDP create.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: Or something like that.
Speaker C: And so it specifically only makes a KDP file rather than a epub with.
Speaker B: That, you just upload, like, a word document to it, and it does it, right?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: Or you can go in and you can.
Speaker C: I uploaded, I think, like, ten or 15 poems for this book, and then I went in, and you can create more pages and just add to it and add to it and add to it.
Speaker C: And so it specifically formats it only for Amazon.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: And so then I’m trying.
Speaker B: Vellum pops out a PDF for the print, so you can use that anywhere.
Speaker C: So then I ended up working a little bit with canva and a little bit here and a little bit there, and then combining all of it, and then I paid somebody on fiver.
Speaker C: I was like, will you please turn this into an Epub, please, so that I can just.
Speaker B: Please.
Speaker C: So now everything is the same.
Speaker C: I was having issues, because now there’s illustrations in this book that I didn’t deal with illustrations in the first book, because, again, on the first book, I was just like, I just want to get it out there.
Speaker C: Here’s a book.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: This time, I decided, like, okay, I’m going to do.
Speaker C: I am an author, and I’m going to act like an author.
Speaker C: But to the ADHD deadline, all of my friends were like, sam, it’s okay if the process with Ingram is making your timeline shift.
Speaker C: It makes your timeline shift change your deadline.
Speaker C: And I was like, absolutely the not.
Speaker B: Yeah, see mine with Ingram, because Ingram took.
Speaker B: And this is partially my fault.
Speaker B: KDP approved my files within hours.
Speaker B: I don’t even think it took a whole hour.
Speaker C: I was going to say it.
Speaker B: So then I didn’t know that it was going to take longer for Ingram, so I uploaded to Ingram, and it was mostly final files, but there was, like, something, like, the COVID was wrong.
Speaker B: And so then I go to upload.
Speaker B: I’m like, oh, here’s the new cover.
Speaker B: Like, a day later, and it’s like.
Speaker A: You can’t change anything.
Speaker B: And I’m like, what?
Speaker B: And then they unlock it before I’ve gotten my KDP proof, they unlock it.
Speaker B: So I upload the new version that I have already done on KDP in order to proof of, and then I get the proof.
Speaker B: So I upload it that morning to Ingram.
Speaker B: So, new three day timeline.
Speaker B: Yep.
Speaker B: And then I get the proof in from KDP, and I’m like, this font is weird.
Speaker B: I need to change the sizing of this, and now I have to wait three more freaking days, upload it to.
Speaker B: I’m like, I should have waited.
Speaker B: So next time, I know.
Speaker B: Get your proofs.
Speaker B: And, of course, I’m working on a series, so all the font sizes and stuff are going to be the same throughout the series, so I don’t have to really worry about it for this particular series, but for on future things, get your KDP stuff figured out first and get it final sizing and formatting and all of that, and then do the Ingram Spark version.
Speaker C: One submission, one and done.
Speaker C: Yes, I did the same thing.
Speaker C: And what frustrated me was, like I said, I’m doing the author things this time around.
Speaker C: I booked myself a week long writers retreat, like, two states away so that I wouldn’t be like, it was my first solo adventure.
Speaker C: I went all by myself.
Speaker C: I did the very main character thing and stayed in a cute little cabin.
Speaker B: In the woods with one bed and a random dude.
Speaker C: Yeah, there’s, like, a campfire outside, and I’m out there being a wilderness woman.
Speaker B: And then went to the local coffee.
Speaker C: Shop during the day to write my book.
Speaker C: And while I was there, I thought that I got everything real good and finalized.
Speaker C: I go back through something told me, go back in, and I had just gotten the eproof back from Ingram, and I thought it was perfect.
Speaker C: And something was like, go back in and look at that one more time.
Speaker C: And so I did.
Speaker C: And I realized that a bunch of, not a bunch, but six lines in separate poems got shifted ever so slightly to where part of the title was coming down into the poem.
Speaker B: Oh, no.
Speaker C: And I was like, what?
Speaker C: Oh, man.
Speaker C: And I fixed it and resubmitted it, and within the hour, girl.
Speaker C: They were like, okay, we got your proof.
Speaker B: And what did I just update?
Speaker B: I just updated something and it also approved.
Speaker B: Oh.
Speaker B: Because now I’ve approved the eproof.
Speaker B: So I updated the.
Speaker B: I don’t remember what I updated, but I updated something, and then it immediately approved it.
Speaker B: I’m like, why has it been taking so long this whole time?
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: My first one was five days.
Speaker C: The second one was three days.
Speaker C: That one was like 30 minutes.
Speaker C: And then I was like, okay, I’m going to re upload.
Speaker C: See what I also did this time.
Speaker C: I’ll show you.
Speaker C: You’ll be like, the first person that’s not in my household to see it.
Speaker B: But.
Speaker C: One of the other things I did is I purchased ten ISBN numbers.
Speaker B: Same.
Speaker B: Oh, my God.
Speaker C: It was such a thing for me.
Speaker C: Like, whenever I did it, I was in a coffee shop named poets.
Speaker C: Like, I’m very cliche.
Speaker C: I was in this coffee shop and I purchased them, and then I had an immediate kind of panic shutdown.
Speaker B: That was $300.
Speaker B: What did I do?
Speaker C: I really invested in myself.
Speaker C: Oh, my God.
Speaker C: And then, of course, the brain is, like, the audacity of you to believe in yourself this much.
Speaker B: This is hilarious.
Speaker B: So unlike you, and I’ve talked to a lot of authors that have done it the exact same way.
Speaker B: Just like, I’m just going to publish it and get it out there just so that it’s done.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: Right?
Speaker B: I took more of the stance of, I 100% want this entire thing.
Speaker B: My first book out of the shoot to 100% look like a traditional publisher did this.
Speaker B: So I started an LLC, which I had my accountant do back when we filed taxes at the beginning of the year, even knowing I wasn’t going to actually have a book out till the end of the year, so I already had my LLC.
Speaker B: I designed my LLC logo.
Speaker B: So, like, on the back of my spine, it has the little publishing house logo on there.
Speaker B: I bought my isbns, which I did a pack of ten, because if you’re doing more than, like, an ebook and a paperback, it doesn’t make sense to buy one or two.
Speaker B: But now my husband is getting ready to publish, and so we’re looking at, like, I’m like, I think I’m going to put out three more books next year, two novellas and a full length.
Speaker B: And I’m like, that’s going to use up the ten isbns that I bought.
Speaker B: When you count audio and ebook and paperback.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker B: I didn’t do hardback because I didn’t want to use another ISBN.
Speaker B: Who cares?
Speaker B: We’ll do special editions in hardback.
Speaker B: Whatever.
Speaker B: So me and my husband are talking about it.
Speaker B: I’m like, you’re going to put out.
Speaker B: He is a very slow writer.
Speaker B: He’s dyslexic.
Speaker B: And so his books take, and he’s also writing one that’s like twice the length of mine.
Speaker B: And so I’m like, what we’re going to do?
Speaker B: Because he has his own LLC with his own stuff for his own books.
Speaker B: And so I’m like, what we’re going to do is we’re going to go in and the family money is going to foot the bill for the 100 pack because the 100 pack is less than 600.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: So you could spend 600 and get 20 doing it the ten at a time way, or spend 600 and get 100 of them, and then we don’t have to worry about them.
Speaker B: They don’t expire.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker B: And then basically, like, your LLC needs to buy one from the family because we’re talking, like, big things of, he’s got, like, six books in the work right now.
Speaker B: I can only focus on one at a time, but he’s doing, like, six at a time.
Speaker B: And I’m like, at some point, all six of those are going to be done and you’re going to need all the.
Speaker B: Right, right.
Speaker B: It is very scary, though.
Speaker B: Every time the editor, that expense didn’t really hurt because I knew that was coming way ahead of time.
Speaker B: But every other thing, like the isbns was a giant hit at one time.
Speaker B: I paid someone for helping me advertise and grow my arc team.
Speaker B: That was a big hit at one time.
Speaker B: And then everything I have to buy for, like, I’m doing pr boxes and that was like $300 in cardboard, right?
Speaker B: Yeah, but they’re beautiful boxes.
Speaker B: I’m just like, oh, it hurts so bad every time you’re like, and there goes the money.
Speaker B: And you pray that people buy them so you get that back.
Speaker B: It’s a whole thing.
Speaker C: It’s a whole thing.
Speaker C: Yeah, I did that.
Speaker C: And then while I was there, I put in those provisions.
Speaker C: It came back so quick, and because it came back so quick, I was re uploading my cover with my own little.
Speaker C: Well, if it would focus.
Speaker B: Anyway, I didn’t even think to put that on the back cover.
Speaker C: So I’ve got a little guy back there.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: Mine’s like, I’ll show you mine.
Speaker B: So mine is like, perfect size for the.
Speaker B: Which no one’s going to be able to see this on the podcast, but I don’t care.
Speaker C: Yeah, that revision or that turnaround.
Speaker B: So that’s mine.
Speaker B: And then it’s also in, oh, I love.
Speaker B: And it says, my LlC is enchantments and fancies publishing.
Speaker B: And so that’s in the letters in the big e and the big f in the center.
Speaker B: It has enchantments and then fantasies on there.
Speaker B: So I designed that.
Speaker B: But mine’s, like, on the spine of the book.
Speaker C: It looks like a little tiny baby.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: So that would not have worked on yours.
Speaker B: No.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: Mine are like 90,000 word books, so they’re pretty thick.
Speaker B: Now, the next one up is supposed to be a novella, but we’ll see how many words it ends up.
Speaker B: But yeah, mine is just a little thing.
Speaker B: And I mean, it could be sized down or whatever, but I made sure that it was like, this is going to look, know if you looked at a Harper Collins book on the spine or a bloom books, I just wanted that little.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: So I’m like, I want people to be like, wait, you got published?
Speaker B: Like normal published?
Speaker B: No, I just want it to look that way.
Speaker B: And also, it’s way more work my way.
Speaker B: So yay me.
Speaker C: This is all for my viewing pleasure, really.
Speaker C: I just want to be able to look at my book and go, yeah, girl, you did look legit.
Speaker B: Did this.
Speaker C: Whenever I first got my very first proof in and saw the barcode on the back, and I was like, that’s a real barcode, and it’s mine.
Speaker B: I didn’t include the price on my barcode thing.
Speaker B: Like, it’s not included in there.
Speaker B: I don’t know if that makes a difference to anybody.
Speaker B: I think bookstores don’t like it if there’s no price, but I don’t care.
Speaker C: Gotcha.
Speaker C: I did on mine, but mostly only because if they go on sale, because then customers can be like, oh, I’m getting a deal.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: Well, I mean, it still shows, like, in the pricing on and I don’t know.
Speaker B: I honestly didn’t look at the one from Ingram.
Speaker B: It may have the price on there, because I put the price in the ISBN listing, and then it’s obviously on Ingram, so it might be on the Ingram one.
Speaker B: I know it’s not on the KDP one for sure.
Speaker B: But then I didn’t realize, when I was designing the COVID I didn’t realize that you didn’t have to leave the little, like, I thought you had to put a little white box there for them to put it into.
Speaker B: And then, like, get my first proof back from KDP for the eproof, not the actual physical proof.
Speaker B: And I’m like, why is there weird boxes over?
Speaker B: I deleted my box.
Speaker C: We live, we learn.
Speaker B: And then, of course, I noticed that on both proof or both cover templates, it’s like, don’t put anything in this space here.
Speaker B: And I’m like, oh, read.
Speaker B: Reading would be good.
Speaker C: I write real good.
Speaker C: But the reading comprehension.
Speaker B: At.
Speaker B: So first I did the KDP, and their template is pretty easy.
Speaker B: They send you it, and it’s in, like, a picture file format.
Speaker B: And I just uploaded that into canva and used the template there.
Speaker B: Same with.
Speaker B: I was originally going to use draft of digital for my paperbacks wide, and theirs was the same.
Speaker B: It was like a picture file that you downloaded and uploaded into canva.
Speaker B: And then I get Ingram Sparks, which is a PDF or a super fancy photo editing software file, which I don’t own or know how to use.
Speaker B: So what I had to do, I took a screenshot.
Speaker B: Actually, no, originally, I took a screenshot of the pdf and then saved it into canva formatted.
Speaker B: And then I realized that you could print the pdf to a jpEg.
Speaker B: That’s what I did the second time.
Speaker B: I was like, well, whoops, yeah, that’ll probably look better than the screenshotted version.
Speaker B: You live and you learn, though, if you’re doing it by yourself without.
Speaker B: I mean, I’ve talked to authors that have had publishing professionals hold their hand through it and tell them how to do all these things or whatever, but most of them, it’s like, hey, here’s a list of people that can help you design your cover, and here’s a list of people that can help you do this and that.
Speaker B: And I’m like, I’m trying to do it as cheap as possible, so I’m trying to do it on my own, where I paid an editor, because I can’t edit my own work.
Speaker B: I don’t know what’s wrong with it.
Speaker B: So I put the words on the page.
Speaker B: Someone needs to.
Speaker B: I used pro writing aid, but there’s other nuances that I don’t know.
Speaker B: And some of the things that she changed.
Speaker B: Pro writing aid didn’t know that that was a problem because I don’t know.
Speaker A: It’s weird.
Speaker B: Writing is weird.
Speaker C: Writing is weird.
Speaker C: Words are weird.
Speaker B: I told her when I saw what she was doing, she gave me, like, a list of, like, you should keep lookout for these in the future.
Speaker B: And I’m like, you know that I’m never going to remember all these things, right?
Speaker B: That’s why I pay someone who knows what they’re doing.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: I might remember one or two.
Speaker B: I don’t know.
Speaker C: It’s the remembering.
Speaker C: It’s the execution.
Speaker C: If you could just handle that for me.
Speaker C: I’m doing all of this over here.
Speaker B: But even paying an editor, and, I mean, I’ve read big five published books that I find grammatical errors in.
Speaker B: So now I’m narrating my own book, and I’m still finding issues.
Speaker B: So I’m like, my last upload will be fixing.
Speaker B: Like, here’s the final interior file with all the mistakes that I found, again, fixed.
Speaker B: Not a lot like, maybe one every other chapter.
Speaker B: I’m finding an issue where you’re like, that sentence doesn’t make sense because you used last night.
Speaker B: I’m editing through audio, and it was like, hair.
Speaker B: Hair.
Speaker B: She braided her hair.
Speaker B: Hair.
Speaker B: I’m like, maybe we’re going to remove one of those instances of hair.
Speaker C: Maybe we’ll take it out straight through this.
Speaker B: We were going to wash the dishes, so we washed the dishes.
Speaker B: Not exactly like that, but there was like one where they’re like washing the dishes, and it was like, wash something, something, wash.
Speaker B: And I’m like, why?
Speaker B: Why am I so weird?
Speaker C: Why are we fixated on this word?
Speaker C: Let’s let this.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Sam liked a creepy witch story growing up.
Speaker A: Today we’ll be reading a Grimms brothers story about a witch.
Speaker A: Sweetheart, Roland.
Speaker A: Sweetheart, Roland.
Speaker A: There was once upon a time a woman who was a real witch and had two daughters.
Speaker A: One ugly and wicked, and this one she loved because she was her own daughter, and one beautiful and good.
Speaker A: And this one she hated because she was her stepdaughter.
Speaker A: A stepdaughter once had a pretty apron, which the other fancied so much that she became envious and told her mother that she must and would have that apron.
Speaker A: Be quiet, my child, said the old woman, and you shall have it.
Speaker A: Your stepsister has long deserved death.
Speaker A: Tonight, when she’s asleep, I will come and cut her head off.
Speaker A: Only be careful that you were at the far side of the bed and push her well to the front.
Speaker A: It would have been all over with the poor girl if she had not just then been standing in a corner and heard everything.
Speaker A: All day long she dared not go out of doors.
Speaker A: And when bedtime had come, the witch’s daughter got into bed first, so as to lie at the far side.
Speaker A: But when she was asleep, the other pushed her gently to the front and took for herself the place at the back, close by the wall.
Speaker A: In the night, the old woman came creeping in.
Speaker A: She held an axe in her right hand and felt with her left to see if anyone were lying at the outside.
Speaker A: And then she grasped the axe with both hands and cut her own child’s head off.
Speaker A: When she had gone away, the girl got up and went to her sweetheart, who was called Roland, and knocked at his door.
Speaker A: When he came out, she said to him, listen, dearest Roland, we must fly in all haste.
Speaker A: My stepmother wanted to kill me, but has struck her own child.
Speaker A: When daylight comes and she sees what she has done, we shall be lost.
Speaker A: But, said Roland, I counsel you first to take away her magic wand, or we cannot escape if she pursues us.
Speaker A: The maiden fetched the magic wand, and she took the dead girl’s head and dropped three drops of blood on the ground.
Speaker A: One in front of the bed, one in the kitchen and one on the stairs.
Speaker A: Then she hurried away with her lover.
Speaker A: When the old witch got up next morning, she called her daughter and wanted to give her the apron, but she did not come.
Speaker A: Then the witch cried, where are you?
Speaker A: Here on the stairs.
Speaker A: I am sweeping, answered the first drop of blood.
Speaker A: The old woman went out, but saw no one on the stairs and cried again, where are you?
Speaker A: Here in the kitchen.
Speaker A: I am warming myself, cried the second drop of blood.
Speaker A: She went into the kitchen, but found no one.
Speaker A: Then she cried again.
Speaker A: Where are you?
Speaker A: Ah, here in the bed.
Speaker A: I am sleeping, cried the third drop of blood.
Speaker A: She went into the room to the bed.
Speaker A: What did she see there?
Speaker A: Her own child, whose head she had cut off, bathed in her blood.
Speaker A: The witch fell into a passion, sprang to the window, and as she could look forth quite far into the world, she perceived her stepdaughter hurrying away with her sweetheart.
Speaker A: Roland, that shall not help you.
Speaker A: Cried she.
Speaker A: Even if you’ve got a long way off, you shall still not escape me.
Speaker A: She put on her mini league boots, in which she covered an hour’s walk at every step.
Speaker A: And it was not long before she overtook them.
Speaker A: The girl, however, when she saw the old woman striding towards her, changed with her magic wand her sweetheart Roland into a lake and herself into a duck.
Speaker A: Swimming in the middle of it, the witch placed herself on the shore, threw breadcrumbs in, and went to endless trouble to entice the duck.
Speaker A: But the duck did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to go home at night as she had come.
Speaker A: At this, the girl and her sweetheart Roland resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole night until daybreak.
Speaker A: And the maiden changed herself into a beautiful flower, which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart Roland into a fiddler.
Speaker A: It was not long before the witch came striding up towards them and said to the musician, dear musician, may I pluck that beautiful flower for myself?
Speaker A: Oh, yes, he replied, I will play to you while you do it.
Speaker A: And as she was hastily creeping into the hedge and was just going to pluck the flower, knowing perfectly well who the flower was, he began to play.
Speaker A: And whether she would or not, she was forced to dance, for it was a magical dance.
Speaker A: The faster he played, the more violent springs was she forced to make.
Speaker A: And the thorns tore her clothes from her body and pricked her and wounded her till she bled.
Speaker A: And as he did not stop, she had to dance till she lay dead on the ground.
Speaker A: As they were now set free, Roland said, now I will go to my father and arrange for the wedding.
Speaker A: Then in the meantime, I will stay here and wait for you, said the girl, and that no.
Speaker A: 1 may recognize me.
Speaker A: I will change myself into a redstone landmark.
Speaker A: Then Roland went away, and the girl stood like a red landmark in the field and waited for her beloved.
Speaker A: But when Roland got home, he fell into the snares of another who so fascinated him that he forgot the maiden.
Speaker A: The poor girl remained there a long time, but at length, as he did not return at all, she was sad and changed herself into a flower, and thought, someone will surely come this way and trample me down.
Speaker A: It befell, however, that a shepherd kept his sheep in the field and saw the flower, and, as it was so pretty, plucked it, took it with him and laid it away in his chest.
Speaker A: From that time forth, strange things happened in the shepherd’s house.
Speaker A: When he arose in the morning, all the work was already done.
Speaker A: The room was swept, the table and benches cleaned, the fire in the hearth was lighted, and the water was fetched.
Speaker A: And at noon, when he came home, the table was laid and a good dinner served.
Speaker A: He could not conceive how this came to pass, for he never saw a human being in his house, and no one could have concealed himself in it.
Speaker A: He was certainly pleased with his good attendance.
Speaker A: But still, at last he was so afraid that he went to a wise woman and asked for her advice.
Speaker A: The wise woman said, there is some enchantment behind it.
Speaker B: Listen.
Speaker A: Very early some morning, if anything is moving in the room, and if you see anything, no matter what it is, throw a white cloth over it.
Speaker A: And then the magic will be stopped.
Speaker A: The shepherd did as she bade him.
Speaker A: And next morning, just as day dawned, he saw the chest open and the flower come out.
Speaker A: Swiftly.
Speaker A: He sprang towards it and threw a white cloth over it.
Speaker A: Instantly, the transformation came to an end, and a beautiful girl stood before him, who admitted to him that she had been the flower, and that up to this time she had attended to his housekeeping.
Speaker A: She told him her story, and as she pleased him, he asked her if she would marry him.
Speaker A: But she answered no, for she wanted to remain faithful to her sweetheart, Roland, although he had deserted her.
Speaker A: Nevertheless, she promised not to go away, but to continue keeping house for the shepherd.
Speaker A: And now the time drew near when Roland’s wedding was to be celebrated.
Speaker A: And then, according to an old custom in the country, it was announced that all the girls were to be present at it and sing in honor of the bridal pair.
Speaker A: When the faithful maiden heard of this, she grew so sad that she thought her heart would break and she would not go thither.
Speaker A: But the other girls came and took her.
Speaker A: When it came to her turn to sing, she stepped back, until at last she was the only one left.
Speaker A: And then she could not refuse.
Speaker A: But when she began her song, and it reached Roland’s ears, he sprang up and cried, I know the voice that is the true bride.
Speaker A: I will have no other.
Speaker A: Everything he had forgotten and which had vanished from his mind, had suddenly come home again to his heart.
Speaker A: Then the faithful maiden held her wedding with her sweetheart, Roland.
Speaker A: And grief came to an end and joy began.
Speaker A: Thank you for joining Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker A: Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion of Sam’s journey to holding her own fairy tale in her hands, and to hear another of her favorite fairy tales.
