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Overview
Saph Dodd has been writing for as long as she’s known how. Since she first picked up a pencil and learned to string sentences together, she’s been creating fantastic and intriguing stories.
This twenty-six-year-old writer adores reading, especially action-adventure, fantasy, and horror stories, as well as lore and mythology.
Her first novel, published when she was sixteen, spurred her to continue to do what she loves. Writing is her passion.
She lives in a small Tennessee town with her family: a younger sister, Jennifer, a constant source of inspiration, and supportive parents.
Book
https://www.jumpmasterpress.com/product-page/sovereign-fourth
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Transcript
Stephen: Today on Discovered Wordsmith, I have Saf Dodd. Saf, how are you doing today? I’m doing really well. How about you? I’m, I’m doing good. I’m not as pink as you are today.
Saph: Yeah. Pink is, it’s a takeover in here.
Stephen: Got it. Okay. So we know you like pink. Before we talk about your book, tell us about some other things about you, what you like to do outside of writing.
Saph: Well, shocker. I like to read. Okay. Mostly action, adventure, fantasy or horror, but I also I also do makeup. I’m a full time beauty specialist.
So like I, I do makeup looks a lot and I
Stephen: cause, Oh, nice. What’s your cosplay characters,
Saph: Ladybug from miraculous ladybug, Marinette from miraculous ladybug sailor moon, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, both versions and Cinderella. And a couple of characters from Bluey. That’s what I’ve got in my roster right now.
Stephen: Oh, nice! My daughter loves Miraculous Ladybug. Oh, yes, I love it. I actually know that one a little bit.
Saph: I actually got to meet the voice actress of Ladybug at Huntsville Pop Culture Expo when I was there to sign books.
Stephen: Oh, nice! Yeah, that’s always fun to do. There’s been a lot more of those in recent years.
I think it’s a good change in the culture that there’s so much of this available. So tell us where do you live? And if there’s anything really cool about where you live. Well,
Saph: I live in Nashville, so it’s Nashville, Tennessee. To music city, I guess, like, I’ve lived here all my life and it doesn’t seem like it’s that cool.
But, like, I guess, like, everybody moves here to get big and country
Stephen: music. I can relate. I live near Cleveland, the rock and roll capital. I’ve only been to the 1 time. So, yeah. Nice. All right. So why did you wanna start writing, and then what made you wanna write this book? Okay, so
Saph: I have literally been writing for as long as I know how, I knew how I started at a very early age, just writing stories down in notebooks and stuff because I, I, and I, I would excuse me.
I would try to, I would tell stories to my mom before I knew how to write. And then, like, when I learned to write, I was like, this is so cool. Now I can put my ideas down. And, you know, there wasn’t much structure to it because I was a really young, but it’s built, it’s built into something more of a, more of like a craft that I do.
And I, I started writing because, like, I felt it in me. I knew that I needed to, like, I was always destined to write. And this particular novel was really hard for me because I wrote it to eat, like, because I wrote it to get through my grief over losing someone very close to me. That’s why the main core themes in Sovereign Fourth are lost in grief.
So I wrote that to help me kind of move on and cope. It’s dedicated to my uncle.
Stephen: That’s a that’s a coping mechanism. That’s a way recommended is writing your feelings, writing things down and channeling that into a story is, I guess you could look at it as taking the bad thing and putting it into something good.
Yeah.
Saph: And then it became my debut album. I
Stephen: know a lot of people do. Nice, nice. I do like that you have been telling stories since you were young. That’s one of the things I’ve been working on talking to parents about is, you know, our kids should tell stories. Our kids should learn to tell stories more so at the beginning than spelling or grammar because that will come and that’s exactly what you’ve done.
You’ve told stories and now you’re writing stories and now you’ve written a book.
Saph: I’ve always had an insane imagination.
Stephen: Describe insane imagination. I love that description. What do you mean by insane imagination? I
Saph: am so full of ideas, like to the brim. I’m always like, I work on, I’m working on 2 projects right now, mainly, but I also have 3 other side projects, you know, like. I’ve always got something if I get bored with one thing, I can move to the other and then I’m still being
Stephen: productive.
Nice. Great. All right, so we’re going to talk about your book Sovereign Fourth. Tell us a little bit about it as much as you want to give away. Okay. Well,
Saph: It is about dragons and dragon riders. And it’s set in a kingdom, or an empire rather and reminiscent of ancient China and ancient Japan.
So a lot of the culture is far eastern. They, they were kimonos and, you know, Juntos, stuff like that, like the traditional rare Han Fus. And so I did a lot of research, a lot of research so that I could build this world properly. And I didn’t want the regular, like, the usual medieval kingdom setting for dragons.
I wanted something different and I figured that this hadn’t been done before. So, as far as I knew, it hadn’t been done before. So it was like, well, you know, I could do it this way. And it’s, it’s like. A lot of the themes are grief and floss, of course, but then there’s also a lot of action, a lot of adventure.
And there’s found family. You know, some people really like that genre. But, yeah, it’s, it was like, that’s I don’t I don’t know how else to say about it. I’m sorry.
Stephen: I’ve never been interviewed before. So did you do any, that’s fine. Did you do any research into what types of dragons there are in Chinese mythology as opposed to.
Saph: I did, I did, and I decided to stick with your typical picture picture of dragons because I wanted them to have wings. And dragons, like, in ancient China did not have wings. They were serpent, like, and there are dragons in the universe that I write that are like that. There are different species of dragons.
It’s just the most common 1 is the 1 that has 4 legs and 2 weeks.
Stephen: I got it. So you kind of made it your own. Yeah. Okay. And so the. You said it’s got dragons. It’s medieval. What’s the basic story? Is it someone trying to take over a kingdom or what’s going on in the story? Okay.
Saph: So it starts with 10 month, the main character, and she’s a little girl and she witnesses the death of her mother.
And then. Like for her entire life her dragon has been watching her from afar. She does not know she’s a dragon rider But her dragon Artemis has watched her grow up because dragons and dragon riders cannot be super separate or they will feel it and it’ll be very upsetting and very distressful for them.
So, you know, Tenma’s father agreed to let Artemis stay in the woods outside of their house so that he could watch Tenma. And one night, there’s a fire, and Tenma’s sister Mira and her father Miros appear to have not made it. Tenma run, like, she sees somebody in the house while she’s trying to get to her father’s room, so she runs back upstairs and it ends up, she gets thrown out of a window, and that’s how Her dragon was able to save her.
Now she is the sovereign, which is the conduit to the God of lightnings, the conduit to the God of lightning. And she was chosen at birth and her father wanted to keep her from that. So he would, he didn’t allow any of that to be part of her life. And then, but when he passed away, she was brought to the Capitol where the court wizard Lasan.
Is going to train her to like, harness the power of hero, learn magic, and some sword fighting. So she becomes the court wizard’s apprentice. There are really, like, I love my cast of characters, but I’m a little biased. There’s a Lynx demon who is my favorite. They’re called Sabellans, and Sabellans used to be animals that are demons that turned into humans.
And so he has cat ears and a cat tail and he’s 1 of my favorites to write about. He’s very snarky, very smart alecky, very, you know, aloof into and then they’re my 2nd favorite character is Katania. She is a seer and she, like, there’s, she’s part of the elite guard and so she’s like a rank above 10 month, but she’s always been like, a mother figure to 10 months since she came there.
And this book is about her learning how to harness this power and also losing a lot of people that she loves. You know, there’s a lot of, I wouldn’t say I’m James R or George RR Martin levels, but I do, I don’t shy away from character death because I feel, but I always want to make it mean something.
I don’t just kill characters because I want to, I want to make it mean something, their death that can progress
Stephen: the story further. Okay, and. So this seems a very deep book. It’s not, is it, is it like YA or what genre level would you put it at? Like, I,
Saph: I don’t want to say YA because I know that there are like 13 year olds that are included in YA.
Like, a lot, like, it does touch on some troubling subjects, like human trafficking and stuff like that. So, there’s nothing explicit in it, but I think it’s more for an audience of 16 to 27 year olds, you know. Is more of my target audience. And I’m not sure what that’s called, but that’s,
Stephen: well, I think there’s a, there’s the new adult genre, but that a lot of time is drama, not fantasy.
I, I have a problem with some of our designations. Cause like YA is more of a demographic, not a genre, you know, there’s horror in YA, there’s romance in YA, you know? So it’s, so this is like why YA or new adult fantasy is what it sounds like. That sounds
Saph: cool. Yeah,
Stephen: it’s that’s something to check
Saph: out.
Yeah, for sure. But like,
Stephen: I’m sorry. We got a bit of a lag. I apologize. Go ahead and finish what you were saying.
Saph: I just, I’ve put like, and every, almost every character mentioned in the book, even side characters have like a full fleshed out backstory that I only have. So I started a Patreon to start posting that stuff, but you know, like I nice.
Stephen: Yeah, what were you gonna say? I was going to ask if you’ve ever read the Dragon Riders of Pern series.
Saph: I have I read them when I was very young. Okay. And that’s what got my interest in dragons started. I loved all of Anne McCaffrey’s books. So she,
Stephen: Actually, it’s funny, I got a… Sorry, I got a buddy that loves those books.
I couldn’t get into them as much. There’s other fantasy I do read, but for some reason I just couldn’t get into Dragonriders.
Saph: It’s a unique genre. And, like, I, I love, I took a little bit of inspiration from them because the different types of dragons are different colors. So, like, Artemis, Temma’s dragon is a bronze dragon, which is one of the, he’s the last bronze dragon.
So, and they’re very large, so they’ve different size, shape and
Stephen: color. Okay. Have you run across the Dragon Lance series? I have not that you might want to check that 1 out. It is a wizards of the coast. So it’s associated with Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, it started as Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. But it’s a world the world when the books start don’t have dragons, but the whole First trilogy is all about the dragons coming back and there’s a war.
So that’s one of my favorite fantasy So check Dragonlance out. Yeah for sure. What’d you say? It was called again Dragonlance Series, the first one is dragons of autumn twilight
Used to be some of my favorite fantasy when I was younger
So I’m sorry. Yeah, go ahead. What type of feedback are you getting? What type of feedback are you getting for your books?
I’m
Saph: mostly positive and I’m really happy about that. I don’t think I’ve gotten a bad review yet, but, you know, someone might have not liked it and just not reviewed it. I know, like, I know that there’s always room for improvement, you know.
You never stopped honing your craft. Always.
Stephen: Yeah. Yeah.
Saph: So but it’s been getting pretty positive feedback. I went to, I was invited to sign books at Pop Culture Expo in Huntsville last April. And I sold out of my
Stephen: novel there. That’s amazing. That’s awesome.
Great. So if you had a choice, would you like to see this book turned into a movie or a TV show? TV
Saph: show, because I think that if the people who did Game of Thrones and stuff like that got a hold of it, it could be something really great because I don’t know, I feel like movies, you have to cut out, you have to cut out stuff in movies and like, I don’t know, I need like, lose the creative license when you do that.
It’s like, If I, if it was going to be turned into some kind of media, I’d like it to be an either an anime or a TV show because there I can, I have say so and stuff like that.
Stephen: Right? I’d, I’d love to have more really good anime fantasy. Yes. So do you have a website that people can go to. I
Saph: don’t have a website.
I have a Facebook page. It’s just SAF do. Okay. And I have a Patreon as well. Just if anybody was interested in that. It’s, I post backstories chapters, pictures of characters that I’ve done. I put like in the, also the journey of publishing. I try to show a little bit on there. I, it’s, it’s still brand new, but.
I do have lots of plans for it. I’ve got this this month’s bonus chapter is already finished. I just have to edit it.
Stephen: Okay, great. We’ll make sure and put a link in the show notes for that. Thank you. So, do you have plans for a book? You mentioned you have a couple of projects. Do you have plans for a book to in this series?
Or what are some of your other books coming up?
Saph: Okay, so this series, has 3 books, 3 installments. The 2nd, 1 is being edited right now. So hopefully be released by sometime. Beginning of next year. And I am working on another project that I’m going to take to a publisher that is, is Rumpelstiltskin meets Prince and the Popper.
And if you don’t know, like do you know Rumpelstiltskin? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, do you know the Prince at the Popper? Like the two that look to the same and soft places? Of course. Okay. So the idea, yeah. Is that rumple still skin? Was promised a firstborn child if he spun gold is drawn to gold for this woman and this woman Was desperate because she was going to be killed if she didn’t spin the straw into gold.
So she took the deal and Whenever she made she marries the king and gets pregnant, you know, it will still skin shows up again and tells her he that’s what he wants And she has the baby, it turns out there’s twins, one has golden hair, one has brown hair like their mother, and Rumpelstiltskin shows up at the christening to take the baby, and he’s like, I know that this one is the firstborn, because I cursed you to have, for your firstborn to have hair like the gold that you so desperately needed.
And so he takes the girl and names her Lena. And he deals in names and names, or if you take someone’s name, it makes them go insane. And so he deals in names and he says, he tells Lena that he got his her name from the sun goddess because of her hair. And, you know, skip forward, Lena is now on a pirate ship.
And I’m working as an herbalist for the pirates. And she ends up back in the kingdom where she was born. Her sister finds her and then they talk and they explain each other’s lives and what happened. And then they swap places for a year. And that story is the story of Laina trying to get through learning how to be royalty and not blowing her cover.
And she ends up like her cover gets blown in the first five minutes by one person who is it’s Ellenway, her sisters. Private tutor and he’s blind. So he’s like, I’ve heard Ellen. We’s voice every day for 10 years. I know that’s not you. So who are you? And so he said, she tells him his, and then he helps her learn how to be a princess.
And then the rest of it’s like, there is action and stuff like, you know, rumble. So it’s getting wants to get her back. But you know, that’s
Stephen: the gist. Nice. Okay. And when do you have a plans for that to come out? What’s the hope?
Saph: It is in the editing process right now, and I’m not sure I’m going to go to the same publisher.
I’m thinking about going to another literary agent and you know, like, querying the manuscript. Because I’d like to have representation. And hopefully get it to a nice publisher, you know, my publisher is great. It really is. It’s just, they don’t have they don’t have a lot of the resources that. A bigger publishing company would so, like, I’m paying for all my own ads and stuff like that.
So. If
Stephen: I got just a warning, just a warning that may not change with different publishers, my understanding they only do so much and only for the biggest. 1, so you may not see any change. Yeah,
Saph: but it would be nice to, like, be able to go to books a million and see a copy of my book there.
Stephen: That’s true.
Very true. Okay. So let me ask you do you, who are some of your favorite authors? Some of your favorite books? We’ve mentioned a couple already, but what are some of your favorites?
Saph: This this series, it’s the, it’s the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, who is my favorite author of all time. And this is my favorite book from that series.
It’s basically just like fairy tales retold in a sci fi setting. So I enjoy, I enjoy stuff like that. I enjoy, obviously I enjoy fairy tale retellings, but I’m also really like I’m trying, I’m drawing a blank. I’m sorry. They wrote the the Kelly Armstrong. That’s who I’m thinking of. Yeah. Kelly Armstrong.
She wrote a series, like a couple of series about supernatural stuff. So. I really like her, too, but Marissa Meyer, she’s
Stephen: got it. Okay. And do you where you live in Nashville? Do you have a favorite bookstore in the area that you like to go to
Saph: the books? A million out here is really great. I like going there.
And I also like, there’s this little, I live in a little town outside of Nashville. So, like, there’s this little bookstore that’s like, locally owned and I love going there.
Stephen: Okay, what did you know what it’s called? Oh, great reading rock books. Okay. I’ve got a couple of friends that actually live in the area. So, I wonder how many. Yeah. All right. So, and before we talk about some other stuff. If you’re walking down the street and somebody wasn’t into music, but they were into books and they said you wrote a book, why should I get your book and read it?
What would you tell them?
Saph: Because it has heart. And it does deal with some heavy subjects that I feel like, aren’t talked about enough. So, you know, I don’t shy away from the difficult subjects as a matter of fact, I seem to
Stephen: towards them and that’s actually a noticeable and a good thing with your generation.
There’s been a lot more understanding a lot more awareness of mental health and and the. Pitfalls and the problems and not just ignoring it and not the stigma that lots of people have an issue. And it may be a temporary thing. It may be for just a little while because of certain things you know, but it’s definitely better from, like, before me, the boomer generation.
Down to you. You know, my kids generation. There’s definitely a difference in how the mental health issues are handled. So I think your generation could definitely be applauded for your much more understanding of that and awareness of it.
Saph: Yeah, it is a lot better than it was 50 years ago.
Stephen: Yeah. Well, 50 to 80 years ago. Yeah. 50 years ago was not too long ago for me. So let me ask you, Sav you’ve written some books, you’ve got some you’re working on. What are some things that you’ve learned that you’re doing different now than when you first started?
Saph: I learned that I’m a teller instead of a shower.
So I’ve been really working on Like bettering my not, not having passive voice, not having too much telling more showing, you know it’s really hard because I’m a very descriptive writer. So it like I want to describe the person as tall, muscular, well, you know, well built, something like that. I, it’s very hard for me not to use descriptive words and to just like, if he’s tall, he has to duck to get in the room, you know what I mean?
So like, I, I’m, I’m struggling with that a little bit, but I am getting better. And so I feel like that’s my main skill that I’m working on right now and I’m doing that differently. Also the publishing process, like, I, before I went into this, had no idea what it was like. So I’m doing more like to advocate for myself, you know, and my writing.
Stephen: Okay. So you mentioned a publisher and you know, hoping to get a different bigger and that type of thing. And what, what our topic is that we decided we were going to talk about was earnings for an author. And what, what that currently is, what it could be, why maybe it should change and that type of thing.
So why did you want to talk about that topic? Let’s start there.
Saph: Well I just feel like I see people like self publishing on Amazon all the time, and that’s great. I’m glad I used to self publish on Amazon. You know, I would have an editor look over my work and I’d do that. But it’s like if you publish on Amazon, then your ebook is free.
So like. You’re not getting paid anything for people to consume. Well, I, that is, that’s how it was when I was on Amazon, when I would self publish on Amazon,
Stephen: put it in Kindle
Saph: unlimited. I don’t think so. I, I just, I just I would like, it’s been a while. I would just upload it to the Kindle direct publishing site and then it would be reviewed for 12 hours and then it would be posted.
But because it was published on Amazon, they all every time I published a book on Amazon, they always put it on the Kindle for free. So,
Stephen: okay, well, maybe that’s part of the problem because. That has never been true that it’s forced to free. In fact, it’s difficult to get your things taken for free.
Did you have it listed somewhere else for free first? I did not. That’s interesting because I mean, I’ve got my book up there right now and my ebook is 3 and my print book is 10 and you can set your price for your ebook through Amazon. Now, if you’re in Kindle Unlimited, it’s free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers, but you get paid per page read.
Oh, okay.
Saph: See, I didn’t know any of that. Like, I didn’t have anybody to explain it to me about Amazon. So I was just desperately searching for a publisher that would take Sovereign Fourth and. You know, the publisher that I was jump master and they’re great. They’ve taken really good care of me, but, you know, like, once my contract goes up with them, I’m probably going to take time from 4th to another publisher just to, you know, like, and they’ve already talked to me about it.
They said that that was fine because the rights are only being borrowed right now. And, you know, I just feel like. It could get more recognition and maybe like, and I feel like people don’t value people’s writing. Like, it’s not like, it’s not like I agree with important skill. I agree with that. Yeah, but like, I don’t if we didn’t have creative voices in the world, imagine how it would be.
You know, and I like you put your work, you put your, you pour your heart and soul into your work. And then it’s like, you only get like a couple of dollars less for every copy sold. So like, and I know that they have to do it that way because they’re a small publisher and they only make, you know, they can’t, they have to make their ends meet too.
But one day I would like to be a full time author. Be able to live off of it.
Stephen: Well, just to understand that if you have an agent and you go to like random house or something that you’ll get a small advance like a thousand dollars or 5, 000 and then when you’re all done with the book, you might get another thousand to 5, 000 and then they will sell the book until they’ve earned that money back and you won’t get any more money.
For sales until after that fact. And most from my understanding, most authors don’t even make back their, their royalties from that. So I’m just not trying to burst your bubble. I’m just setting expectations that even if you get signed with Penguin or random house or something, it’s not just going to be some big check that you’re suddenly going to get.
And they only do so much. They, they, they take an even bigger percentage of royalties. So for like a 10 book, you might only get 40 cents for everyone that’s sold after you pay out on your advance. So just making you aware and anyone else listening that that’s really how it works and you’re still expected to do your own marketing and like to get on podcasts and to do things like that.
So. And you did touch upon a pet peeve of mine, though, that for music, cause I’m a musician and for writing is that you practice as a musician for years, you go through lessons, you practice, you play, you just spend all this time perfecting your skill. And then you come out with music and people say, well, I’m not going to pay for that because they, like you said, don’t value the skill that it took, or they come out, you come out with this album.
That’s an amazing album. People are like, eh, you could have done better. And that’s not really, and they don’t have any understanding of the skill, what it takes and the same with writing, you know, most books now are 15 to 20. Hardbacks are 25, 30. And people are like, Oh, I’m not paying that for a book. It’s like, but really this book, it costs as much as a movie ticket.
And a movie ticket is for two hours. And this book will last you for like six to eight hours of entertainment. So I don’t people’s thinking on that. It is annoying. But like you said Jumpmaster and many of the other publishers do help out and help get some of that out there. I know I, I thought Jumpmaster had a wonderful booth at the scares that care that I was a part.
So you do get that benefit. Have you ever looked into not just self publishing, but selling your book through your website?
Saph: I don’t have a website. I just have a Facebook page and a Patreon.
Stephen: That’s, you know, Patreon too. That’s just some, an option you have as an independent author is being able to take your book and having the website, put it on the website. So if I put my print book on the website for 10, I’m plus shipping. Don’t count shipping for a minute, but it’s 10. I would make more by printing the book myself and selling it, then putting it on Amazon and letting them print and sell it.
And have you ever heard of book funnel book? What book funnel? No, I haven’t. Well, there’s another thing for you to mark down with book funnel. You can actually offer your ebook. For sale and it’s directly from you. So you can send people to your, your book funnel page and they can buy the book at the ebook and get it onto their Kindle to read without going through Amazon or Cobo or anything.
So something to check out. Yeah,
Saph: I just typed it in the browser so I can go there When Frankie went off the call.
Stephen: Right. There we go. So when you were doing your first book did you find an editor or did your publisher get an editor and edit?
Saph: Well, I did both. I have an editor that edits all of my work and he like, he’s great.
And then I had, I had him edit the manuscript first. And then when I was satisfied with how it was, I sent it to the publisher and then the publisher went through a few times with me and we agreed or disagreed on changes. That’s so I’ve, I’ve done both.
Stephen: Okay, and that’s 1 of the things personally that I like about being independent is I can find and choose an editor myself, but it is 1 of the costs that publishers quite often take on.
So, that’s, you know, they, they compensate that through slightly lower royalties to.
Saph: Yeah, no, I understand and I’m not like, I’m not like, salty about it or anything. But like I said, I am trying to make
Stephen: exploring your options as an independent author.
Saph: And I’m trying to, I’m trying to get it to where I can one day make a living off my writing because that would be a
Stephen: dream come true.
And, and that’s actually, I mean, I totally agree and applaud and think you should. You’re young and you’re still starting out writing. So, okay, I’ve written a book. I have a publisher. I’m going to try another publisher. I might try and publish something myself. Or I have done that. I might try and put something on my own website.
You know, you’ve got all these options to explore. It’s figuring out what works best for you with, you know, what you’re offering. I know there’s one author that I met at a conference. She did a talk and she doesn’t write just books. What she does is. She writes serial fiction that’s only released on her website and you have to pay to get access to it and every day from January 1st to July 1st, every day.
She posts a new chapter, a new section of the story and it continues for those 6 months and people pay to read it every single day. And then she compiles it into a book and sells it at the end of the year. So that’s a total different way of selling a book and promoting a book. But then, you know, those are the options you get in today’s publishing world, which I think is great.
I love that. That’s one of the reasons I’m so attracted to it. Yeah. You know, you’re not selling your book. I, I’ve, I’ve been, I worked for myself for many years and I hear people all the time saying, oh, my book’s not selling. And my response is always, well then figure out how to sell it. I mean, that’s your option.
That’s your, you own that. So, you know, if it’s, if you don’t want to spend the time marketing, you don’t want to spend the time figuring out that stuff, then your best bet is to find a publisher and sign on with them and let them handle that you get less money, but you also have less work. Well,
Saph: you’re right.
And I, I knew all that because I did like, self published before I went to jump master and I’m even promoting stuff now and like it, you know, it’s always good. So, like, always be your own hype man. And my mom, my mom is a great handler. She got me on the radio and everything. Whenever we went to school, like.
Stephen: So, wait, so how did you get on the radio? What, what would you do? What was that like? Well, it was
Saph: a local radio station that had a video camera and a guy coming up with a microphone, just kind of checking off the call. And my mom grabbed them and pulled them over to the Jumpmaster booth and she grabbed my arm and she’s like, This is a published author and she’s selling her book here today.
It’s like, mom.
Stephen: Nice. Nice. So did they talk to you and did you have a good time with that?
Saph: Yes, I did. It was very fun. I was so nervous cause I was put on the spot, but I think I did
Stephen: okay. Good. But that’s, you know that’s part of the reason I do this podcast is to give new authors a chance to get on a podcast to talk about their book and kind of figure out what they want to say.
That’s part of the, You know, because there’s not a lot of podcasts, not a lot of avenues out there for a brand new author to get an interview or something, unless you’re paying for it. So I just, that’s why I did this. I wanted to have that avenue.
Saph: Thank you. Okay. My battery is running low. I need to go get my charger.
It might,
Stephen: it might just, no, I think we’re coming. We’re coming to a close here pretty quick. So, I I’ve loved talking to you. I think your book sounds great. I love the fantasy before we go and you get disconnected. Do you have any other advice for new authors?
Saph: You can’t just, it’s finished the book.
That’s what I have to say is like, you can edit a bad book, but you can’t wait. If you have nothing, then there’s nothing that you can do. So like, don’t be a disgrace, even if it’s, even if you write it and you feel like it’s awful. Finish it because you can,
Stephen: yeah, I agree. And I think people need to write a lot more to figure out what really is good for their writing.
Yeah. Sometimes write one book and yeah. Yes. Yeah. Right. And that’s why you wrote, right? Exactly. All right, Saf. I appreciate you jumping on and talking today. Your book sounds great and I wish you luck on it. Thank you. Thank you.
Saph: I appreciate you having me. It was great to meet you.