I always get great feedback from authors who are in my newsletter about you all, but this week I got the nicest note thanking me for what you all did, and I ask the author if she’d like to thank you herself. She definitely wanted to and also wanted to offer you something, so here she is:
Dear Readers,
Remember me? I’m the author Jessie told you about last month who lost a bunch of subscribers on her YouTube channel. All it took was a few kind words from her and you all rallied around me and subscribed to my channel. Some of you gave my books a listen AND shared sweet words of encouragement on YouTube.
Your kindness and support last month warmed my heart more than I can say. I was encouraged to push even harder to achieve my author goals.
This month I organized a YouTube giveaway with nine other authors. As my subscriber count continued to rise, all I could think about was all of you! I wanted each of you who supported me last month to have just as much of an opportunity to win one of the three prizes as anyone else
So, I reached out to Jessie, and now I’m talking to you! Three different winners will each receive a $25 Amazon gift card and three eBooks donated by our sponsoring authors.
Entering the giveaway will automatically add you to my mailing list, but you’re not required to stay there in order to win! That’s not the point of sharing this giveaway with you.
The point is to say a great big thank you to you AND Jessie for your kindness last month and always!
I sure hope one of you win.
Blessings,
Kristen Iten
Jessie again! : )
Kristen is the such a sweet person. I went through a rough time a few years ago and Kristen and her critique partner went out of their way to let me know they were standing beside me, in a kind and loving way. It was such an encouragement to me to know that I wasn’t alone.
Jay has the final installment of Christmas Car Kerfuffle up on his channel today. Check it out – and if you’ve been waiting for the entire book to be available, today’s the day!
I also have my new latest book (with the correct link) up for preorder and a book by a new author, Emma Lynn Mae. I haven’t read it, but it’s only $.99 so you might want to check it out. : )
I will answer a few more questions:
What is the hardest book you’ve ever written? I love the longer books you write! – Joey
Well, I suppose the hardest book I ever wrote was A Marriage of Convenience in the Show Me State. There were a lot of hard things going on in my life, both my author life and my real life, plus, I was dealing with some kind of exhaustion, which made finishing the book extremely difficult.
But if you’re talking about which story was the most difficult to work out…that was probably Preacher’s story, The Cowboy’s Secret Romance. I had teased his story in previous books, but I had no idea of what it actually was. Coming up with a plot and romance that fit everything I had said about it was kind of hard, and it didn’t turn out the way I had thought it would.
What is the story with you and Jay? How did you two get together to do audio books? – Mary
Ha. Jay has his side of the story, but mine is: I was looking for a narrator to do my Sweet Water series. ACX, the place where you upload your audios for Audible, has a place where narrators can have a homepage and put samples up and have a little bio, tell about any awards, etc. Authors can search through the narrators, filtering by male or female, accent, language and a host of other things.
Every spare minute I had in the spring of 2019, I was looking at those narrators, listening to their samples, and making a list of the ones I thought might work for me.
I had a pretty long list, but I hadn’t found anyone who seemed just right. My prayer was that God would send me the perfect narrator, but it just didn’t seem like there was going to be one who checked all my boxes.
I did check out other sweet romance authors and listened to the narrators they were using. A lot of their narrators also did (very) spicy romance, too, and while I could see how some of their voices would appeal to listeners, the idea of working with a narrator who did a lot of spicy romance made me uncomfortable.
So, one day I was sitting on the floor of my room, and I came across Jay’s page. I think he had five or six samples up. Now, many of you have heard Jay, and I know you’re going to be able to imagine this with no problem. He had a sample of Tom Sawyer. I listened and was SO impressed. Amazing. (You guys will have to ask him to do a sample and put it up on Say with Jay.) Just crazy good.
Then, Jay had a sample of Sherlock Holmes. Hmm. Could there be two more different types of literature? He did it with a British accent and, again, I was just floored at how good he was – and how crazy talented he was to be able to do both.
I can’t remember what his other samples were, but I knew if he could do Tom Sawyer and Sherlock Holmes, he could do my little books. I knew immediately that I had found my guy if he would have me, and I threw my list of a hundred other narrators away.
So, it was a little nerve-wracking trying to figure out what to say (I was afraid he might recoil from doing romance, because some of his samples were sci-fi and fantasy and I figured those were the genres that interested him), but I typed up a message and sent it thought ACX.
He responded fast, which was another plus (so many authors have worked with narrators who don’t communicate well, and that is really one of Jay’s many strengths), and he seemed interested. I think he offered to do a sample, but I didn’t need one – I just wanted him to say yes!
So I think he said he was just finishing up a project and could start in the next week or so, and I was ecstatic that I had just gotten the best narrator in the world to agree to do my Sweet Water series, and I wanted to get him a contract and pay him right away and hoped that no one else would steal my narrator away. I think I managed to have a little bit of decorum, but Jay was definitely a God-send and an answer to prayer. I can’t imagine my audios without his voice. Not only that, but it’s been a true blessing to get to work with someone who I have been able to watch grow closer to the Lord, who prays for me, who desires to do right, who has taken some huge leaps of faith, trusting God to take care of him. He’s inspired me in my Christian walk over and over.
From the moment I heard Jay, I knew immediately that he was the answer to my prayer, but I didn’t realize that it wasn’t just his narration skills that would be such a huge blessing to me and to our listeners. It’s crazy because over the years I’ve had SO many people email me and tell me that listening to Jay soothed their anxiety, gave them hope, made their problems fade for a bit, that his voice calmed them, and created worlds that felt so real. He’s helped people through cancer, depression, anxiety, death and sickness and loss. I had no clue when I first heard him that he would be a blessing to so many. God knew. And that’s what I mean when I say Jay was a God send.
Alright, thanks for spending time with me today!
Hugs and love,
Jessie ❤️