Cead Fáilte
Welcome back to another episode of Crann na beatha Short Stories and Poetry
I am Terrance Ó Domhnaill, your village scéalaí, returning again this week with more stories and poems from authors around the world.
This week, I have three stories for everyone
We continue with part 2 of that Bulgarian tale about a girl and dragons. Then, another episode of The gravediggers of Orpheus, and a scary techno thriller called The Suff, which apparently is a urban legend on Substack these days with other writers posting stories about this character.
So gather round once more and let me read to you under the shade of the crann na beatha, the tree of life.
I am starting to enter into a new phase leading up to the New Year at the end of October. I finally made up my mind on how I want to change things up to help me manage my time better throughout the work week.
I will be combining this podcast with my other one, The Village Oak Tree, starting on November first in line with the Celtic new year. I had determined a few months ago that what I have been doing every week wasn’t sustainable for me over the long run and I needed to think about the best way to manage all of this.
I came to the conclusion this week that drawing down a little was the only thing I could do it and still maintain the relationships I have with the writers and WAA Radio.
My plan is to put everything under one umbrella, The Village Oak Tree, and see how things work out. If it is still too much, such as keeping me from doing the other things I have on my to do list, I will slow it down even more but that remains to be seen.
I do enjoy reading the stories and poems for everyone. That is the easy part, the reading. Then I have to edit and that is the bulk of the work that takes up nearly a whole day to create the final podcast, get it posted, then write the newsletters and post to social media.
I still like to create news commentary and interview people as well but I think that part of my media company will slow way down. Reading stories and poems will become my primary podcast material.
My intent is to free up more of my time to finish writing my books. I didn’t know how much was involved in writing books until I ventured down that path last year. That adventure has cost me a lot of money (And I am still spending) to get a book published, with a good cover design, proof reading (Something I just found out I need) and marketing, which in itself is a big expense and leg work.
Who knew back in early 2023, when I decided to self-publish my story, Fugitives in a New United States, that it would cost me so much in time and money way beyond just setting my story on digital paper.
They say that you learn your lessons on the first go around and it gets better going forward. I certainly hope so. I have contacted an indie publishing company this week that I hope will be good to work with. I have heard so many horror stories from other authors about their efforts to publish their books that I am very leery now. I don’t want to get taken advantage of, like Danielle Orsino did, whom I interviewed a couple of weeks ago.
I have had a LinkedIn account for many years because of my former vocations. When I started writing, I redid my profile to reflect my new writing career. Here lately, I have been inundated with young people from the U.S., and central — west Africa trying to get me to ‘hire’ them to digitally market my book.
I obviously politely said no thank you. I understand that this kind of work is a good work from home gig, if you can get the clients, but I am not going to put my trust in anyone I don’t know or can not verify on the internet. Especially when we are talking about several hundred dollars for dubious services.
I am also dubious about someone who tries to low-ball me for services as that might be a sign that they are not who they say they are. I am looking at someone right now that looks a little fishy to proof read my book.
That is something I am learning about LinkedIn of late. It used to be website for professional people to network on. A search for reputable companies that may be hiring and so on. Now, I think it may have gone to the dogs. It seems to be full of possible scammers these days. I have never been flooded with so many people sending me messages wanting me to hire them to work on my book and they with nothing but a profile on LinkedIn.
This all started when I had a reader leave a review on Amazon last month stating that there are lots of grammar and spelling errors that distracted from the story. So, now I am looking for a professional proof reader to scrub the manuscript for me so I can make any corrections and resubmit to my book distributors.
I worked so hard with Suzy Jacobson Cherry when she offered her expertise in editing this book in the beginning. Now, I feel bad that I have to scrub it again just to make sure. Sorry Suzy, if you read this.
Are there any professional proof readers on Medium or Substack who might be interested in proof reading my book? Leave me a message at todomhnaill@crann-na-beatha.com if you are interested. I just have a small budget to work with so please keep that in mind. I can’t afford the couple thousand dollars that have been quoted to me in the past. My budget is more in a few hundred American dollars range.
I will talk more about this in future blog posts. I have interviewed a couple of authors lately and I am working with a young man from the west coast who wants another interview again soon about another book he has just published. Maybe this will become a thing, where I interview indie authors about their struggles in the publishing world.
Let me plug in this weeks stories here and close things up for the week.
Dragon’s Wings — Part 2
And some revealed secrets
Go raibh maith agat. Thank you for your support. I will be back next week with more stories and poetry. Sláinte
As I say good bye this week, I wish to leave you with this Irish blessing as you go about your day. “May the Gods bless you and yours, with the luck of the Irish. May your week ahead bring you a little extra coin to jingle in your pocket and a smile from everyone you meet.” Slán go fóill — goodbye for now.
T. Ó Domhnaill — Gaelic Seanchaí
Crann na beatha Stories and Poetry