Voices for Voices®

What Makes a Fantasy Epic Worth Reading? | Ep 285

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 285

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What Makes a Fantasy Epic Worth Reading? | Ep 285

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Author Ben Sanford returns to dive deeper into his fantasy epic series, sharing the rich worlds, complex characters, and thematic elements that make his books unique and engaging for readers.

• The Arax series spans seven books set in a medieval world 500 years in our future
• Gargoyles serve as the main antagonists, fallen servants of their god transformed into hideous creatures
• The story follows Tarin, a young man destined to play a pivotal role in the ongoing war
• Earth humans stranded on the world provide comic relief as secondary characters
• The Freeborn series explores themes of power, magic, and freedom through the story of a magic-immune protagonist
• Writing advice includes finishing your manuscript before editing and aiming to write one page per day
• Good stories are more important than perfect writing - readers care about engaging narratives
• Contemporary literature can often engage students better than classical works in educational settings
• Books are available through Stenox Publishing (stenoxpublishing.com) and Amazon

Check out Ben's books at stenoxpublishing.com or through Amazon/Kindle Unlimited, and please leave a review if you read them!

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome Back with Ben Sanford

3:11 Exploring the World of Arax

10:10 The Freeborn Series Introduction

21:45 Writing Process and Pacing

27:45 Advice for Aspiring Authors

35:10 Where to Find Ben's Books

#FantasyBooks #EpicFantasy #BookRecommendations #ReadMoreFantasy #WorldBuilding #CharacterDevelopment #PlotTwists #FantasyLiterature #MagicalRealism #StorytellingTips #FictionalUniverses #FantasyThemes #MustReadFantasyNovels #LiteraryAnalysis #BookLoversUnite #bensanford #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram

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Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host. Founder of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode, as well as all the other over 280 episodes that we have both in studio and out of studio we have, for those who don't know, every Wednesday a new in-studio episode comes out, the interesting part with that being that it's a TV studio. We have to film those ahead and sometimes we miss uh, may miss uh current events or guests that we want to talk to in the meantime, and we don't want to wait uh, especially since we just filmed the last week. So we'd be waiting another three weeks to film and then it would be the following month of uh of august, and then the first week and the actually the first two weeks of september, and so that's why we're uh you may have seen and heard quite a few uh out of studio episodes this uh season before than what you you have prior.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Because we love sharing information. We love sharing people, their stories, the things that they do, ways that we can connect with them, and that's what Voices for Voices is for a platform for people to do that, and so we want to maximize that anytime we can. And that remains the same way with our last episode with guest Ben, author Ben Sanford, who is also our guest in this second part. Author Ben Sanford, we were having such a good conversation and the way Zoom operates, it kind of finds its own time when they think that the show should end and in the show and uh, so we weren't able to properly uh talk and share about um ben's uh series and his books, uh.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

So you, the, the readers, the viewers, the listeners whether it's you or somebody you know, or maybe it's a birthday or a holiday upcoming that you may have an interest in the books he writes, or you may just like a good book to read on the beach, beach, on vacation, uh, or on your commute soon from work. So, ben, thank you so much for joining us on this. Uh, the second part, thanks for having me. You bet uh, yeah, if you'll be able just to you know, pick up, uh or even start over is is quite okay with you know, the, the characters and and and a little bit about the world. That happened to disseminate those.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Okay, I guess I'll start off with Arax, because that's my main story, because that series is actually complete. I just finished book seven. Both of my series are fantasy epics, so they're on a large, grander scale. Arax is set in a different world than Earth. It's set in 500 years in our future and there's a lot of back history to it. So it's a medieval world where people are still fighting with bows and arrows and swords, kind of like the Roman Empire. The main antagonists are gargoyles.

Author, Ben Sanford:

And I have in the back cover cover. The back cover sort of sets a synopsis for the story. I can I'll start off with that and then I'll talk about where the meat of the story, where the characters are that that matter. Um, so, basically, at the beginning of the prehistory of arax, gargoyles were actually servants of their god, yah, and they betrayed him and in the rebellion he cast them down to arax, but he put them in mortal form, in the hideous creatures that they are, which are gargoyles. These be beautiful, angelic creatures, but now they are deformed creatures who breed in great numbers, but they don't have any magical powers and they're they despise mankind and wanted to destroy mankind. So the creator Yah rose up a human champion to defeat them, named Cal, and he was pure of heart. He got his vision of what this ancient god wants him to do for their world and he unites mankind to defeat the gargoyles. But his lords betrayed him. They didn't want to follow along with what he wanted and basically they disobeyed God themselves, their God, and right when they look like they could finally destroy the gargoyles for all time. They betrayed him and then his kingdom fell to ruin and they raised up their own kingdoms, but since they did not defeat the gargoyles, their own kingdoms fell in kind over the centuries, one by one, and then, therefore, mankind was in this balance against the gargoyles. No one can either really destroy the other. And this went on for almost 2,500 years Until the main antagonist in the story, named Tyro, a human who led a revolt against another group of humans aligned with the gargoyles and which took the total balance of all of Iraq. Now, at the start of the story, he now controls all of northern Iraq and he's starting to sweep south. In the backdrop of this, a young Tory. A Tory is the middle kingdom of this world. Still, they're a good human kingdom, you know. You just find how good they are by, you know. You look at their history. They're the only ones that are still held true to, maybe, what King Kael wanted to do long ago. And so there's a Tory farmer who's got his only son named Tarin, and his son's going to go on a journey off to be a scribe, an assistant to an ambassador who's an old friend of his father's in this area that's somewhere in between Tyro's empire and Tori North, and his father gives him a sword, a magical sword with mysterious powers to it. The rest of it's a mystery. You'll find out as you read the story where it comes from. And he's like what do I need the sword to go on this journey? Well, that will be explained as you begin the story. Where it comes from. And he's like what do I need the sword to go on this journey? Well, he, that will be explained as you begin the story. So the beginning story begins with taryn is just going to become a humble scribe to a king's minister and then he eventually, um, he meets all the other characters that become important in the story and he takes on a central role. That's unforeseen role that he doesn't realize. He was actually destined for this, with nothing mistake about it. Well, he was groomed for his role and that's going to come, the war that's going to break out between the gargoyles and the humans in the north and his own kingdom, and eventually the story will encompass all the other realms of Iraq.

Author, Ben Sanford:

There's another group of creatures called Janai. They're winged creatures. They're like winged humans. They're more exotic than regular humans and they're the opposite number of the gargoyles. They're kind of like servants of Yaa that were put down on Arrax, and also in mortal form, but they were more beautiful and more graceful and they're supposed to help the humans, help guide them to fight the gargoyles. There's reptilian warriors, there's ape warriors that speak All these different creatures. So what happened?

Author, Ben Sanford:

The whole story ends up being trying to unite all these different peoples against this great darkness that's going to encroach upon them, and that follows the entire course of the book. There's a lot of stories of repentance throughout it. The people's hearts change as you see that other people you know hearts they harden, they don't want to do it. Um, it's really about the brotherhood of the characters, whether the the sisterhood of the characters to unite, come together and you see their journey. There's also side characters from Earth who are stranded on this world and they have modern technology and they talk and act like we do. These people on this planet have it.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Wow, looks like we have a little bit of a here we go. There we are. We love technology. There we go. Mark Ben is on his way back there we are. There we go Nice.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Was it my problem or what?

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

No, it's all good. It happened to me last week. I'm getting used to like just about anything.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Yeah, you can pick up uh okay, so talk about the earth there. So there's people from earth that are stuck on this planet and from their crashed starship they created a seagoing vessel. But they have some of the technology they have from earth, but most of the stuff they're just stuck on this planet and they have no way of communicating back to earth. So they're trapped with no hopes of ever getting home. And I use, basically I use those.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Those characters are mainly they're the comic relief. They're usually everybody's favorite character because they also speak and talk like us and they always, if you ever think of in a story you're, you're watching and you're like, well, why don't they just do that? That's exactly what the earthers always do. They always do exactly what you would do in those situations. So that's why people usually connect better with them than even the main characters. Sometimes um, but it literally sets them apart in the story and their ship is called the stenics, which is the name of my I use for the publishing company. But yeah, so the earthers are more of the comic relief.

Author, Ben Sanford:

They're also, um, I I guess, if you try to describe it, if you ever watch, like, uh, I don't know if you ever hear that, you ever see it, whether it's a tv show or a movie. Mainly if this happens in tv shows, you have a secondary character that really steals the limelight and the the writers always make a mistake of turning that person. Well, let's make them the main part of the show and it ruins everything. Right, like like han solo in star wars is best, as the secondary character, luke, has to be the main character. That allows han to just be joe cool. Um, if you ever remember the show happy days going up, bonzi took over the show. He was great in the first two seasons when he was just a minor character and he's awesome.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

He shows up when they just made the whole thing about it and ruined it.

Author, Ben Sanford:

So as a writer, you got to be careful. If you have a characters who are like this, they threaten to take over and you have to keep them. You know, don't let them take over the whole story. So the earthers in the story are you. You know when you're, when you're reading the books, they're like okay, these are the guys you'll identify with because they're from our world, even though it's set in the future and trying to explain it beyond that, it's like so basically you're just following this entire war as it is. It happens so every single book. I have all the armies in the back of the book and they change because of the different losses and the disposition and sometimes the alliances shift. But if you're following the story, you can go use that as a guideline so you can keep it all there. Because there's so many, eventually, there's so many names and you can get lost if you don't try to keep on track of it. But I try to keep the pacing slow enough at the beginning so you can get invested in the main characters and then grow from there slowly.

Author, Ben Sanford:

My second series is called Freeborn, and while the first series has a lot of Christian underpinnings to it, freeborn is not, but it's not opposed to it either. Freeborn is more of a Freeborn is not, but it's not opposed to it either. Freeborn is more of a metaphor of power and magic. It's always funny watching people write books or even show movies where there's a magic system and people who have magic are being oppressed. Well, that would be like a power source unlike anything else. Of course, people would abuse it if they had it. If you look at unchecked power, then people always abuse it. So if you had a medieval setting where it was passed on genetically, then people would gather that powers unto themselves and the peasants would never have any chance of having a revolution because the nobles would have magic and power.

Author, Ben Sanford:

So in my Freeborn book I had, the main character is immune to magic. He can regenerate and he's strong, but he's immune to magic, which means he's a threat to their entire social order and his father's a king of one of the realms, but he doesn't want to become king. He wants no one to kneel to him and he doesn't want to kneel to anyone else. He wants to be free and just choose his own world, his own way, which just seems totally alien to all of their belief systems. At the beginning of the book he follows through a portal that his grandfather has uncovered and only he can access it because he has anti-magic. That's why he's immune to magic.

Author, Ben Sanford:

And he goes to the Old West for like five or six chapters, and I don't sugarcoat the Old West, that's a dangerous place, but in the story it grounds him and he finally sees a world where there are no kings and nobles in charge.

Author, Ben Sanford:

It's just grit and determination and your own self against the world. But it's basically people are free and it's a completely alien concept that always seems like home to him and he eventually has to go back to his home world and the whole story is about him taking on the social mores of the world he's surrounded by, because the world is, you know, it's not. Even though magic can be used in this world for good things, it's also used as abuse, and so you'll see him. He's supposed to be destined to free the world and he's like well, how am I supposed to do that? He doesn't want to, he just wants to set his own course so that freeborn. That's the basic grounding you see at the beginning of the story and it's completely different from Arax. In that way it's more of Ethan's journey and the people he interacts with, where Arax, as you're following a whole cast of characters fighting this mythical war against these satanic beings. Great, if you have any questions from there, but that's the two books in a nutshell.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

No, I don't. I like the way that you're able to separate them just as they are. I think both genres, both of those anthologies, I think, are very well thought out. When you just mentioned the pacing of how this is like one thing as, just like a layman, you hear the word or pacing, it's like, okay, how fast or slow or moderate and and so to just to hear you talk about at the beginning that you slow it down because there is that information, those characters that you want to take a little extra time for the reader take a little bit extra time. But then when things start moving that pace though, that does pick up. So the whole book isn't at that same pacing as as the beginning.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

And I think I never thought about things like there's all kinds of things I don't think about, but it's just interesting to hear that and it makes a whole lot of sense from just a strategy perspective of okay, if I was reading a book and this was going on and there's this cast of characters, would I want to have a constant speed throughout or pacing, or would I change it?

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

And I think for for viewers and listeners, I think that's something that's a good takeaway for aspiring authors, authors, or if you're already an author or know somebody that we don't have to be in a box that you know you have control over, over that, and I think that that's just a perfect example of you have control over the pacing, as you're the author and you make a decision like slowing down and then making things faster, and maybe there's times in other books where maybe that the ending might, maybe that slows down or or it could, and and not to think that well, I have to do it consistently all throughout, or else but people might not be interested, I don't know.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

I've read a lot of James Patterson and it's like real fast, and you just take, turn, turn, turn, turn, and it's similar throughout, whereas I was like, okay, I, I actually would prefer if there was more and more meat at the beginning at of some book and it would book would take a little bit of a slower approach instead of that consistency all through. Because I think, as we all know, our minds and our brains all kind of grow at their own speeds and to have a little bit of a change up isn't a bad thing.

Author, Ben Sanford:

I guess I've always struggled. The parts I had to change a little bit is because I was very at the very beginning this was about the war, so the battles were intricate and detailed and as you mature in your writing you're like okay, then some of the battles I need to make it get to the point of it and not go into like I would lose. Like it's like the men that read the book love the battles and they would read every one. The women readers would be like, okay, they glaze over some of the battles, right. Then there's other parts that are like you know the, the, the dialogue, which people you know, people love that and everything else, but it's the battles themselves trying to shape it Particularly.

Author, Ben Sanford:

I guess when I got to the Siege of Karel and in book two, which is the pinnacle part of the book I have, the longest chapter I ever wrote was basically the siege from day one until the day before the final assault and I have little things happen, battle scenes and I have interpersonal. I have little where the characters are speaking and different emotional things happening along the way to break it up, because you can't just go constantly through. You have to break up the action scenes and otherwise you lose people. It's just too much. You've got to let the people collect their mind. Okay, this is what happened on this day. It was day 24 of the siege and there was a small action here and then this happened here. Then these these people, characters, talked here. It's enough where you got interspersed. We have lots of action going on. You got to give those little human moments that lets allows the ground the reader back and let them collect themselves and catch their breath and have a heartfelt moment going on between two different characters. So I guess learning to do that and make it so the battles are interesting by adding the human character with it and breaking it up, is the one thing.

Author, Ben Sanford:

It was like like when I first started writing it was I wasn't doing that. That's like you have to do that, otherwise you lose the writer or the realist, the reader. Yeah, but the battles the battles the first book are not too bad. They're not that long long. It's book two, I have a couple of long ones, and book three is a lot of long battles, but I finally get to the end and it's a little bit more. The pacing's a little bit better. So you're talking about pacing. That's the other thing. It's like you can't lose your reader by boring them with detail.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

What would you? Whether it's advice there's so many different areas of the writing process and what would you call an aspiring author or somebody that's thought about because that's inspiring, somebody who has maybe hit a rut and had it in their mind. This is what I want to do and I have these ideas and then maybe they're only halfway through and they're just like you know what. I'm going to move on to something else because, and while that might be, for for some people it might just be like an interesting, like it might be interesting for a period of time and then may may move on. Uh, but what, what? What would you? What would you kind of guide that?

Author, Ben Sanford:

was 80. Of course the statistics are always gonna be wrong, but I said there was a 80 of the population thought about writing a book, but only like maybe three percent putting the effort into it. And of those do it. No, most of them don't complete. And those are complete, never get it published. But I see, I say this, I with iraq's.

Author, Ben Sanford:

For me was it was a story that got in my head. I'm not a writer. The story got in my head and I wouldn't let me go, so I kept rewriting it and putting a little effort into it. Book in high school. I just rewrote it and it's still not great. The first two books of Rex are not great writing by my standard. Now they're not great writing, but I didn't give up.

Author, Ben Sanford:

The whole thing is I would suggest you do is if you are already halfway through anything through your manuscript, whatever it is, don't go back and try to fix the beginning of it, at least for the first book. Finish that, that first story, right, and then outline what you want to do for your sequels. If it's a series, if it's a standalone, it'd be easier and then go back and write from the beginning and then just you have your outline and you can fix it. All right, it's easier, you can go back and fix it. You can always. You can always edit and improve on a bad product. You can't edit on nothing, yeah. So if it's a bunch of blank pages, it's like I can't help you with that, but if you have, you have something there. We can move this around. I mean, think about that, we could do, you do this. I don't know how well you edit these things here, but we can.

Author, Ben Sanford:

I could talk a bunch of mumbo jumbo. I've done a one podcast. I thought it was something like a moron and the guy edited it like I sound like a, I sound like einstein, but it made me sound like it was really brilliant. But but it's because the editing right. So when you go back and edit your own work, it's like, okay, that's just, I can, I can fix this, but don't give up. The whole thing is finishing it. Once you get some sort of completion, then you go back and rewrite. So since rax was sitting there forever since high school, the first version, which is actually books one and two now the exact same plot. I added a lot more detail and changed the language and the dialogue and vastly improved. Yeah, so don't ever give up on it, just just write a little bit. And the other thing I suggest is, if you write, if you can write one page a day Right Now I know I talked to David and he writes a lot more than that.

Author, Ben Sanford:

He's a very good writer, um, but if you're new to writing, right, just if you could write just one typed page a day, right? Single space page a day, which is probably like three, three pages in a notebook. If he does that every day, in one year you'll write a large book a 500, 400, 400 to 500 every day. In one year. You'll write a large book a 500, 400, 400 to 500 page book in one year. Then you got to edit it. But still, if you can do one page a day and people say you should only write when you're inspired, that's not. You know, you write every day, just force yourself. And sometimes the stuff I force myself to write, I go back and that was great. And stuff I actually planned out and I actually felt inspired is not as good. Sometimes you just have to push your way through it. But, as they say, don't give up always, just just write it. You can always fix it later. But getting those ideas down, that's, that's the important thing. And I don't know if you, I don't know if about if you're like me, but it's funny if you, if I gave you Moby Dick right now to read, or I gave you a comic book that you love, your favorite comic book. Now, that comic book I gave you is something you love and you, like you care about the story. It compares nothing to Moby Dick as a masterpiece, but Moby Dick's born and you're never going to read it, so it doesn't matter. The important thing is not really the quality of writing, it's the quality of the story, because the story is what's going to keep you. Now, bad writing will distract you from the story you're reading, so you may soldier through the reading your story. Who love the story don't notice the bad writing or don't notice your writing at all, then okay, if it's good enough where they can get through, it's a great story. But if it's a bad story, even if it's poorly, if it's greatly written yeah, this is a great written story but it's kind of like going to a movie that wins an Oscar. I don't want to see it.

Author, Ben Sanford:

You know this is a boring story. It's like it's great, you wrote it well, you know, but it's boring. I mean, I mean and it's it's funny too, because you look at throughout history Like we, we put so much emphasis and like it's a really important system in high school English classes, where the problem I have with their education system. They push through classic literature because it was so game-breaking at the time. But the problem is they lose the force for the trees, okay. So, for instance, the first cave painting, the first caveman, they come in. You look at the wall, they're nothing.

Author, Ben Sanford:

You might have to pass stories down early, but soon as one guy decided to draw a painting on the wall, they're like, oh wow, this is awesome. Look, we had a blank wall. Now we have this painting of ukulele killing the mammoth, all right, and then along came you know the greek tragedies, right. So people are reading that like if you ever heard the greek tragedy, they're terrible stories. I mean oedipus sleeping with his mother, um, people killing their sibling. I mean this is awful stuff.

Author, Ben Sanford:

But at that time, for what they had before then, it was like this is groundbreaking. We need to go see a play. And then Shakespeare comes along and we hear it in Old English. We don't understand, it's hard for us to understand it. But at the time and the stories are good for their time Kind of like Beowulf before, and Beowulf's a terrible story reading now, but back then it was like compared, they had nothing else to compare. That's a great story. So shakespeare's time is groundbreaking. It's kind of like their star wars. This is fantastic, but we find it boring because we have built upon everything. Story is built upon itself.

Author, Ben Sanford:

So you get to the 1900s. You read these early books that come out. Some of them are, are fantastic, could hold up at the count of monte cristo, but I said ones like moby dick or their start a letter and things like I don't want to read this and you're making kids in high school reading. They get bored of reading and they don't want to read. So that's why it's like you got to have you look at a lot of contemporary writing. Even some of it still doesn't hold. People aren interested in it. You want to read of mice and men or stuff like that. I didn't enjoy it. Some people will love it and think I'm a jerk for saying bad stuff about it. But our attention spans now are very shorter than they were before. Since we already have all this volume of information behind us, it takes a lot to entertain us. They need to put more focus, I think, in our education system and reading stories that people really want to read. I think so too.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

That's perfect the way you said. That makes perfect sense that you have you put something. Whether you're in high school or you're not. You put two things in front of somebody, and one they're interested and one not so much. They're going to gravitate towards the one that they like. And same thing would be in high school that there would be the option of hey, bring in your own something to enter through.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Obviously, there's parameters in that from a curriculum standpoint, from a curriculum standpoint, but other than that, if somebody finds one particular genre, type of story more interesting than the others, I think that's a great way to I don't wanna say hook, but kind of, in a way, a hook and keep more students interested in reading because it's something they like. They're more likely to read it and I guess they have to very look at the pictures, if there's any pictures in it versus you know some piece from, you know 1600 or 1700. And, like you said, the stories are groundbreaking at the time and I think we should be continuing that what's groundbreaking in 2025? And think of things like that instead of just reverting. Well, this is the way we've always done it, and we did it on curriculum last year, so it makes it easy.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

I don't know what the reasons are that's a discussion for another day, but a little bit connected. But I mean, I can think of myself back in high school and, yeah, if I had the option to I don't know read about sports and the different rules or something, that would have been way more interesting than a lot of the stories and poems and all those that we were asked to read. I really like how you laid that out, thanks, yeah, we're getting close and I want to make sure we finish on a much stronger on me from a time management standpoint. But sometimes it's kind of a conversation and it's a sense to keep going. So once again, can you just share your website and then where people can purchase them? And I know they can purchase them on your website and you'll get to that, but then they can also purchase on Amazon as well, but I'll let you give your plugs.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Okay, so if you go to my website, it's called Stenox Publishing, which is S-T-E-N-O-X, s-t-e-n-o-x, s-t-e-n-o-x, stenexpublishingcom, and all the books are all on there. There's a little synopsis for each of the both of the series and they're also, of course, on Amazon and Goodreads. If you want to look them up, there's a few. There are several reviews on there for the first two iraq's books and the first freeborn book. Um, that's fine, because people leave reviews. They always read for the first two books they don't leave reviews for. Yeah, right, um, yeah, so stanixpublishingcom, s-t-e-n-o-x. Um, trying to think where else you can find them on there? Yeah, but mainly that and Amazon and they're on.

Author, Ben Sanford:

If anybody has Kindle Unlimited, I have. All the books are available there for free on Kindle Unlimited. But I have to warn you the map for Rax is in the back of the book. That's why print copies always cost more. But, yeah, but for the Rax books, they're pretty, even if you don't have Kindle and Limba, they're not that expensive. I try to keep at least the first six or seven books. There's at least four or five books pretty cheap. Some people like to do e-readers or, lately, some people like to do print. Whatever people's preferences are. Yeah, but Stenix Publishing, you know, whatever people's preferences are, yeah, but stenix publishing I'm not very, uh, what do you say? Well attuned to technology, so like, managing the website has been very challenging for me, so, but even even your podcast, look, it was an easy connected link, so that was nice yeah, I was hoping to like try to keep it.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

I'm the same way.

Author, Ben Sanford:

It's like I gotta do seven steps when I can do one, like I'd rather do the one, and so yeah, I gave david has my tiktok um connection and I try to put a lot of the, a lot of previews a little. I do little scenes from the mainly the iraq's books. I haven't done the freeborn ones yet but I do little scenes from each of the books, at least the first four books so far. There's a little snippets here and there, like I try to do scenes. That doesn't give away the plot. Yeah, that a little, you know, just a little teaser here or there, kind of like you would do for a commercial, but it was basically a slideshow and with, you know, a music in the background that may be appropriate for that scene.

Author, Ben Sanford:

I will say Freeborn, though there is a love scene at the end of book one on a scale of I guess the one review I had on a scale of zero to none to five would be it ranked as a number two. So it is keep that in mind. That's not appropriate for children, but it's a married couple on their wedding night. I try to keep it subtle enough. So just be my good. Freeborn, book one there is a love scene at the end of it, and a Rax book there is too, but it's not. It's very subtle. So it's once again somebody on their wedding night.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

I appreciate you doing that and just looking out for kids. That's so important. Ben, thank you so much for sticking with us for two episodes.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Absolutely. It's been really a blessing to have you and learn more about you, the work you do, and to share with our viewers and listeners, and I encourage each and every one of you to head over to Stenix Publishing to take a look and make a purchase if that so moves you, or if you're on Amazon as well, that's so move you, or if you're on amazon as well, um, but I, I think we would recommend static publishing from uh uh, more of a it's going to be more of a positive impact. Uh, uh, there's uh, oh, let's call it what it is but amazon likes to take a little bit of money out when you sell a book, and so, if I have, Well, the aesthetics will connect you to Amazon, probably, so it doesn't?

Author, Ben Sanford:

Oh, it will connect you oh okay.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay, no worries, I was just the only thing I would ask if anybody reads them.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Even if you don't like it, just give me a review.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Reviews just give me a review. Your views are helpful. Yeah, Cause you, yeah, you, you you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you you you and mine isn't the best book written.

Author, Ben Sanford:

So yeah, just be honest.

Author, Ben Sanford:

It's like but if you get I will just say this If for your Christian viewers, if they get to the end of Arax, they won't be disappointed, and Freeborn is a different genre altogether. So I try to, but they will enjoy. I think they would enjoy either series, but it's yeah, but Arax, or actually just got to at least get booked, at least to get the book three to see the, the thematic undertones of the story. Good, the book one and two sort of sets up. Book one sets up the adventure and book two is basically jumps into the action and book three is yeah, it gets into the more, more deeper stuff.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Great yeah, Thank you for sharing that and jumping in. I appreciate you.

Author, Ben Sanford:

Ben.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, absolutely. And our viewers or listeners again, whether you're in the United States or in any of the 78 countries that have watched, listened and just almost 800 cities. It's really just incredible. When you get started, you have this hope that you want to reach, and reach the masses, no matter where they're at. We're really grateful to each and every one of you that tuned in, watched, listened, check out Ben's work, check out his books. I recommend making a purchase if that so moves you. We would highly encourage that. So until next time, I am founder of Voices for Voices Hayes, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need. Goodbye.

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Justin Alan Hayes

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