First Cup of Coffee – August 12, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

On writing the thing you believe in, how inspiration and survivorship bias play into the tales we share about doing this, along with thoughts on the Women Who Rock documentary (excellent!) and taking control of your own career.




Transcript
00:01.75
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:14.75
jeffekennedy
Delicious. Ah today is sit it with me Friday Woo Woo woo August Twelfth Eight Twelve Twenty Twenty Two so end of another week. Hello mosquito. Ha so here. We are I’ve I’ve had a good week. Um I am um within striking distance of oh I didn’t open it yet. Of my 10,000 words for the week which makes me happy because I’m happy. Um, yeah and I met a little shy of 54,000 words on the book. 8085 this week. So ah I have no wood to knock on does a great vine count? Um I think I should hit 10,000 for the week which is good because I’m traveling the next four weekends in a row. Which hopefully will not disrupt my productivity but we’ll see we’ll see she’ll be in good shape. Um I have committed to the release date did the cover reveal. For shadow wizard yesterday woo. So I’m putting it on the show notes today. It will be everywhere now I was experimenting with the Nine Square grid on Instagram and it looks really cool now that it’s all assembled. I did the gradual release like little bits at a time on Instagram and I think I don’t think that did anything ah very few likes throughout the day. Lots of likes overnight once the whole thing was assembled. So yeah. towhee agrees. Ah, you know, maybe you know like the bits and pieces are just not that interesting besides which Instagram only wants reals these days. So ah. I’m not sure I would do it that same way again. But I do like how the cover looks on the Nine Square grid it means that I have to be really careful. What I post to Instagram now because if I do one, it’ll like shift it and break it up so I have to do like three or nothing so that it stays.

03:04.68
jeffekennedy
Ah, the travails. But yeah, ah it was fun to see people immediately start pre-ordering. Thank you! Ah excited for you all to read this book. It’s all good and tomorrow morning we are. Flying to Las Vegas Nevada not driving an hour north to Las Vegas New Mexico and um we’re going to go see Celeste Barber very excited and going with good friends Megan and Charlie so it should be. Ah, good party. We should have a great time low party weekend so there will not be a podcast on Monday morning. Sorry mom because we’ll be flying back that morning I suppose I could do like a super sleepy. From the Las Vegas airport podcast but let’s face it. We know I’m not going to so the big challenge for me will be to see if I can get 2000 words on that Monday that’s my. Personal challenge I hope that I can I might try on the airplane to at least get it started maybe at the airport to sort of get it rolling I’m definitely noticing a pattern lately. You know I get most of my words in that third hour some days it’s pretty even the 3 hours but especially this week like my first hour will be pretty crappy and then the second hour a little better and then I’ll get like 1200 words in the third hour so so it goes but I’m I’m happy with the results of going for 2000 words a day instead of 3,000 words a day I am out I kicked my legs up and sort of hit the under circle in the table. Ouch who? ah. When I was doing 3,000 words a day I would definitely notice the mental drain at the end of the day and I would or at the end of writing and I wouldn’t have bandwidth for much else. So 2000 words a day gives me reasonable bandwidth for.

05:34.85
jeffekennedy
Dealing with business dealing with ah SFWA stuff. We did our business meeting yesterday and it was I think it went well seemed to go well, it was funny because we’re doing it on Zoom and so the board is on chat with each other reminding each other of things and so forth and. Somebody pointed out that we have the eternal ah ah difference of whether people say sifwa or sefwa I tended to be more of a sefwa person until someone commented on it I said I thought that’s what it was supposed to be but we can’t agree and I said well at least it’s not an argument like Gif versus Gif which of course then immediately started. The I cannot believe that there are people out there who want to pronounce it Gif and director at large Monica Valentinelli said. Well did you know that the creator came out and said it’s supposed to be pronounced chiff and I said yes, but he’s wrong which she was like well what do you mean? I’m like he’s just wrong. It’s it’s not it’s graphics interchange format. You don’t suddenly change the graph part to jiff. Very rarely is a leading g pronounced with a ju sound instead of a good sound so and besides Jif is already a peanut butter but executive director Kate Baker says that she is a jif kind of girl. I just can’t even so I was thinking about something ah amazingly enough I’ve just finished reading a book by Brigid Kemmerer. Think she says Brigid with a hard g we’re going to go with that since theme of this episode and she could be bridgegitte. But I think it’s Brigid Kemmerer. Ah, and I read her book a curse so dark and lonely which is ah why a fantasy romance kind. There’s not a lot of romance and it’s the one that I alluded to yesterday when I was saying that you don’t have to have hot sex. Um, in fact, there’s no sex on or off page in this book. Um, the closest it gets is a kiss and ah. Yeah, so which normally is kind of a deal breaker for me twilight was an exception because there was so much sexual tension there while it was perfectly chased and I really enjoyed that about it. Um, this one.

08:22.63
jeffekennedy
I just really enjoyed the book I thought it was um, a really interesting take on beauty and the beast and I totally enjoyed the story. So and I read it because ah Brigand was at Apollycon and a few tables down for me. And she was a ticketed author because she had so many people wanting to get their books signed. Ah so she had pretty much you know nonstop line and I didn’t get to meet her that was one thing. Several people asked me about Apollycon. If. We um, you know like if I talked to such and so were meant so such and so on I was like you know we didn’t really have opportunities to mingle. Ah, when the authors were all present in a place we were doing the signings and you. Really couldn’t leave your table for long because there were so many people wanting to come which was great. Ah, and then there weren’t any events that were just for the authors which I am going to suggest that they add I hope that they will. Yeah I was just thinking that David asked for our feedback for but they may not want our feedback I might just um, have to message. So. Ah I also think that they’re not getting some of my emails because I send from that http://jeffiekennedy.com email which tends to go to spam. It’s one of the things about having your own domain. That’s a spammo spmoific. So I was just thinking about I should give them my super secret email address. For people I actually want to hear from anyway. Ah so yeah, I was you know like oh I’ve never heard of Brigid Kemmerer and Jennifer Estep next to me said because we would chat during our lulls our rare lulls. She said how can you have not heard of her she was like Kensington at the same time we were and I was like oh know and she said well that she’d really like this book a curse so dark and lonely and it it was great. It was really good. So um, and I’m now reading the sequel a heart so fierce and broken. Interested to see how that goes there was a love triangle in the first book and it’s kind of being carried into the next book and I’m I’m actually good with this one I don’t usually like love triangles. But I like this one anyway in the acknowledgements Brigid says. Ah.

11:01.88
jeffekennedy
That she wrote this book because her husband said to her. It was a real dark point in her life. She’d been depressed and her husband asked her when was the last time that she wrote something um that was just for her that she enjoyed and. And she and you know that she wasn’t under contract to write and and she realized it been a long time so she wrote this book just for her and then it’s really has been the thing that launched her this has made her famous. Which great for her and it’s interesting because of course Apollycon is belongs to Jennifer L Armentrout oh here comes Isabelle affectionately known as JLA which is much easier and. She did this you know fantasy romance series recently? Um, which I always forget the name because now there’s so many Knockoffs but you know heart of blood and ash or whatever it is um, you all know right vampires and werewolves ah that traditional publishing wouldn’t take then. Said that they didn’t see at a point to it and now she’s done it with um the girls who do 1001 dark nights. So it’s sort of like a little startup press. Ah, it’s like one step different from self-publishing which is interesting. You know that we’ve got all these sort of. Phases of you know it’s no longer just traditional publishing or vanity press. There’s all of these different um levels of publishing self publishing and assisted publishing. Um, so um.

12:57.93
jeffekennedy
Jennifer has spoken a number of times about how she really wanted to write this series and traditional publishing didn’t want it and she wanted to write it anyway. So she did and how much it meant her and now it’s been phenomenally successful. So. And these are interesting stories to tell ourselves and it’s funny I’d already written down a note to talk about this when David told me a story just as I was making my coffee to come out here. He said that um this gal in a. Group that he follows that like does is into online gambling stuff and he said how that she woke up from a dream that she won a jackpot of $1000000 and so she got up and she went and played $40 on 1 of the online slots games. And so so there’s a correlation here right? We we love to tell these stories. Ah, you know she woke up from the dream that she won the jackpot she went and played $40 and she won the jackpot. Um. Brigid and JLA ah wrote the book of their heart. They wrote wrote the thing that they really wanted to write there was Isabella in the background rooting around oh and actually peeing sorry but she loves a little al fresco. Opportunity I’m glad she is at least discreetly shrouded by the vegetation Isabel fell. there’s ah there’s a lot of um, gritty reality here at first cup of coffee. So and and I feel like she’s ruined my my carefully assembled story right? Oh now she’s okay hold on it turned out. She was prepping her spot and so I spared you all the actual display. You’re welcome at least if you’re on video. So the thing is these are all examples of survivorship bias because we never tell the reverse story. Um, we do not tell the story. If the woman woke up in the middle of the night from a dream that she won a jackpot went and played her $40 and lost it all. She does not get online and told this story because it’s a non story right? same is true for writing that book.

15:44.57
jeffekennedy
That we long to write. That’s the book of our heart or that you know everybody says oh we don’t know what we’re going to do with it. We write that book. We love that book. We decide to self-publish it and it goes nowhere. It’s not a story. The exception being. The gal that I talked about yesterday who shared online how her self-publishing experience did not go well that she spent yeah $10000 and made about $750 and how that is. Ah, thing that happens so at that point it becomes a story but it’s not the story. We want to hear right? We love a story like Brigid Kemmerer or jla where they persevered wrote the thing that they wanted to write that. Well. Brigid soldiers to traditional publishing so that’s a different tale right? But you know and then it does really well and we love that we love that vindication. The triumph of the thing that no one wanted and then it does really really well and ah, it’s It’s a wonderful kind of story it and it inspires us and it keeps us going which is something that we need and do not get me wrong because I love hearing Jennifer talk about that story I’ve heard her give the speech a couple of different times. And it is it came for me at a time when I really needed to hear it. Um I don’t know why I’m a little horse this morning but a horse is a horse of course of course. Ah, um, yeah. The first time I heard it came at a time when I needed to hear that and and it helped me put dark wizard out there which definitely was a story for me that way where it was slightly different for those of you who haven’t heard me talk about it before. Dark wizard was a story that I had been mulling for a very long time. Um I mostly just hadn’t gotten around to writing it. However, because I was busy with other things and I also wasn’t sure how I was going to execute it when I told my agent about the idea she loved it. Ah, when I showed her initial pages. She loved it and then when I finished writing the book. She no longer loved it and she did not want to take it out on submission because she said she didn’t know any editor that would want to buy it.

18:27.73
jeffekennedy
And but the difference for me. There was is I had lots of other people who did love it everybody else who read it frickin love this book and including people you know who will tell me the truth. So. And then it did very well when I self-published it and it helped to hear Jennifer’s story and then I heard it again me because I asked her to give the same talk to my local Rw a chapter and and I enjoyed hearing it again then because it does. Help to hear these stories of people persevering of writing the thing that they want to write. It’s a difficult business if you’re not writing the thing you want to write. It’s perilously close to not being worth it. But. There are lots and lots of times that we write the thing we want to write and it does not do phenomenally well and that doesn’t make it any less worth it because we still have to write the thing we want to write that’s. Part of being creative. Um, and I’m getting low on time but I still want to touch on this. We watch this four part documentary on Amazon prime called women who rock highly Highly. Recommend. This documentary It’s incredibly well done. It really traces the history of women and rock as built starting from you know like Gospel and the girl bands of the 50 s and sixty s all the way up to present. And by the time they get to ah more recent times. There’s just way too many to touch on but they have interviews with lots of women some are throughout the whole thing like Nancy Wilson from heart Pat Benatar and they talk about how difficult it. Difficult it was in the beginning and there’s this. It’s wonderfully put together because there’s this chain of people reflecting on their influences so you have the people coming up and talking about listening to Nancy and Anne Wilson or listening to Pat Benatar and practicing the chords listening to those women and being inspired by them and then the older women talking about seeing the younger ones coming up and it’s wonderful with the connectedness and the women helping women and talking about how difficult it was in the industry show crow is in it.

21:15.19
jeffekennedy
Bunch of people are in Shania Twain Chakka Khan ah, other ones I was not familiar with Mavis just Mavis I can’t think of what her last name is from the old Gospel days. Um, and one theme that emerges. And David and I – I think I’ve mentioned before that watching stories about musicians is a great Venn diagram will overlap for both of us because he loves music and musicians and I love the creative aspects so we love it when we can find shows like this but I was pointing out to him and he was agreeing because I’m right. Over and over they would mention having to take control of their own careers having to that you can’t rely on anyone else to do this thing for you that you have to take control of your own career and make it be the thing you want. And I think that’s very true of all creative enterprises that as I often say nobody will ever love your book as much as you do and it’s um I think it’s probably true of of all creative enterprises that. You are the one who will care about it most and if you don’t care about it then it’s not worth it. So on that note I will leave you looking forward to seeing Celeste Barber Standup act tomorrow night and I will talk to you all on. Tuesday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – August 11, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Thoughts on author events and how much heavy lifting is placed on them to bring a readership – and financial support! – to the event. Also, on self-publishing, common mistakes, and how things can go wrong.




Transcript
00:01.83
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Delicious today is Thursday August eleventh and beautiful morning here in Santa Fe sunny sunny morning I’m also running a bit behind so it’s sunnier as than usual, we went for a walk this morning I also set up the cover reveal for shadow wizard. Yes, so this will be a book one. And renegades of magic and it’s um, Jadren and Selly’s story for those of you who have not been following along I didn’t light the mosquito candle this morning. So um, I’m doing the cover reveal on Instagram bit by bit. In fact, that reminds me I should have done another one but I haven’t yet I’ll do it as soon as the podcast is done. So um. So I had to get that all set up this morning. Got the preorders set up last night. It’ll be out september Twenty Ninth um fingers crossed I’m I’m past 50000 words on it I think it’s it’s going all right. Not sure how it’s going to end where it’s going to end. But um, that’s typical for me, right? All part of the I think it’s funny when authors say that that’s part of the fun for them that they ah the gardeners of the pantsersers. The ones who don’t pre-plot. Ah, say that the fund goes out of it for them if they do that and I’m like I don’t know I don’t know if it’s if I would call it fun but it’s it’s how it works for me sometimes as those of you who are a long time podcast listeners will know. It’s decidedly unfun for me now. So um, a few different things to talk about today I even have notes. So.

02:29.46
jeffekennedy
I’m trying to decide if I could talk about this one thing. Ah I’m kind of sorry I’m waffling let me pause all right I figured out a way I can talk about it. Ah recently I was asked to be. Part of a thing I mean that’s great. That’s I appreciate being asked to be part of things but then it came out ah I was asked I was actually not asked. This was part of the problem I was given instructions on how to share it on social media. And I was told that I must share it on social media in order to bring my platform bring my readers to this thing which I find very interesting and it’s not the first time this has happened and I may have talked about this before but. There are any number of events who ah I don’t want to say demand but they they sometimes they demand they ask an author to participate and then. Expect that the author will bring their readership with them to support the event which is if it’s like for charity or something like that understandable um, you know like that pixel project that was raising money to end violence against women. Yeah, sure I’m going to ask my readers to come and be part of that but there are other events where they’re totally depending on the authors to bring their readership in order to float their event. And this is partly what was amazing about Apollycon was Apollycon ah invited us to participate and they brought the readers I recently heard of another convention I think I talked about this but I’ll I’ll revisit it because I still find it so shocking. Another convention that has for a long time been famous for ah Nick and diming authors and demanding demanding. You know say more money and this particular story. It actually counts as a demand where an author who attended this paid. Upfront and it was a considerable amount that you had to pay up front to attend this convention. Um far more than the readers or attendees have to pay and then there’s all sorts of opportunities for sponsorships that cost more and more and more money and this author was pulled aside.

05:17.72
jeffekennedy
During the convention and told that she had not brought enough readers to the convention that her platform wasn’t big enough and therefore she needed to cough up a thousand dollars to sponsor something at the conference right? then and there and this author was devastated I mean. There are so many levels of awful and wrong about this this particular convention I’m not surprised that they did it I absolutely believe it happened the sources are impeccable. They might try to claim that there was a misunderstanding but the author in question was devastated. Ah, nobody first of all, nobody wants to hear that they’re supposed to cough up a thousand dollars especially if you’re a newer author and you can’t afford it ah and nobody wants to hear that that somebody thinks that you have like got. Shitty ability to bring readers to something.

06:21.16
jeffekennedy
Ah, so so it’s a thing um that this whole oh well, you need to bring your readership and in this particular case. Ah they were very specific supplied social media examples. And usually the right way to do this the right way to do this is people say um, hey here’s some graphics to share with love if you would share this on your social media boom they might give you some suggested stuff but you know you’re not required to do it. Um. Being told that I must do something that the event won’t be successful unless I do this thing is ah it gives me pause because as an author, especially if this is not a charitable event. Why am I doing this if. They don’t have the umph to bring their own readership to it. Ah you know I understand it’s hard. But yeah it um it it. It really bothered me it. It annoys me and. I talked to David about it and he said well you know can you imagine if somebody asked well he always uses big examples. He has an exalted idea of who I am but he’s like can you imagine if they asked Billy Givens to come play and then told him that oh but he needed to. Tweet certain things to make sure that enough people showed up for the event. Ah yeah, there’s just ways to do things and ways not to and um, you know one thing about social media and I know I say this often. Is even if you decide to schedule things or if you have people help you with it. Social media is about connecting personally right, it’s about doing things the way you do them. Ah and so you don’t I don’t do my social media like somebody else tells me to do it. Let’s let’s just say that’s a hard stop so that was something that was on my mind. Um, and then there’s been discussion. Um on Twitter and it’s interesting because I don’t follow enough on Twitter to. Always know the origins of things and I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of tracing back. So I’m not sure where all the conversation about gatekeepers has come from I know some of the things that I’ve been talking about in the last week about how much money authors do and don’t make on tread publishing so there was a.

09:11.70
jeffekennedy
Tweet thread from someone who said, um, talked about self-publishing and I will link to her Twitter thread. Ah, she’s gotten a lot of quote tweets and retweets and likes on it. Not an astonishing amount. But. Ah, she talked about her experience with self-publishing. Um, she said for her, it cost a lot and she earn very little and and I I think it’s great that she shared this. Um i’m. I’m glad that she ah you know gave the actual numbers and she says that the books were classified as new adult fantasy which is not really a thing in traditional publishing and they probably didn’t hit the right market in indie either because they weren’t sexy enough. Um, so I would kind of lie and then she goes on from there and she talks about how much money she spent. Um, she spent $5000 on the first book in its first six months which is a lot a lot to spend on a book when you’re. Ah, newbie self-publisher and I touched on this earlier this week where I mentioned that um if you don’t have a platform already. It’s hard to get started in self- publishing and and she did end up selling like the mythical. You know, average of one hundred and only to friends and family. But I think there are a lot of reasons for this and $5K is putting a whole lot of that money upfront into that first book without having the second one ready. Ah. And then the way that it sounded let’s see I won’t go into her whole thing. But.

11:17.90
jeffekennedy
Yeah, it took a long time for the second book to come out. She really invested a lot in trying to get that first book to happen which is just not how it works for self- publishing. Ah. She said when the second book launched she sold like 100 copies on the first day ultimately like one hundred and twenty nine copies of the first book and 112 of the second before she pulled them from the market and it’s not clear to me why she decided to pull them from the market. Ah. Once you have once you’ve invested once you have put them up. It doesn’t cost you anything to keep them up so it’s not clear to me why she decided to pull them. Ah, she does say at the end that you know her conclusion is um. There’s no easy way to publish. There’s no get rich quick path in this industry so that’s what she wants to warn people of and and that’s absolutely right? It’s a good take home message. She also says um, there are ways not to make the mistakes that she did. Ah, to make self-publishing a business and to succeed at it and I just wanted to talk a little bit about what I saw her doing she says um, $10000 she spent um, 2.5 years on these books. Selling two hundred and forty one copies of her books and netting something like $750 the transcript’s going to hate these numbers. It always hates numbers. Um, but 1 of the first things I notice I mean there are a number of things that didn’t go well. Ah especially if you are doing a series if you have both books ready. Maybe she didn’t but it’s really worthwhile to have that second book ready so that the people who do want to read can read right away once you have a readership they’ll wait if they’re still getting to know you they won’t wait. Especially if they’re not sure if you’ll finish the series and it’s a real thing if you’re an unknown quantity if there’s a you know destroy needs to be resolved with finishing the series or finishing the second or the you know second and third books. Ah, people want to know that it’s there before they commit because they’ve been burned before. Thank you George RR Martin um, the other thing that.

13:52.45
jeffekennedy
Is a real red flag at the beginning is when she said that it was new adult fantasy which isn’t really a thing in traditional publishing and I’ve mentioned this before self publishing is great for grabbing niche markets that. Traditional publishing won’t touch. This is so true it’s true for my books it’s true for a lot of fantasy romance. It’s true for a lot of science fiction fantasy and romance crossover. There’s not a great place for it on the bookshelf at the bookstores the brick and mortar stores. Because those are 2 different bookshelves right? So they don’t know which one to put it on if and as soon as they have to make a decision. They feel like it’s gonna be bad. They’re not happy if it’s young adult yeah, something just hit my face I don’t even know what that was ah. Felt like it was flung but there’s a little bit of a breeze. So maybe that was just liberated by the breeze a young adult has now become its own category and when people rant as I’ve seen various editors and agents do that young adult doesn’t count as a genre. Because you have all sorts of genres within young adult. Well, it’s true except that there are young adult shelves in the bookstore and once it’s a shelf then they know where to put it and it has a market in the brick and mortar stores. The online stores. Often reflect the brick and mortar stores they have more shelves and can put things in multiple places but still, there’s there’s some some correlation between the 2 so all of this is a long way of saying that if you want to publish your book that you love which. You know, bless you? Of course you do and you know do it? Definitely do it but know that if it’s a book. That’s not really a thing in traditional publishing. It’s going to make it harder for you to sell as a self-p publisher especially if you don’t already have a readership. Right? It’s um, it’s just it’s and and especially if you’re you know, not already a savvy marketer which not many of us are especially when we start right? So you, you’re stacking the odds against yourself. Why this gal pulled them from the market I don’t know and I almost want to ask her and I could follow the Twitter thread if any of you have the leisure follow the Twitter thread and see if somebody asks her or ask her yourselves. Ah there there isn’t a good reason to pull it.

16:41.44
jeffekennedy
And maybe she had one but otherwise the money is spent leave them up and maybe they will gradually gain a readership part of the problem with you know, spending money on advertising is. If. You advertise something. That’s not really a thing. How do you advertise it? What I’ve got and now it’s itchy on my face where that thing hit me wherever it was. You know if how are you going to advertise it if you don’t really know what it is and you’re. Not able to tell the readers what it is new adult fantasy um with and you know it’s that’s an a frequent I don’t want to say excuse but I hear authors say a lot like oh well, it didn’t do well because it didn’t have enough sex in it because. I didn’t want to I don’t know there. There’s always a little and I don’t know that she means this at all. She may not but there’s always a little bit of a sense of you know I wanted to maintain my standards and not put sex in that and therefore um because I didn’t kowtow to the. Ah. Sex loving masses. It didn’t do well maybe that’s not what she means by that. But there are plenty of books that do not have hot sex on them that do very well I’m reading one right now I’m waiting to see if there ends up being a sex scene in it. I’ve read a couple recently that um you know, slow burn romances don’t have any sex in the first book at all, you know, maybe there’s a promise of it later we we kind of know by authors. That’s part of having the reputation having the readership. But no, you don’t have to have it in there. Um. Yeah I’m I’m sorry that this went badly for her but she also spent 2.5 years on this. Um, that’s a long time to spend getting two books out in self-publishishing. It’s just it’s way too long and I know that not everybody has luxury of. Ah, time to spend on it and not everybody writes fast, but it’s just something to keep in mind. There were a lot of things stacked against her on this and you know it would be great if somebody would step in and help her out and say you know let’s put those books back up and let’s see if we can get them to go somewhere. The other thing is is if you are are a new author and you have not yet published anything. It’s hard to know if your books are good. Um, or you know good. You guys know that you all know that I don’t like the use of the word.

19:30.55
jeffekennedy
Good but you don’t know if the books will really grab people if you haven’t established a readership yet and it could be that those books should be trunk books I don’t know I haven’t read them. Not all books are gonna do well that’s just life. Um. There’s books of mind that you know, but the second novel I ever wrote I still love that novel. But if I’m gonna put it out there I’m gonna have to rewrite it because I I know a lot of the things that are wrong with it now and those are just things you learn with time. So. Just wanted to to talk about that. It’s it’s an unfortunate piece of self-p publishing that many many authors get into it because they decide to self-publish the book that they couldn’t sell the trat and. Certainly I’ve done that but I know at this point why it didn’t sell the tread. Ah you’ll have to know is it. Did it come close like was it really because they didn’t know what shelf to put it on. Or was it because everyone was like you know this book isn’t done cooking yet. It’s hard to listen to that feedback I saw meme the other day of somebody like showing like an author getting their ah feet criticism and like cutting up their heart on a plate and I it’s like well that’s probably. Probably you should um, have a little bit more objectivity than that. It’s not your heart. They’re cutting up. They’re talking about something you produced. But yeah, you got you got to listen to what kind of feedback are you getting on the book. Why why does traditional publishing not want it. And it’s not always because they’re messed up in the head which is tends to be the kool-aid on that note I am going to go get to work and write the book that I just put up the pre-order for ah, watch for the cover reveal. Taking shape today I think it’s kind of be kind of cool and preorder link in the show notes and I will talk to you all tomorrow you all take care bye bye.

The Drive to Develop a Writing Practice

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

Look for the cover reveal for SHADOW WIZARD, book one in Renegades of Magic, the new trilogy continuing the Bonds of Magic epic tale! I’m getting the preorders set up today and plan to do the cover reveal on Instagram tomorrow, August 11, 2022. Members of my private Facebook group, Jeffe’s Closet, may get a sneak peek 😉

This week at the SFF Seven, we’re asking: how has your writing practice changed over time?

It’s interesting because the topic-suggester framed it as “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – my college French demanded I get the saying correct – which is a French saying that acknowledges that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In other words, that surface details may alter over time, but the essence of the thing, the recognizable cycle of events, is fundamentally inalterable. Often it’s applied to history. So this suggests that our writing practice may change over time, but it also stays the same. Is this this case?

I’m saying no, at least for me. My writing practice has changed considerably since my newbie days. I was reflecting recently that, as a teen and young woman, I didn’t really know how to apply myself to improving at a task. This largely came from the fact that, in school all the way through high school, I could get by without really trying. I had a good auditory and visual memory, and I tested well, so I didn’t need to work hard to get A’s. (Except in math, which I thought I wasn’t good at, even though they put me in accelerated math classes. Turns out I likely wasn’t good at it because I didn’t like math, so I didn’t listen in class. Oops.) In college and grad school, a number of professors began riding me to apply myself, to study and do the practice problems. I kind of tried to – especially when I had to retake Immunology for my biology major and really didn’t want to have to retake second semester of organic chemistry – but there was a major problem: I didn’t know how to study.

I remember thinking I needed to learn how to study, but I was mostly flailing about. It was only when I had novel deadlines to meet that I got very good at refining my ability to work in concentrated ways, incrementally, day after day. I don’t often think of messages I’d like to give to my younger self, but I now wish I could advise that college student, that graduate student, to develop the habit of working for a couple of hours every morning. This is my best brain time. If I had done that in school, if I had spent just that much time working practice problems and reviewing the material, I likely would have done much better.

Of course, then I might have ended up as a research scientist after all, when I’m so happy as a novelist. Maybe it took working on something I truly cared about to inspire me to develop the practice to do it. Que sera, sera!

 

 

First Cup of Coffee – August 9, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Some more figures of what some authors are NOT making in traditional publishing, along with thoughts on agents – how to tell the good ones from bad (and there ARE good ones!), red flags, and how the business works.




Transcript
00:03.63
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Delicious. Ah today is Tuesday August Ninth Eight Nine sounds like a good date to me. Um, yeah, so I’m wondering. What I have to say today some mornings oh look if you’re on video. You’ll have an Isabel sighting in the background Isabel’s out here in the secret garden with me is it. She pretty. She’s a blue smoke Maine coon cat I love how she’s got that. Faintest hint of blue to her fur. So yeah, she’s feeling sprightly this morning. She’s the the queen the main Coon Queen cat she’s sixteen sixteen and a half now and she loves going out and messing around in the garden. So um, yeah, you know some mornings I come out here I have my notes some mornings I have lots of thoughts in my head other mornings I’m sort of like a a nice mellow blank today’s a nice mellow blank I’m feeling. Nicely relaxed. Got more stuff done yesterday kind of catching up on my list. Ah I’ve noticed how the lists have been creeping into the books. Ah, they always have so I suppose that’s just like one of my things. But I notice that they are in the covenant of thorns books they’re in the bonds of magic books. Not so much the one I’m writing not so much in shadow wizard but I got my two k on shadow wizard yesterday I got it in. Reasonable amount of time. Got it early in the day so that was great. Um I’m let’s see doing pretty well I think um, little shy of 48,000 words which I know.

02:31.97
jeffekennedy
That’s like I’m past midpoint I still have half the book to go but it’s feeling downhillish at this point I’m also reading a book I’m really enjoying ah and I’m hoping that I will be able to recommend it to you? ah. I need to get back on putting reviews on good reads Amazon book bub. Ah I kind of fell off of doing it I don’t know why I don’t know maybe I just sort of ran out of time but I would like to get back into doing that. Because I’ve read several good books lately and I say them on here but I feel like that’s fairly transient so I would like to go ahead and get that going again. Um I did have some um reaction to yesterday’s podcast a few different people asked me if they had heard correctly when I said that um and and it’s it’s really ebooks. That I’m talking about where an author can earn $3 a book $5 a book maybe depending on the price point. Um whereas yes from trash ah print books. We don’t earn nearly so much from ah and they’re already. They’re so expensive to produce. That’s the thing about being a self-published author is the print books are expensive because we can’t do it in bulk. We don’t have access to a printing press the the pod cost is fairly high. Ah, the like Amazon or Ingram delivery cost is fairly high so we are not able to get as much of a percentage from those not without pricing the book even higher and I think none of us wants to do that. It already feels like a. Egregious to charge you know like $18 for a trade paperback. But even when that happens a lot of times like I’m only making ¢50 on the book or something like that. It’s um, it’s fence service. It’s having print books is because. Some of you still want print books which is fine. That’s no problem at all. It’s just um, where you where you make the bulk of your income is on the ebooks if we didn’t have those we probably wouldn’t be able to do it. We wouldn’t be able to make sell enough books to make an income to live on.

05:11.57
jeffekennedy
But but yes, um, for tread publishing whether it’s print or ebook a dollar per book. Maybe that’s that’s good If you’re getting that much a lot of people are not getting that much and um. Yeah, it’s just a. It’s the way it is. It’s just a sucky cut. Um.

05:40.44
jeffekennedy
Um, yeah, it’s you know they they hold all the cards basically and you know and even then you know you’re almost certainly paying you know 15% of that then to your agent. So. That that could come before or after the dollar a book but you know a dollar goes down to ¢85. It’s um, unless you’re selling a whole lot of books. It’s just hard to make money to live on in trad. And so it goes and I’ve recently learned of a major publisher. Not one of the big 5 or big 4 um, it’s sounding like the merger is going to be improved. People are sad about it. But. And our current um climate of corporations running the country. It seemed almost inevitable running the world. Maybe so yeah, a lot of writers were lamenting it yesterday on social media. Isabel’s down next to me here. Isabel’s not concerned. She says cats don’t worry about acquisitions and mergers know course Pat cats are also arguably parasites is that right. She says as long as the cat food keeps coming. You know that’s why I write the books is to feed the cats. Yes yes, Minerva Spencer says that Isabel has a smoker’s meow. Ah she does kind of she. Um, she’s totally deaf now. So she has to be very loud to be assured that she is meowing and it’s hell on the vocal chords. Yeah, so um, so yeah, those are the breaks. What was I saying about the oh this other publisher. So. So those are the big ones and that’s why we say the big but then there are other like midsize presses or smaller presses. So you know like there other ones are like source books Kensington um. Oh I think the mosquito candles making me sneeze.

08:14.67
jeffekennedy
Who I tried to pause and then at impa. Sorry let me scoot this away I was clever this time and came out and lit the candle before I got out here and gave it a little while to drive the mosquitoes away that seems to be the effective method. So how? yeah like Tachyon there used to be other ones you don’t like skyhorse and all these others anyway, those are not the great big ones. That people mean when they’re talking about the big houses Isabel’s checking out that candle now. Yeah stinky here now she’s sleeping leaving in a huff we haven’t had um cat wrangling. On the podcast in a while. So um, so yeah I recently learned of another publisher that’s not 1 of the biggies. But that’s well known, especially in romance publishing that is offering a terrible percentage on ebooks and. 1 of my friends at Apollycon who has a very successful series told me that last year and she was sad about it that she made about $1400 in the whole year and I told somebody else this and they were like. That author but her books are doing amazing and I was like yeah um and her agent says that she doesn’t really understand the contract. Um, when my friend asked about well shouldn’t I be getting. Royalties for like the audio books or the foreign rights and stuff that our agent was like oh well I don’t know um and and I said to her friend I said that’s a really bad sign you know and it’s like. I love that people come to me for advice but I think sometimes people regret coming to me for advice because and you should all know this I’m happy to talk to you like at conventions or you know over drinks are many things I will say to in person that I will not say on the podcast. But. You know if if you do ask me for advice I’m I’m going to give it to you pretty straight and I told her you’ve got to leave this agent if your agent doesn’t understand your contract then this is a problem. It’s a problem.

10:56.41
jeffekennedy
Red flag and she says oh I know but you know she’s stuck with me. She took me when no one else would and you know I owe her and you guys I hear this story so many times and in its. Hard I know it’s hard because we love our agents. We do feel that um, it’s like the first love we. We are grateful to them and they it does feel like they took a chance of us when no one else would. And I definitely felt that way about my first agent and I don’t know why if I would have left her if she hadn’t gone into like a total spiral and left the agency and went to an agency where I couldn’t sign the contract. Um. I don’t know what I would have done I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice leaving my second agent was a really hard choice even though I was terribly disappointed in him and I had gone through a couple of um, like performance improvement plans with with him. Which is that’s why yeah so I spoke too soon on the mosquitos that one went right for my nose. Um, that’s my corporate America coming out but it’s like okay you know I’m not happy with how this is working and so we’d come up with these things that you know for him to do. And then he didn’t do those things I was working with the senior agent in the firm. That’s the other thing about this from that I’m talking about is that her agent just has her own agency. There’s not even a senior agent to go to and so which is the first advice I would give is is if you are. Maybe not the first but still if you are unhappy with what your agent is doing or if you’re wondering if you should be managing expectations in some way you go to the senior agent at the agency and say here’s what I want and this is not what’s happening. And you know what do you recommend and and the senior agent in mine was very receptive but my agent still didn’t still didn’t do it and and break and that breakup felt like it felt like a divorce. It really did it was um, hugely emotional. My friends got sick of listening to me but it had to be done and and I feel like I’m still seeing echoes of of the ways in which he messed up my career.

13:48.74
jeffekennedy
Um, and and it’s very true and I’m sort of going off on this whole agent tangent I didn’t mean to but it’s probably worth revisiting. You know the the old adage that a bad agent is worse than no agent at all is really true and I feel like spending several years with my bad agent. And still seeing effects. But I’m still digging out of that and I love my current agent Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost literary agency who is unfortunately not taking more clients I I even asked her at Apollycon when ah. Because I was thinking maybe I could get my friend to move over to her if I could get my friend to give up this loyalty to this terrible agent and I I feel very comfortable calling this agent terrible if your agent says they don’t understand the contract I mean that’s literally their job. So I asked Sarah oh are you still not taking new clients or I said are you taking new clients and she actually physically flinched. She’s like and she said she’s just not able to keep up with all of her current clients and she’s still sort of digging out of that pandemic hole on that as well. so unfortunately and me someday but um so yeah why is my friend only making $1400 a year. She got paid twice in you know every six months and she said it was about $700 each time. And yeah yeah I mean she’s not gonna be out on the streets because she has a salaried spouse which is great but it’s disheartening when you have a very successful series. I mean I’m not kidding when I say this is a successful series. It’s it’s gotten amazing reviews and it’s very well known and how is she only getting this much money. Ah, it’s it’s criminal really. So. Um, I’m never going to be 1 of those people and there’s one in particular I can think of who like in in SFWA on discord and so forth or the forums every single time someone says something about an agent. This guy has to pop up and. Do a blast against how horrible agents are and ah it’s just like dude but he’s also I don’t know um, unpleasant in his opinions in many ways.

16:35.88
jeffekennedy
So I don’t think that all agents are terrible I think that agents are very helpful to a career particularly if you’re dealing with things like print and foreign rights and I don’t believe that hiring a lawyer is the same thing but um, but there. There are bad agents out there and they they gave give the good agents a bad name and so there it is um otherwise let’s see what’s going on I I feel like this is this is exciting news for me and not important to anything else. But I got my nails done yesterday and we may have gotten I’m trying to show you. It’s kind of better there. We go. Ah, we may have gotten a green that I really like since this is why birthday month and green is my favorite color I was trying to get a good green and. For some reason. It’s really hard to find a good green nail polish so much good green in nature. Not so much. It must be really hard to reproduce a green pigment because it’s hard to find good greens and clothing too. So I’m very happy with my green nails small things. Right? Ah, yeah, so I went long yesterday. So I think it’s okay to go shorter today I will um yeah, talk to you all on Thursday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – August 8, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Some real numbers comparing the same book and series self-published vs. traditionally published – Spoiler: first month revenue is already 10% of 10 years of trad – & other thoughts on trad vs. indie.




Transcript
00:01.26
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Delicious.

00:19.20
jeffekennedy
Ah, so good. How are you all today is Monday August date 16 22 I don’t know why it seems like there’s so many good dates lately. Bumping the table here. So um, we are New Week New week hopefully a productive week I need a productive week. Um I’m still on track with shadow wizard I’m losing a little bit of my buffer. I did not have um, a rocking writing day on Friday for no good reason I am happy to report that. However I am caught up on royalty crunching who I’ve caught up two months ‘ worth. Always interesting. Um, just to have a break from the royalties and come back and sort of see what the sales are like and one thing that’s very interesting. Sorry if I’m using that word way too many times. Um, you can’t adjust hold on a moment. My chair is could be apart. Ah, you know it’s like one of those selfassemble patio chair things and so it has the. It’s probably gonna be too hard to explain but you know like the caps that you screw on to the ends that hold it in place and one of the caps came off and I had it sitting here on the table but very lazily had not put it back on ah because it was one of those you know like two step projects where it required me to go inside the house. To get a screwdriver to come back out and screw it on and somehow I just never would not take that freaking long but somehow I never made that complete circuit and no I’m not sure where the piece has gone hopefully some. Critter didn’t carry it off but now it’s um, bending enough that it’s like pulling entirely out of the socket without the cap thingy to hold it on so the ah problem’s becoming more pointed but. We already spent way too much podcast time on that. Ah, ah so interesting. So interesting fascinating I think that’s why they came up with fascinating for Spock because interesting just got too boring. Um.

03:07.34
jeffekennedy
On my covenant of thorns books this is a great example of traditional publishing versus self-publishing. You know what? and I’m even Goingnna oh I’m not going bring up the exact numbers. But. So I started releasing rereleasing Covenant of Thorn’s series Rogue’s Pawn being book one in July and then Rogue’s Possession came out later july and then third book Rogue’s Paradise is coming out in August and. For all three books considering this is a series that’s 10 years old fabulous covers beautiful covers um but old books I shared a um review on the podcast on friday. Was a very interesting review I shared it with Grace and she’s like wow that’s a great review and I was like well it’s sort of ah a mixed review but I would much rather have a review that notices. Um and notes how I’ve grown as a writer and for me going back and reading those first books. Is a little bit cringy. It’s a good reminder for me. Um, when I read new authors first books that I should probably like read one of their later books too because um, ah I mean thank goodness I’ve gotten so much better. But wow you know and people told me then that it was overwritten and I didn’t think it was ah but ah the hubris of youth and newbiness right? Ah yeah, ah. In one contest. Someone told me that it was um, overwritten like Anne Rice is overwritten and I took that as a compliment. Um I think I’m way worse than Anne Rice ah but um anyway these books are being well received but they’re not burning up the charts I mean they’re not like hugely high rankings I’ve got more preorders for book 3 than I have for books 1 or 2 I like twice as many which is really nice. So that means that the people that are reading it and loving it. Are wanting to read that third book. That’s awesome. Um, but you know it’s like it’s still double digits I mean I don’t even have preorders in the triple digits which is fine. You know it’s like that’s kind of what I expect for rereleasing an old series like this right? so.

05:54.79
jeffekennedy
Even with fairly low but climbing preorder numbers I’m trying to walk the line here I I don’t want you to Um, oh what am I trying to say I’m trying to set the correct expectation here because I figured. If I was lucky if things went well that I could recoup my investment in putting a new cover and reformatting the book putting it up for sale. Ah in the first month and I’m going to do that easily more. For the first two books and with pre-orders alone for the third book each of those books has already I mean you’ll just like in numbers I don’t have the money yet, but they’ve already earned 10 to 12% of the lifetime sales. Of the books that did that they earned through Carina press. Okay, so let me rephrase that just in case I put that in a confusing way because I track all the sales of all my books. So in all the time 10 years that those books were with Carina Press and Carina paid me quarterly royalties on those books. So I know how much each book has earned over its lifetime via Carina in the time that I have had these up self-published a month for the first book. A month the two days they’ve already earned 10 to 12% of those lifetime sales one month versus ten years right? So when we talk about self- publishishing. And the money that you can earn in self-p publishing. There is a concrete example now why didn’t these books earn more money through Carina press. There’s a couple of factors and if you all already self publish or if you are um, you know, follow. Self-pubbers then you know this information but I’m going to share it here anyway because it does bear repeating part of it is the percentage. Um from Carina press even though they gave me a very generous I think 45% something like that of the. Net so that means of the money that they get after the wholesale price and all of that they gave me 45% of that price. So and actually.

08:42.34
jeffekennedy
Okay, so I went ahead and opened the spreadsheet just so I could give you some actual numbers because I calculate approximately how much I earn per book. Um, well this is going to be a little bit deceptive. However, okay, well let me give you the the numbers. From through Carina Press which is harlequin which is under harper collins. We’re looking at big consolidation of presses. So it’s worth it looking at that tiering. Ah penguin already emerged with random house. Now Simon Shuster is looking to acquire penguin random house. So anyway before and you know under them. My books were earning I would get ¢71 to a dollar for per per book. Now I have to do some quick baths self publishing I’m getting $3 per book. Um, so easily 3 times I’m making per book so that adds up fast. The other piece of it is. Marketing. Um, and we were having this conversation over the weekend. Ah Minerva Spencer and Katie Lane are their writing names came to brunch at my house on Saturday and we. Set out in the grape arbor and talked business. It was lovely and the demystifying thing is is because we have all published traditionally and self published. And it can just be mystifying what the traditional publishers are doing I do pretty basic marketing on that Covenant of Thorns series and it’s like a 1,000 times more than Carina press did on them especially 10 years later um we were gossiping about one friend of ours who’s who had a bestselling book Usa today but still bestselling book did enormously well but it came out a long time ago now. Um, somebody was saying 3 years but I think it’s longer than 3 years because 3 years was beginning of pandemic that amazing. Um, well it was like leading up into ah it’s on my mind because like Minerva Spencer I had not seen her since September of 2019 so it was nearly three years since I had last seen her in the flesh.

11:28.84
jeffekennedy
And it’s funny to think that um you know three years ago August of 2019 I was at world con in Dublin and we traveled around Ireland just seems ages ago. So um, anyway I think this this gal’s book came out. Probably five or six years ago yeah could be even six or 7 definitely pre 2017 so that gives us a ah range anyway. But she gets very upset that her traditional publisher is not. Pouring more publicity that they’re publicizing other books newer books and not hers which ah you know sometimes that happens that way. Oh. Mosquito so it’s this is what traditional and publishers do. They’re always about the new shiny. They don’t care about the older books. Um.

12:47.54
jeffekennedy
And and it’s to the detriment of the author because I mean you know like this girl’s perfectly right to be upset that they’re not publicizing this book. Especially I mean everybody could be making money on this but they just don’t they also. Just don’t seem to know how to position books which is bizarre and they fully believe that they do know I mean they’re just certain that they are in the right? So it’s this very interesting thing. Um that there are what, one of the gals I don’t remember who they might have both said it is like well why are people still going with traditional publishers and I still think there are good reasons to publish traditionally. But as far as making a living and getting your books out there. Ah. And makes all the difference and and what’s funny is that the traditional publishers and we all know this because we have editors and agents saying this to us as they’ll say well you know you just can’t make real money self-p publishishing and they always want to go back to the Statistic. You know that most self-p publishers. Only ever sell a hundred copies a year and and it’s like yeah, but then you have to look at the the other end of the spectrum that you know you’re not looking at the person who decide to you know, write their memoir and. Printed it out for their kids and grandkids. Um, besides which we don’t have to sell as many copies to make really good money as evidenced by this statistic I’m just fascinated by that it has made this big of a difference because I thought well. You know should I even republish. These am my sinking good money into this for no reason it’s going to be great. It’s going to be awesome. I was also counting up like how many books I sold at Apollycon because in the world of the convention. You know, ah it was just like sale sale sale I sold a lot of copies of Rogues Pawn I didn’t realize how many but that was the right crowd for that book I did not sell as many copies of dark wizard as I thought I would I do have a mosquito candle out here now to fend off the mosquitoes. Ah, see if that works I’d scooted it closer because there’s a couple of mosquitoes hovering hovering hungrily. So um.

15:30.26
jeffekennedy
You know it’s just really interesting what you sell in different venues and I think this is one of the things that self-publishers are able to do is that I can go and I can see which of my books sell on site and what I can say to readers that elicits their attention. I think it’s really super cool that I sold so many copies of the print version of rogue spawn um, for $10 right? Ah, but they love that it was a face story. So um. My point and I do have one. You know that there are people in traditional publishing who make a huge amount of money but there are lots who don’t and even the ones who are making a decent living the dreaded midlist right? which has become kind of a curse. But. There was a statistic that came out the other day that said that um I don’t know if they put a percentage on it but it was most and and I believe that it is most traditionally published authors are making $25000 a year or less which is. Below poverty level in the us and I I don’t know if that’s before or after taxes. But it’s still It’s not much money. Actually I think it was $20000 a year because the person who retweeted it into my timeline said that they were. Doing relatively well compared to many of their compatriots and they’re making $25000 a year. Um, which is still not enough to live on and traditional publishing persists in this idea that um. You know that we should be grateful for the money we are making I think ah one of my friends has been kind of struggling because ah, her traditional sales have fallen off. Um, we think we know why I think I know why actually I gave her. Um. A really good insight and I’ve seen this happen to a number of my friends that’s bragging isn’t it I thought it was great insight. She agreed. Okay, so in in two cases I’m thinking of specifically and I could probably think of a lot more There was an author who was selling incredibly well in a particular thing and their publisher changed the branding of it in 1 case, an author was told no no, we don’t want more of these of this subgenre. We want you to write this other subgenre.

18:11.45
jeffekennedy
And the books just didn’t do as well and the publisher is like huh I wonder what happened? Well you went off of the main readership and this other friend of mine who has done fabulously well in. Traditional publishing to the point where she didn’t really want to self-p publishlish because she’s like I’m making better money and trap and it’s like well wherever you’re making better money and go for it but now ah her most recent series. The sales are really tanked and I realized how they changed from her main branding that these books don’t. Look or feel or have the same wording as the ones where her main platform is and and it’s a departure and and once I pointed this out to her. She’s like you know what? I’m going to put these words in my next title and I’m going to see what’s what happens and it’s like great. We can do this as self publishers meanwhile in traditional publishing land. Her editor actually said to her that it’s because she’s self-publishing that she’s diluting her sales and that’s and it’s her fault and this is what they do in traditional publishing is they tell the author that it’s their fault and because it can’t possibly be theirs. And it’s nonsense. It’s I I was telling this story to Minerva and Katie this weekend and both of them immediately said that’s bullshit because we all know that readers read much faster than we can write and they they want more books. They don’t. Get tight. They don’t say oh ho ha another j– oops sorry another Jeffe Kennedy ah slight slip there wonder if I could fudge it out I bet I didn’t say as much as I thought I did we’ll see. Ah, but yeah, another Jeffe Kennedy Blah you know it’s maybe there are some who say that but the passionate readers they want more and this idea that um, which tread really holds onto that you know that they feel that it should be 1 book a year and I even had that. Um, on my last traditional publishing excursion. You know when we were talking about the frequency of the books and they said well our market research shows that the books do best if we release some nine months apart I kind of wanted to say well, what market research is that. Because it’s sure not how it looks from our perspective. The other interesting thing about self-publishing and this is a conversation that Minerva Katie and I were having was how we know what it takes to make a good cover. We know exactly how expensive a cover is.

20:57.00
jeffekennedy
We know about layers and putting them together. You have to learn I mean it’s just like at first you don’t know and you gradually learn so when a traditional publisher comes to us and this has happened to all of us. And says look at this beautiful expensive cover and we’re like that’s clip art and this part doesn’t look right? Can you fix this and they’re like oh no, it would take so much to fix that we’re like no, no, no, all you do is go in and tweak that layer. Um and they still want to act like we don’t know this that they can still blow sunshine. Ah. So this has turned somewhat into an indictment of tread which I don’t mean it to be because um I there are a lot of things I love about traditional publishing. Um and I will still try to publish traditionally but there. I feel like we’ve been saying for more than a decade now that traditional publishing is going to have to change what they’re doing and they are somehow mysteriously still not doing it. Um, but yeah, just being able to. To make a living as a writer. There are not many people who can do that without also self- publishing or without having a sidegig. So um I do think and we were all agreeing is in our conversation Saturday that. It was huge for all 3 of us that we had already traditionally published and had that readership they’re they’re good at establishing that readership and so it made self publishing much easier. It’s it’s harder when you’re coming right out of the gate as a self-p publisher. Unfortunately, that’s just how it is. So on that note I’ve chattered on long I hope you all have a wonderful Monday and a wonderful week and I will talk to you all tomorrow you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – August 5, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Thoughts on being groomed to be nice and pleasing people, along with musings on “people will never forget how you make them feel,” insights from Maria Vale’s WOLF IN THE SHADOWS, and a meaningful review of ROGUE’S PAWN.




Transcript
00:01.87
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance here with my first cup of coffee. Happy dancing today is say it with me Friday. Woo August Fifth um first week of all this almost done depending on how you slice your week to He’s are busy. They like Friday also so um, how are you all. How are you doing I did not have a terribly productive day yesterday I did not hit my word count. But um I had a really good time at r coffee it was the first time that the group of us had been together in a while there’ve been just. What people going out and peopleing. So yeah, it was a really good time I got a little bit of writing in before I left and um, a little bit done when I got back did some royalty crunching so that was good. I’m still at a good place on this book I’m going to set up the pre-order soon. I’m going to do the cover reveal soon I think I’m going to do the cover reveal next week that’s pretty exciting isn’t it I think it’s exciting. So um, yeah I’ve I’ve passed midpoint I’m at 44,000 words liking this story having a really good time with it. So um, so yeah I feel like I’m a good place I think it’s going to release I should just commit I’m setting the release date for September Twenty Ninth you heard it here. Almost first I think I said it in the newsletter or at least I told assistant corine to say so in the newsletter. Ah, she tends to try to um, protect me from committing to Release States I don’t know why Ah but something blah blah blah stress blah blah blah. Things come up. Um blah blah blah don’t you don’t have to commit yourself I’m fucking committing myself September Twenty ninth it’s a cool morning here in Santa Fe um we had storms all night

02:35.31
jeffekennedy
But really didn’t get any rain. The storms just kind of circled lots of lightning and thunder um, so it was it was pretty. You know all around the valley seeing the heat lightning and the clouds and but it would be nice to get some more rain with it I know I’m greedy greedy now. So. But yeah, it’s almost a little cool for no sleeves just kind of nice people are always surprised that being in New Mexico that we have cool weather too. It’s um. Have to understand how geography works I don’t know what to tell you so the other thing I did yesterday and I’ve been thinking about this ever since it’s on my mind ah is I stopped in to pay the remainder of my bill on my new fountain. Ah, because the remainder is birthday present from the husband. So for those of you who may not listen every day that I broadcast I don’t know how you could, but you know hey choices. Um, so I had this big rock fountain. Installed up front that I’d been wanting for like ten years and it was expensive. Saved up for it partly Christmas present partly birthday present. So and and you may have heard me kind of like obsessing a little bit about John. About the mythical John and what John required to install the fountain and so forth and the install went great. But so there was this sales skill that I worked with Beth and she was like the person who greeted me when I got there and she helped and in general I liked her. She was good. Um, but. She was not communicative after after like I settled on the one I wanted in some way she was like trying to talk me out of that one and you know kept saying oh I could do other ones and I was like no no I like this one and then she was worried that was gonna be too. Big and and so I realized that a great deal of my anxiety about the install and my nervousness about the mythical John who turned out to be absolutely delightful and obliging and helpful. Unlike a mosquito. Um I realized that all of that had come from her. And so you know which I didn’t necessarily hold against her but from the time I put down my deposit because I did have that date right? My financial records until they actually installed the fountain was six weeks in a day and during that time I had to call twice to say.

05:23.17
jeffekennedy
So are you guys going to grab and install this founder what been set on my money but I thought you know it’s Santa Fe it’s New Mexico manana is a thing. It’s landscaping. They’ve probably it’s summertime. They’ve got lots of big clients I was willing to be patient. You know, obviously it wasn’t like I had to have it done for like a wedding or something like this so I was all right with that. Um, but you know I did have to pursue it several times. And there was a little bit of this anxiety involved and all of that I was good with so they came and installed it left I was a little bit dismayed that they left the great bear and that there were no rocks on top of it which I felt like was not explained to me which i. Felt like was kind of Beth’s fault you know that she didn’t say oh do you want rocks on top too because one of the guys who installed it said oh we could bring some rocks and you know if you want to pick out some rocks and it’s like well had I realized I would have just picked out some rocks on site and had to brig it. When they brought everything else to install the fountain right? but it was too late at that point and not those guys fall and I ended up doing it myself which was probably less expensive but definitely a lot of work. So so anyway it was it wasn’t perfect when it when they left but you know I was. I was satisfied with it and that very afternoon I got an email from Beth with an invoice for the rest of the money and I was like oh so you’ll know how this is right like when you’re eating at a restaurant and the. Ah, server is late with everything um leaves the table this happened to us during a polykon because we made a reservation ahead and yes, we were a big group of ten people but we made the reservation you know weeks and weeks ahead that. Delightful Maria Vale did it found this restaurant and made the reservation and warned them big group limited amount of time and when we got there, they didn’t even have the table set up which was a bad sign but the waiter would just ignore us. For long periods of time like everyone would be out of water. We’d be out of wine and we would have drunk a lot more wine had the waiter enabled that which I always wonder at because that’s just money in their pocket right? You know and maybe some people think that a group of women aren’t going to tip in which case they’re just.

08:05.68
jeffekennedy
Stupid and they don’t know life because almost every woman I know has at some point weighted tables and appreciates how much work it is and they tip well but this is beside the point. My analogy is the server who takes forever to. Do absolutely everything but then is Johnny on the spot with the bill at the end because they what can’t wait to get rid of you or whatever. So this struck me exactly that way. It’s like oh you sat on my money for six weeks barely communicated with me. Only communicated with me when I initiated. But oh you can fire off that email right away. So I ignored it I’m like it. It was a passive aggressive fuck you it was like I’ll pay the invoice I wanted to pay it I don’t well maybe want is a strong word. But. I was committed to paying it and so I you know left it and besides we were going out of town the following week so Wednesday Wednesday three business days later I get another email from Beth saying. I didn’t hear back from you. Did you get my email with the invoice and I was like really really bad. You are able to like now you can follow up when there’s money involved you know, like probably she got a commission or something I don’t know maybe they were chewing on her I don’t know but it. It annoyed me with initial caps and so I took a couple days I was on vacation and I emailed her back and I was nice I mean kind of nice and I explained and I said you know I’m taken aback that. You sat on my money for six weeks did not communicate with me. Ah, you know I felt like my project was low priority which okay, but to have the all the efficiency be piled into extracting the rest of the money from me. Ah, feels like not great. So customer service and she wrote back. Um, maybe a couple days later it wasn’t immediately and she apologized it was a reasonable apology. Um, so before I went to a polycon I did stop by there to try to pay the rest of my invoice. And they had already closed for the day. Um, you know it’s like they don’t make it really easy for you to do these things but and I emailed her at the beginning of this week and I said just letting you know that I stopped by to pay the invoice and you all are already closed for the day but I’ll try to stop by this week

10:56.62
jeffekennedy
And I think she sent back. Okay, that’s fine. So yesterday after rider coffee I was in that neighborhood and I stopped in and I was able to go in there and this other lady met me sort of outside they have like this little um, you know like it’s a big landscaping yard kind of thing. Um, and they have a very small like office hut and this other lady met me outside of it and she said can I help you and I said yes I’m here to pay the rest of my invoice and she said oh okay and she said something like are you Margaret and I was like no she says okay and den says what is your name and I say Jennifer Kennedy as I follow her inside. And inside leaning against the counter is Beth and I say hi and she goes oh hi and I said how are you doing it. She said great and she turns around and walks out the door and does not come back in the entire time and when I leave there is not hide nor hair her and the look on her face. I mean she was I don’t know ah not happy not happy I I don’t know if I could identify the mix of emotions but there was definite anger and she was not going to have a conversation with me right? she started to do the high. How are you think. Until she realized who I was and and it’s funny because like the second time I went in after she had waited on me. The second time she didn’t recognize me and this time she didn’t quite recognize me at first and you know I don’t expect people to recognize me completely. But. I did pay a fair amount of money and I am recognizable, especially because I’m my big hat on right people usually do remember me not bath. But anyway I was reflecting on this as I left. Um, you know paid my invoice. Chatted with one of the worker guys who was in there and the gal that you know took my money and told them that I love my fountain and they were just charming you know and they’re like oh we’re so glad you know and everything it’s like this was the customer experience I wanted um, not Beth who like hid from me. As I leave like what am I going to do to her and and I did wrestle with feeling kind of bad about this and I was thinking about that quote that’s attributed to Maya Angelou I don’t know if it you know internet who knows if it’s real, but it’s um. People might forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel and I think that this quote is often interpreted to mean that we should always make other people feel good about themselves and and I was wrestling with this feeling like.

13:47.37
jeffekennedy
Was I unkind to Beth should I have been kinder to her and I thought she will never forget how I made her feel about this and I thought well is that a bad thing and I feel like throughout my life especially when I was younger. I really viewed myself as not being a nice person I’d gotten so much feedback may I offer you some feedback? Do you guys see that when we I thought that was funny um that I was not nice that I could be nicer. And I think that this is something that women get all the time right? You know that we need to be nicer and I’ve been reading um Wolf in the Shadows. Ah the last book in the legend of all wolves series by Maria Vale love this series it’s lyrical it’s gorgeous um I’ll put up a review but one of the things she really explores in this book is the female protagonist is a woman who has been sort of relentlessly molded to be nice and she’s learned to smile. In this particular way I’m sort of like trying to do it on video that is like a pleasing smile with her lips enticingly open but I saw in the video that a mosquito right in the middle of my forehead that’s enticing. But so as not to make her cheeks look fat and I think anyone who’s like done a selfie for Instagram we’re always trying to do that figure out how to like smile without squinching our eyes and making our cheeks look fat. Um, yeah, and and a lot of it is her. Being having pleasing behavior and I thought well I think a whole lot of my viewing myself as not nice when I was younger was from some of this relentless coaching to be more pleasing to be softer to be more attractive and. Later in life. It does become a thing where you stop caring about that so much. Um, you don’t really care about enticing men. Um, maybe because you have a man or maybe because you don’t care anymore or you never did depending on your orientations and. Ah, how many fucks you have left to give but it’s it’s been interesting to me also later in life having so many people say to me that I am a really nice person you know and and they use the word. Um.

16:27.67
jeffekennedy
Generous and I love that that people call me generous because it’s important to me to be generous and so I was thinking holding to a line and that’s one of my favorite quotes from Georgia O’keeffe and it really is from Georgia O’keeffe where she said um, if you can find. Where your line is and hold to it that is the most one can do in life and yeah, you know maybe saleswoman bets won’t forget how I made her feel but maybe she’ll become a better salesperson. Maybe not because um. Learning from the lesson. She would have stayed there and had a conversation with me and been like you know because I could be a repeat customer right? if I’m a repeat customer I’m not going to work with Beth but otherwise I was really happy with the work they did so that was on my mind. Um, yeah, that sometimes people remember how you made them feel doesn’t mean that they have to feel warm and fuzzy and good about themselves. You know that’s we don’t all need to feel good about ourselves all the time right? Especially if we screw up. So the other thing I want to share is I got a um ah review of Rogue’s Pawn so I’ve released Rogue’s Pawn and Rogue’s Possession. Rogue’s Paradise book 3 is coming out. Um like in another week or so I’m getting it uploaded. And this is one of my longtime readers and I wanted to share this to share this with you not to you kind of to you? Ah, but I thought that um you all might find this interesting since I was angsting a fair amount you know about releasing this book and that I’ve changed as a writer. And so I thought she gave this a really thoughtful interesting review. Ah, but but but um, where she says I’m not going to read you the whole thing. Um, she says comparing her early works to her more recent work definitely shows how she’s grown I mean alas I figured this would show that’s me, um, it says Miss Kennedy’s author note at the beginning of the book provides insight and genuine reflection that I appreciate. Which is good right? Good thing I did that with this in mind I went into the book with lower expectations I should not have worried the concept of this story blew me away. It takes a different look at the faye and creates something new yet familiar authors who can make an existing mythos. Fresh are impressive.

19:11.82
jeffekennedy
The rough part is the writing style and the character voice. Yeah I got better at that. Um I can definitely see how this is one of her earlier works her writing style has evolved to have more complicated world building as well as complex characters. Her later stories are layers upon layers. In rogue’s pond there is intrigue and a little layering by doling out information in bits and bits Jennifer a k lord lady sorcerer is a human who has sucked into another world where she neither knows the rules nor the people people the reader is following her first person account and is just as befuddled. This world is a reinterpretation of the fay. How Ms Kennedy blends and bends the mythos to her wishes is intriguing. It parallels Jennifer’s experience on this bizarro world. This could be a high fantasy book but it mixes in romance and even some bdsm non con. Ah yeah, which is fair. Ah, which makes it defy easy Categori’s categorization story of my life. This is why I could not sell this book suffice to say that I ended up with a book hangover and wished I could have taken a sick day. The ending of the story hooks me into the next book and I want to dive right into Rogue’s Possession recommended to fantasy readers who enjoy their fate. Dark and careless. So I love that I love um, everything about it. It’s it’s interesting to have someone else assess in the same way that I did um that it was um, you know I’ve grown out as writer. And it was tempting to fix things. But I’m kind of glad I didn’t because it’s part of our history right? Um, yeah, so thoughts for a Friday I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and. Get to ah I was trying to to frame this wish for you that you ah behave according to your authentic heart I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – August 4, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

News about an exciting whirlwind trip to Las Vegas to see Celeste Barber, #perfectlyfine frose, a bit about chips on shoulders and publishing paths, and how the bar is what I remember about hotels.




Transcript
00:00.96
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Was so good today is Thursday August Fourth um well here we are in August beautiful lush summer gotta love it. Kind of an overcast day here in Santa Fe we’ve got um some rain last night. A little bit supposed to get more today robust monsoon season. There’s so much. So so much waiting I have to do so much. But I did get the finances caught up yesterday and that was a big thing.

00:56.46
jeffekennedy
Yeah, um, sort of thinking about and I also did a bunch of SFWA stuff? Um, you know it’s funny when we have conversations about things that we do to advocate for writers right? It’s big part of our mission. Advocate for creators. Really we’re trying to make that distinction acknowledging that not all creators of science fiction and fantasy work in prose. But there’s um, trying to figure out how I can say this. Sometimes advocating for publishers is not the same thing as advocating for writers and I had a little bit of a back and forth with someone yesterday who didn’t quite get my point there. It’s not that I think that traditional publishers. Are against creators. But I think that they’re on their own team and that just because a publisher wants something doesn’t necessarily mean that we should as an organization advocate for it because it may not be. The best thing for the creators and the person ended up saying something about how they thought that they thought that certain people had chips on their shoulders about um, traditional publishing or self publishing which okay sure some people do. But I wanted to say if that’s directed at me I’m not sure which shoulder I have the chip on since I do both traditional publishing and self- publishing and I think there are merits to both but I also don’t think that traditional publishers. Are going to take care of authors um over their own interests. I think there’s plenty of evidence for that anyway, that’s a little bit of a tangent. It was just something that was on my mind. Um, yeah, so it was good I got a lot done yesterday I got my 2000 words I participated in a meeting I got the finances totally caught up and the bills paid which I had not. In a while I still need to finish crunching royalties. But I’m getting closer. Ah it was actually pretty awesome because I got my 2000 words by 11:30 in the morning because I had an 11:30 meeting and so I started slightly early and I was feeling good and.

03:44.16
jeffekennedy
I was pretty intent on getting as much done before that eleven thirty meeting so I could like catch up whatever and then I got them all by 11:30 and ah I know I keep saying it if I can get my words by noon I am just a happy camper. It just makes all the difference for me. When I’m still trying to get my words at one or 2 in the afternoon. no no no I just don’t like it doesn’t work for me. Ah so some exciting news that I realized I forgot to mention and it sort of became this is like a last minute thing. And I saw Megan last night and the delightful Charlie we had Frose which was #perfectlyfine and if you don’t know that joke you’re gonna have to go back some podcasts or just accept. It. Was delicious at la casa sena in Santa Fe in the courtyard ended up being a gorgeous evening I thought it was going to be too rainy, but it was perfect evening didn’t rain at all and skies cleared out so it was a lovely peaceful evening.

05:02.29
jeffekennedy
But um, so we were talking about our plans to go to Las Vegas next weekend. Jeffe you may say we did not know you were going to Las Vegas next weekend and I will say to you? Well it was a last minute thing. Ah. And we just put it together. Um, so not this Saturday but a week from Saturday we are flying to Las Vegas and we are going to see Celeste Barber play at the venetian going to see her ah her show her stand-up show which is I think. It’s something like fine fine. Thanks, that’s it. It’s Fine Thanks! which is a nice dovetail with #perfectlyfine I’m sure I told the perfectly fine story here on the podcast if I didn’t those of you who watch all the time. Ah, tell me and I will tell the perfectly fine story. But I think I did so I have told it to a number of people so I may not remember where I’ll I’ve told it but it’s my favorite hashtag now. So yeah, um. Celeste Barber’s playing at the venetian her Fine Thanks american tour. She’s an australian comedian if you don’t know her. She’s a hysterical ah me it introduced me to her on Instagram she does these wonderful sendups of the ah you know like that. Ridiculousness of the things that people post to Instagram trying to show off their bodies. You know mean all airbrushed and she does like the real woman version of them and so she did her australian tour and she’s been up in Canada and she’s coming through the states. And we were able to get tickets for her show kind of last minute I think not a lot of people know who she are who she are who she is yet in the us. So we got um, 4 tickets for $20 each – dang! I should have given Megan money last night I forgot. Terrible. Ah, and Megan found us. Um airline tickets for spirit airlines out of Albuquerque to Las Vegas for $63 each round trip. Ah so it is. Extra if you want to check a bag. They don’t even have like um you it’s the carryons aren’t even freeance I’ve never flown spirit before I ventured it to David and he said does it take off from someone’s backyard and Megan said yes, lol.

07:46.56
jeffekennedy
So we told Megan that if the plane crashes and kills us all. We’ll be really unhappy with her. But yeah, you can’t even carry on a bag for free. All you can carry on is a personal item and David needs too many things to keep him going. So I paid like $40 to check a bag. So that means we’re flying round trip for $200 and our tickets between the 2 of us are $40 and we got free rooms at the venetian from david’s ah you know account they comp us to room. 2 for 2 free nights. So ah yeah, we’re going to las vegas for like $250 no doubt we will end up spending more than that but not bad and it should be really fun I’m excited. So it’s yet another weekend I’m going to be gone in august I will probably bitch about this later but right now it sounds cool. I’m home this weekend next weekend we’re going to vegas ah going saturday morning coming back monday morning the following weekend I will be in albuquerque at bubonican – No wrong order the following weekend. We’re going to tucson. To celebrate birthdays see my family then the weekend after that is Bubonicon in albuquerque and the weekend after that labor day weekend I will be in chicago for ChiCon for world con and I’m giving a workshop there did I mention. I probably did I’m pretty excited that I get to give a workshop at world con and I’m on several panels and things so that’s nice. What’s with the mosquitoes you know like they say april showers bring mayflowers. It’s sort of like monsoon rings bring mosquitoes it’s not nearly so poetic or delightful.

09:42.37
jeffekennedy
Sorry for the clapping if that was startling so that’s the news in my world. Um I also need to finish writing this book during August so hopefully that’ll work out. I am teaching a class for the fantasy futuristic and paranormal chapter special interest chapter I think still of RWA lot of the chapters have been disaffiliating so but I think they are still affiliated. So I’m giving a workshop at their meeting on. Sunday afternoon and then we’ll be teaching the class for four weeks online ah so if you want to register for that I assume you can I don’t think they’ve even given me links on how to do that. But it’s going to be. Busy wizy months but hopefully with the leavening of a lot of play in with the work I’ll be able to get everything done. Um, let’s see other news. Some of you may know if you’re following closely on a polyon 2023 ticket sales have been postponed until they can revisit the ah the hotel. The venue was pretty disappointing. I didn’t have too many problems but then Jennifer L Armentrout sort of posted a list of all the things they struggled with some of them I didn’t know about boy the mosquitoes are just everywhere. Sorry um so that’s postponed it’s. Funny because we were at the Hyatt Crystal City in arlingto,n suburb of Dc is there a suburb of Dc. Anyway, you know what I mean and when I was in the bar called the Lobbibar which they spell a cute way but is otherwise. Unimaginative name I recognized this high table or it looked I was like oh I know this high table and I took a photo of it because it reminded me of this table in the bar at world fantasy con in Dc in 2014. Ah, and I’m amazed that it was 2014 ah time time is strange. Um, yeah I get my years confused but I know this because I looked it up.

12:29.18
jeffekennedy
I’m spoiling the story. So I took a photo of this table because when I went to world fantasy con it was the first time that I met ah my first agent in person and he was not yet there when I arrived and I was walking into the bar. As one does and this ah woman says to me are you Jeffe Kennedy and it was one of the first times that um someone recognized me and I said yes and she says hi I’m Jennifer Udden and Jennifer turned out to be. My agent’s best friend. She was also an agent and that was the beginning of ah of a fruitful friendship, a long friendship and there were several other people sitting at the table agents and editors and they just kind of um took over that high table. For the entirety of the conference they just parked there and so I would go and I would sit with them and they would buy me drinks and they would buy me meals and it was really um, it was just really fun. It was like 1 of the first times as an author that industry people were treating me to stuff. And so I took a photo of this table and I texted it to jen yesterday. Ah because I’d just finally gotten around descending it and I said this table reminded me of the one that we sat at at world fantasy and she was like oh my god the memories and. And I was like well it wasn’t the same hotel was it and so then when I went back and looked at my emails that was what I saw it was world fantasy in um, like November of 2014 and it was the same hotel. It was the exact same hotel and I the only thing that. You know now that I know I can match up the memories. Yeah I mean it’s eight years difference right? But I find it just really amusing that what is the thing that really triggers Jeffe’s memory ah it’s the bar. It’s the bar is what Jeffe remembers. Um. So none of us are shocked by this right and then amusingly enough because we one of the things we were doing yesterday is we’re working on the nebula conference for 2023 also and we. Was we were putting together our our RFP which is what you send to the hotel. It’s basically a request for a proposal. We send it to the hotels and ask them to tell us how much it would cost and what the logistics would be and so we were getting some advice on how to put together the rfp.

15:18.81
jeffekennedy
To cover having a hybrid conference because we want to do this as best we can and so there was a list of like all the hotels where there’s previous nebula conferences and I saw 2012 conference was at the Hyatt Crystal city. It’s like clearly this hotel has like established their brand as. Serving science fiction and fantasy community. However, um, the Jennifer L Armentrout ah corporation group are not happy with them right now and when she explained all the things that had gone wrong besides us not having. Adequate air conditioning in the ballroom that I was signing in I don’t blame her for being unhappy. But maybe they’ll get it together because it’s otherwise ah a decent hotel for a convention I mean obviously lots of us have done it. So um. I keep meaning to tell dorinda unforgeting and mentioning here. One of the things about flying back and forth to a polyon was I flew on Delta which I have not in I don’t know probably 2 decades I have a memory of flying delta. Back when we still lived in Laramie it would have had to been pre 2007 and ah missing my connection in I think Memphis and having to stay overnight. And they did comp my hotel room but calling David and just crying because I was so frustrated I couldn’t get home. This is when I traveled all the time. Yeah, and he was like it’ll be all right? you know, but it was um I flew home in the morning and had to get all the way back up to laramie. And we were hosting a party that afternoon for my own fucking birthday and it worked out I got home. Everything came off fine but I was that was just a low point and I associated that with Delta which really it wasn’t delta’s fault. I remember a ticket agent being very kind to me because I was probably just incredibly stressed and exhausted and it was like I does want to go I always try to be nice to the ticket agents because it’s not their flip and fault right? So um, why was oh. Flying on Delta so I flew on delta for reasons. Um I had a here are the reasons I mean they’re not important, but it was because I had been going to go visit. Ah Kelly Robson in Toronto ah, last January and that was

18:06.54
jeffekennedy
Delta was where I could get a decent fly to Toronto was it a year ago january oh well and ended up having to cancel that trip because pandemic and I think it was January Twenty Twenty one so I had that flight credit and I wanted to make sure to use it before it expired so and and it was a good way to fly into Reagan which Hyatt crystal city is right next to Reagan airport and you guys flying you all flying delta was amazing. There was. Fantastic. The people were great. The planes were so clean I was saying this to Charlie and Megan last night and I was said I’m wondering why I’ve been messing around with american and southwest when Delta was so fabulous and not more expensive and and Megan is like yeah, it’s like their planes are skeezier. And it’s so true so they had the Tvs and the seatbacks and free entertainment and I was able to watch for free. The new Dr. Strange on the way there and on the way back everything everywhere all at once and um. And it’s interesting. How both of those movies are really playing with multiverse things and um, yeah, sort of fracturing of realities and so that was really cool to sort of put that in I I very much enjoyed both movies I thought. Both were excellent. Um, and then because I had a connection I to fly through Atlanta I also just watched some fun movies like on the flanking side of those but it was nice to be able to just sort of sit in my comfortable seat which. I felt like I had plenty of room and it was a cozy seat and I was not in the lap of the person next to me and you know they provided the headphones with the little Jack and just to be able to sit there and concentrate wholly on the movie. Um, yeah, both of them were really good. And I probably have more intelligent things to say about them. But I’m about out of time and I am going to go to writer coffee today. So so yeah, often think of if I have specific things to say about those movies but I find it very interesting that that’s where we are with storytelling is. Playing with the whole multiverse thing many different realities and more than one person has commented that we appear to have gotten stuck in a very bad timeline. Ah as we want to go back to the ah the 2016 branch.

20:52.19
jeffekennedy
And go into the timeline where Trump did not win that election and maybe things would have been very different these last six years. So um, on that note, let’s make the best of this timeline that we can I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday and I will talk to you all tomorrow. You all take care bye bye.

LONEN’S WAR Now in Audio!

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, New Release, News

Read Excerpt
On my mind this week is the audiobook release of LONEN’S WAR!
A little while back, I sold the audio rights for this self-published series, Sorcerous Moons, to Scribd. Megan Frampton is my editor there and she’s been great to work with. Many thanks to Agent Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency for negotiating the deal. I feel like I should give Sarah a special shout-out because it’s really great to have an agent who supports the indie side of my career, too. She invested a lot of time and energy into getting me the best possible contract with Scribd. Another plus: Scribd gave me a free subscription for a year! This is pretty amazing since other audiobook publishers of my books have refused to provide me with copies of my audiobooks. If I want to listen to my own freaking book on audio, I have to buy it.
Grr.
Not so with Scribd! I’ve been super pleased with the process of working with them. There was a SNAFU in the original recording and they fixed it by re-recording the first three books. It set the production schedule back but they did it without complaint and I was impressed by their professionalism.
The ensuing five books will be out on the following (tentative) schedule:

#2 ORIA’S GAMBIT August 16

#3 THE TIDES OF BARA September 13
#4 THE FORESTS OF DRU September 27
#5 ORIA’S ENCHANTMENT October 11
#6 LONEN’S REIGN October 25
Also, LONEN’S WAR is now wide and should be available on all retailer platforms. Print is coming any day now and just wait to see how super cool the set is together with the new covers!
Very exciting to see this rejuvenation of my first entirely self-pubbed series.
In other news…
Look for the cover reveal and preorder link for SHADOW WIZARD, Book #1 in Renegades of Magic, the trilogy that picks up after Bonds of Magic! Look for SHADOW WIZARD coming September 29, 20222! Here’s a sneak peek of the cover:

 

First Cup of Coffee – August 2, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

A well-kept secret about the reality of signing with an agent, one way to assess whether your agent is really working for you, and other thoughts on building the ability to produce work. Also, LONEN’S WAR is out in audio!




Transcript
00:01.21
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:20.70
jeffekennedy
Sheer ambrosia today is Tuesday August Second so it’s 8 2 2022 a good set of numbers. My birthday is coming up ah later this month in twenty days so that will be another set of eights and twos though I don’t know if I’ll get to podcasts that day I’ll um, be visiting my mother man stepdad in Tucson. So I don’t know maybe we can convince my mom to do a birthday podcast with me and we could just I don’t know reminisce about my birth. Probably we don’t want that. Let’s rethink. So anyway, today is exciting because the. Audio book of Lonen’s War releases today. Very exciting. Ah this is book one of the sorceer’s moon’s books of which there are None um sorceress moons was the none series I did. Totally indie that I did plan to self-publish from the beginning and did it indie all along that as opposed to some of the others where it was like a series that started in trab traad pub. That I continued in indie or it’s a lot of noises out there. Don’t know what that was um or one that I’d gotten the rights back and self-pubished so to. Ah, sorcers moons first came out in 2016 which is amazing right? Six years ago now and I started that when I first left the day job was kicked out of the nest in a fall of 2015 because my team was downsized and I decided to try to. Make it as a full-time writer without a day job. That’s my definition. Um, there are people who disagree with me but um, and I think it’s because being a full-time writer has a certain cachet and so people want to lay claim to it. But. Yeah, that’s what it is for me is if ah I have no other day job.

02:55.38
jeffekennedy
Ah, so ah, but Scribd Scr I bd scribb bought the audio rights for Sorcerous Moons which my lovely agent negotiated for me for those of you who are wondering how that works. For your indie pub books. You don’t have to have an agent to negotiate for you. But it’s great that my agent does want to do that for me and then she does get the percentage which is you know that’s fine. Ah she made a lot of changes to the contract. The negotiations took a long time. Ah, which I knew she was actively working on because she would send me updates as opposed to a previous agent who claimed to be spending a lot of time in negotiations when actually that meant he just wasn’t getting to it and it was sitting ah on his desk. If he had one not that I’m bitter. He claimed to spend a lot of time on negotiations on the contracts for a particular pair of books and I’ve compared it to the contracts that my previous agent. Ah. Put through that I know she did not do a lot of negotiating and I don’t see any difference so that’s one way that you know how do you know? I’m not a Broadway singer. But if I were. I would want to play Cinderella in any of her incarnations. That’s probably not true I like Amy Adams so so there’s a little bit of a stream of consciousness riffing for you. Ah, anyway, Lonen’s War out today. Dave started releasing the audiobook at the same time I have polled Sorcerous moons ah out of KU Lonen’s Reign book 6 will remain in KU until like September sixth because for some reason that never got uploaded into k u correctly, so it’s lagging behind the others but gradually the other books in the series are coming out of k u and I am putting them back up wide. So Lonen’s War is now wide again everywhere. So oh and I even had my phone out so I could show you the script listing here. It oh big flashing glare from the.

05:38.41
jeffekennedy
Rising sun if you’re on video but there’s the cover for Lonen’s War audio pretty cool and ah I’ve scribbed as an app on my phone and I really like it which I know is sounds like much right? because yo here I am. Like oh look listen to my audio book. Ah, but that’s exactly how I sound to but um, one cool thing that Scribd when they bought the rights to do audio for this series is they gave me a free subscription to scrib for like a year which. Let me tell you people none of my other audio book trad publishers have done that they in fact, some of my other books they would even give me a copy of my own frickin book on audio and I ended up having to buy it. Just so I could listen to it and know what my book sounded like on audio It’s such a huge mess. It’s stupid. Um, we all know we don’t really love audible and this is one of the big reasons. Why but scribbed is interesting because you can um. Read ebooks on here as well as listen to audiobooks and it’s a nice It’s a really nice app and they have a lot of stuff on here. I’m not a big audiobook listener but sometimes because I can listen. For free. Well, it’s actually is for free since I didn’t have to pay for my so so my subscription that I can try books out on audio that I’m not sure if I want to to buy and rate and then sometimes if I like them on audio i’ll. Stand by them and read them on kindmda or whatever. So anyway, I will put those links up in the show notes please check out the audio book if you’ve already read sorceress moons um, tell your friends who like to listen to fantasy romance on audio. Ah, Lonen’s War is a slow burn princess in a tower. One of the things that I learned as an aside at a polyon is that the readers who ask you to tell them about your books. They really want to hear the tropes and I am not. Always good at saying tropes. Ah I found that I was not good at explaining what dark wizard was about dark wizard did not sell as well in person as it does online. It was really interesting to see the difference of what things sold well in person as opposed to online. Ah.

08:26.63
jeffekennedy
But I did not do a good job of communicating what the dark wizard books were about for whatever reason. But I think it’s tropes I need to figure out what the tropes are for that book and series. Yeah, ah. But Lonen’s War. Do I even know my tropes I mean it’s enemies to lovers and he is attacking her city. He comes from the barbarians and she is literally a princess. Who is psychically fragile and so must live up in the tower away from all of the psychic energy of the city and because of this she’s like the only member of the royal family left alive when the barbarians win and. She ends up and lonan is a younger son but he is also ends up being the only one left alive of his family and so the 2 end up negotiating with each other to stop the violence to find a peace. Which of course inevitably involves them getting married right? Um, but that doesn’t happen till later. It is a slow burn I’ve seen I think it’s still like the top review on Amazon is this one person is like they don’t even touch each other. For the first book and it’s true but oria can’t be touched because of the um of her psychic abilities. She um, it’s it’s agonizing for her to be touched by somebody so they figure out very creative ways. To overcome that although much of that happens in book two after the wedding night. Um I’ve considered consolidating those and making them into a trilogy. You could put books 1 and 2 together and I mean it would work. 1 and 2 3 and 4 5 and 6 but I just left them as the separate books. So I do have um the audio books are they’re putting them out as a staggered release and let’s see if I can tell you. I think um, today’s August second I think the second one’s coming out. She gave me a tentative list. she said it might not happen um exactly on that she said it might change that’s it August Sixteenth is book 2 so they’re putting them out.

11:14.25
jeffekennedy
I think they’re looking at every two weeks so yeah by the time um the sixth book comes out and audio it will come out. It’ll be white. It’ll be out of k you so um. Have to kind of keep up with those things.

11:36.44
jeffekennedy
One thing I talked about with agent Sarah when we had lunch at Apollycon was I might just have the agency take over publishing the ah 7 contemporary bdsm books that I got back from Carina Press ah that would mean that the agency gets 15% of those books but would also mean that I don’t have to deal with them I’m trying to decide. Um, it would be good for me to do them myself. Algorithm wise I do get more money It’s also more work and. It’s no longer squarely on brand for me. So I don’t know if it would help with my other list. You know. Um, so still remaining on my notes that I took on the plane. 1 thing I was thinking about is how we learn how to work how we learn how to produce work and i. Got to have lunch with a newbie author at Apollycon. She’s an agency sister Tiff Holloman and she is not yet published so she signed with my same agent. Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost literary right before pandemic hit and excuse me that first book just didn’t so which happens sometimes um, actually happens more than people realize. And Tiff and I had lunch in part I think because she she did say that Sarah suggested that she make contact with me just because here I am I am the advice giver and ah, you know and I said you know I know it’s really frustrating when. The book that you signed an agent with doesn’t sell because there is a tendency to think when you’re a newbie author that once you get your agent that you haven’t made and I know so many people that it just doesn’t work out that way for whatever reason the book doesn’t sell. The agent doesn’t turn out I don’t know to be someone who actually does any work which is not the case with Sarah Sarah is awesome but

14:13.30
jeffekennedy
Sorry I’m starting to go down the mental path of like that first agent that didn’t like to work. Ah, if he had liked to work. He could have done a lot but he was just um I don’t know fatally and eternally distracted. So anyway, um, we talked about that Dave Tiff has written another book and they’re going out on submission with that so fingers crossed with her for her on that. Ah, really lovely. Go. She’s a lawyer works for the federal government. In Dc so she was local and so she came to the con to see how it was but then ah you know into meet with Sarah and so it was really nice that we got to have lunch with each other and one of the things we talked about was productivity. Ah, which of course is something people ask me about a lot and I talk about a lot on this podcast and I do a fair amount of author coaching on the topic because that’s always a question right? is how do we be productive. How do we get the work done and so I was giving her advice on writing in the morning. Before she goes to work. It’s ah yo that for me writing every day at the same time every day was the thing that worked and it’s the thing is is as I believe that is a guaranteed process. A lot of people feel like that’s not possible and I understand ah but. If you do that if you get in the habit of writing every day at the same time every day and it doesn’t have to be for very long that you will build a writing habit and that’s the most important thing that you need to reliably produce work. And she was lighting up as I was talking about this because she’s saying you know when I get home at the end of the day and after I’ve put the kid to bed and all of that and I said yeah, you’re done. You’re you’re out of juice and that’s why I write in the morning because that’s when I have the juice different people. Have different processes and some people have more juice late at night but if you have a day job if you have children if you have lots of day responsibilities then it’s not reasonable to expect your creative self to have much juice. At the end of the day after you’ve already done everything for everybody else, some people might but most of us know me I’m I’m kind of brain fried after these days. Ah after about five or six o’clock at night I am just I’m done and that’s when I want to read books.

16:53.20
jeffekennedy
Or watch shows and that was ah that’s where I’m at. I was thinking about talking about something ah that I just watched but or several things that I watched but I think I’ll save that and finish this thought. So anyway, one of the things I was thinking about was how no one ever taught me how to study. I did get the advice to write every day at the same time every day for more than one author and I resisted it for a very long time I did not want to do that. It felt incredibly difficult for me and part of the reason that I started doing it in the morning was it was the only time. That I could find where I could actually reliably write at the same time every day so I started getting up at four thirty or five and I was not a morning person so that I could write 2 hours before I went to work and then from there my day got progressively crazier. So. That was the one thing I could count on and as I told Tiff some of the stuff I wrote back then like hopeful monsters is one oh I’ll link to hopeful monsters if you all want to read that little story. Um, some of those things are seriously psychedelic and it’s because I was sleep deprived. And she was saying well I don’t know if I could go to bed early enough to be able to get up that early and I said I tell you what? at least the way it worked for me was if I made myself get up that early eventually I shifted and I was going to sleep early which is why I go to sleep around 9 because I wake up at 5 and that works for me. So anyway I was just thinking about in college my transition from high school to college and how in high school I just almost never studied I was fortunate enough to um. I’m an auditory learner so I could sit in class and listen and as long as the teacher had said it at some point I could put it down on the test I’m also good at absorbing from reading and I like to read so I would read the the assignments. Ah but I never worked very hard because I didn’t have to. And the classes I would have had to work in. Um I did not do great in and I was thinking about my transition to college because I went to a private liberal arts University Washington University in St Louis which I loved but I struggled in some of the classes because.

19:28.40
jeffekennedy
I needed to study and I didn’t know how and looking back mosquito if I had implemented that schedule then which of course never occurred to me but that first semester. I took a calculus class that started at seven thirty in the morning because I had already in high school been used to getting up that early. We had an ap biology class that I think school started at like 8 or 8:05 and the ap biology class had all um. Voted and agreed because we were hopeless overachievers to start class at seven thirty so that we could do some dissections and the sun is coming to get me here but I’m almost done. Ah, so I did that calculus class at 7:30 4 days a week and and I liked getting up and going to that class early but I didn’t work on learning the equations and so forth outside of class. Ah so it was not not. Not great and I felt like it was because I wasn’t good at it. But it’s simply that I couldn’t just absorb it and regurgitate it. So I wish if I were going back and I don’t often have something to say to my younger self but i. Wish that it had occurred to me or that someone had suggested it to me. Ah, if I had just in college and grad school gotten up early and studied did my. Um I could always do the readings I always did the readings. But if I just like run the math problems worked the various things biochemistry and so forth if I had just done that stuff for like 2 hours every morning I would have um. Probably would have done much much better than I did and I didn’t do abysmally but I didn’t do it brilliantly either. So there’s something to be said for that learning how to work incrementally incrementally which I know I’m a big fan of that. It took me a long time to figure it out and it was because I wanted to write novels and I had deadlines it was only after I had a traditional deal. Um, actually I ended up with several at once and I started to panic about being able to meet those deadlines.

22:10.55
jeffekennedy
That that was when I got really ritualized with my goals and deliberate about writing for a couple hours every morning and I still did it for a very long time up until I left the day job that was a nice circular. Discussion which I don’t often do wrap around to the beginning again. Um, and then I continued it after I got laid off because I already had the habit built so thoughts thoughts um, please share about the Lonen’s War audio book or and that’s wide now. Be nice to this series has new covers. So let’s um, we’ll be lovely to see it get a little resurgence and I will talk to you all on Thursday you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – August 1, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

I’m back from Apollycon and giving my full review of the conference! Also discussing it in terms of cons that take advantage of authors, the importance of keeping in mind why authors invest in this, and more!




Transcript
00:01.16
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I’m here with my first cup of coffee. Well, that’s good. That’s my first at home cup of coffee in a number of days so I’m back home today is Monday August first and I returned home from Apollycon yesterday. And it was. It was truly a wonderful convention. It was fabulous. So I have lots to say about it. Um, ah quite a few take homeme messages I pretty much ah called Grace Draven bestie as I was leaving the airport and we talked my entire 1 hour drive home. Ah, like as I was leaving the parking garage I called her and she picked up right away and I was like want to hear the breakdown. so um so yeah nice to be home nice to be back. Ah, it’s good to go places. It was really productive conference but I’m also happy to be back in my garden and now for for several weeks couple weeks anyway, no like 3 almost 3 ah. So um, astute and dedicated listeners among you may be surprised that I am podcasting today because you may have remembered that I was supposed to have jury duty today but they called me on. Friday afternoon and said that I was no longer needed I’m still on call for jury duty through the end of August but um, that thing got canceled. So my theory is is that they like settled out of court on Friday they called me. Well. It’s maybe they settled out of court on Thursday day. Ah because they called me fairly early in the day eastern time on Friday organized of them huh I really appreciated that they called and let me know so early so that I didn’t have to ah truck down. To the courthouse. Um I would have had to be leaving about this time. So I got a day back which is good I did get writing done when I was on site but I didn’t get a lot done. Um.

02:44.34
jeffekennedy
I wanted to get my 2000 words a day on Thursday and Friday I did get 2000 words on Wednesday before I left so that was good but I ended up getting a little over 2000 between Thursday and Friday I got like um. Almost 600 on Thursday there were a lot of distractions on Thursday and I got in very late. So ah I slept in some and then got up and I was rooming with Jennifer Estep so we were chatting. And then we went for a walk and found the Starbucks and got back and sat in the lobby and did some writing and Jennifer is very good about um you know sitting quietly by but of course that’s what you get for sitting in the lobby you’re asking for it. So you know. Lots of distractions people talking and then agent Sarah arrived and she took me out to lunch so that was nice. We got to have a good conversation and um, yeah, and then on Friday I did a little better I got. Like 1488 on Friday ah Jennifer had panels to do and I did not so I walked to the Starbucks and did an hour of writing there and then another hour once I got back to the room and I was hoping to get those last 500 words, but it um it didn’t work out that way we were setting up tables. We went ate lunch things but that was pretty good for being on site. Um, and now I got today back an extra day. Which is good because um, the other thing that happened Friday was David’s movement disorders specialist called the office called reminding him his appointment this afternoon at two fifteen in Albuquerque and I was like did we know about this Ah I don’t think it was on the calendar anywhere. So I’m going up to talk to the nurse about that because it’s just fortunate that it worked out. Um, if I’d had jury duty still. Don’t know what we would I guess we would had to cancel and re schedule so things work out a lot of rain while I was gone the rain ga had over three inches in it when I got back.

05:29.53
jeffekennedy
We got some last night but I don’t think anything measurable I could go look. But um, it’s definitely good for breeding Mosquitoes If you’re on Video. You’ll see me whacking the Mosquitoes So I Even read um some notes on the airplane things that I was thinking about. On the back of my hotel bill which was actually quite reasonable I Really do have to hand it to a polycon. Um, if you’ve been listening to me for a long Time. You will have heard me talk about um. Conferences and other events I Guess that don’t pay authors and how it’s a problem. So.

06:22.97
jeffekennedy
Um, this is leading me into many other thoughts that would that’s the long pause. But so I heard a story while I was at Apollycon about um, another conference. That’s a writers conference actually I’m not going to tell that story here I’m sorry sorry to tantalize you um to fill in for those of you who have not been listening for a long time. Ah I had resolved some years ago to stop going to conferences that ask authors to pay. Ah, registration fee that is equivalent to or more than what the attendees pay and there are a lot that do that? Um, because basically they’re building their reader conference on the backs of authors wanting to get promo and. Um, our t had become a big offender that way. It’s bastard child story con is doing the same thing if not worse asking authors to pay a very high registration fee and then tosquito. Ah, and then to do all sorts of sponsorships in addition. Ah, there are other conferences where they would just like charge the authors substantially more than the reader attendees. And it was aggravating to me because you know basically you’re being their content and you are paying to be their content. Um I’ll be right back there. That’s better. Sorry. So anyway, a lot of that stuff grew up around the rise of self-pubishing where so many authors were willing to invest in promo which there’s nothing wrong with that. But. Especially some of the smaller cons and I went to a few of them and I paid my money and they tried to extract more money from me and I watched them go after authors. Um like Darynda who is very kind and has a hard time saying no. And who they saw as having lots of money and they would ask her to pay more and more and more which she did and which drove me crazy. Um, and now I know that some of them don’t like me because I got in the way of them.

09:09.63
jeffekennedy
Tapping money for a Darynda I’m happy to be mean that way. So. Sorry that that would like lead into a whole nother ramp. Um, but you know I feel like this this whole community that grew up around tapping authors for money. Um, in the name of readers. Getting to do things or um, these other industries that were growing fat off of it. Um, it was it was bad scene and worse some of these smaller cons like I went back to 3 years in a row and it was exactly the same people. And not only was it exactly the same readers it many of these were having fewer and fewer actual readers at them including Rt and more aspiring authors which it’s fabulous to have aspiring authors there. We love having aspiring authors involved. Ah. But when you are paying as an author to go to a conference in order to expand your reach to new readers then that’s ah you know, not necessarily a good thing. Yes, writers are readers too. But you really. What to reach the power of readers. Ah, and that’s that’s important to some of the things I want to say about why I found a polycon. Really excellent. There were a couple of problems I hope we’ll get to do a feedback form but um. The buy-in for a polyon is very inexpensive. It’s $150 for an author to have a table. There were 3 3 hour signings which was a lot. Um and we were tireded afterwards. Um this is sponsored by Jennifer L armintroub and Jennifer ended up I heard from other people that she skipped on Saturday skip lunch and skip dinner and she was still signing at Eight o’clock at night trying to get through her line. So I’ll be interested to know how she re-jiggers it for the future.

11:31.21
jeffekennedy
She’s gonna have to figure out um a way to to maintain her health and still give the fan service. So it’s a cheap buy-in you know, otherwise we pay our travel costs and hotel and food and so stuff. Which we would have to do for every other conference right? Um, so the investment’s inexpensive investing and having your books there your swag and so forth, but the apolykon readers the way that Jennifer set this up. Is Jennifer and her team and the apolllyon team were really great too. Like I said a couple of problems things I think were probably not entirely in their control. Ah some of this might be like first in-person event coming out of pandemic. But. This crowd of readers was so refined and so exactly wanting the kind of thing that I write um and that Jennifer writes and so forth some of the Ben Diagrams got a little you know tangential. But it was um, you know 2000 readers and I think something. Like 100 authors? Maybe I don’t think I know the exact number so the ratio was fantastic and these were power readers. These were the people who um. They were there to see their favorite authors and get signatures. But then they were also looking for new to me authors and they were um, ready to to spend money and they bought books like crazy I have never sold books at an event like this. Um, it was incredibly well worth it. Well worth my time and the best part is is I really reached so many readers who are like I said power readers. Love to read enthusiastic parts of the fandom and. Who had never heard of me and so this sort of brings in an interesting question because and you all have heard me if you listen for a while you’ve listened to me talk about the competing of and I say demands and that’s not right. Reward system may be goals of being a career author because there’s a lot of reasons to try to make your living as an author. Um and the first and foremost should be love of story I think if you don’t love to write if you don’t love story. Um, then.

14:09.38
jeffekennedy
It’s gonna be really hard for you because that’s what carries you through the hard times and there will be hard times. So If you’re not doing it because you love it reconsider but love of story then there are other reasons um making money. You know, keeping the lights on ah and and as with I think probably all human professions. There’s a sense that the more money you make the more successful you are and the more you can feel good about it. That’s not ah, a straight line. I Know some really amazing tret pubbed authors some I was talking with over this weekend were making very little money and we were kind of talking about why are they not making more money. The simple answer to that is that the trad traditional publishers. We’ll get away with paying authors. It’s really a mosquitoy morning. They’ll get away with ah paying authors as little as they possibly can and um, yeah, enough sad. But you know so there is making money as one thing. Um. And so reaching new readers is kind of of a double-pronged thing because you want to reach new readers because part of the whole point of writing a book Is you want people to read it. It connects that circuit between the creator and the consumer of the creation. Um. I’ve known writers who say well I write only for myself and I’m happy that way and it’s like oh well, great. But you know why? Why would you write something that no one will ever Read. It doesn’t make sense to me. That’s some part of the sure there’s that creative upwelling. But. Circuit is completed when somebody receives the creation and reacts to it but then also reaching more readers means more success more money enables you to do more things enables you to not worry about paying the mortgage. In some of our cases. But then there’s always the ego thing and the ego thing isn’t entirely bad. You know and I know I talk down Ego I talk about fighting ego and ego being a problem and ego can be a problem but Ego is also what. Gets you through the hard times. Um, believing in yourself believing in your work having that strong enough belief in yourself and in what you’re doing that you can I don’t want to say ignore the rejections.

16:55.62
jeffekennedy
But um, you know that sort of that idea of having a thick skin nobody really ever has a thick skin but especially as a creator you tend to have a thin and sensitive skin. But that ego is what will help bolster you so that. You can get through the rejections and the scathing reviews and the various slings and arrows of working in a creative industry so you have to have a healthy ego but not an overweening ego but at events like this ego can really come into play. Because of course you have someone like Jennifer L Armittrout who’s enormously successful and signing. You know as long as she could stay on her feet and so it’s easy to be that success. Although a bunch of us were like sitting around in the bar. We found this great back nook in the bar and we’re back there. Eating and drinking wine because we were all so exhausted after 9 hours of siing and and that was where we were hearing that Jennifer was down there still signing and it was eight o’clock at night and she was still signing and had people in line and they were restructuring the line and all of this. And we were all like you know it’s easy to envy Jennifer’s success and at the same time we were all so grateful that we were not still in that line. Um, so it’s great to do this fan. Service. There were other author authors there who were ticketed authors and. Grace and I had even discussed ahead of time like why were these the ticketed authors ah where they could predict who was going to have the really really along the lines and I was interested in how did they predict it and some of the fallout from that was. Is they they didn’t always predict well I don’t know if they had any authors who were ticketed that they predicted incorrectly but there were certainly other authors there that ended up with huge long lines that they had not predicted would um and those authors they. Actually did a great job as soon as they saw a huge long line forming and it happened with um Danielle Jensen’s table was like a couple up from mine I was right next to Jennifer Estep and almost immediately in that first signing this huge line started forming and it was snaking in front of our tables and I was thinking. Oh. This is going to suck because no one’s going to be able to see our tables because we’re going to have this line in front of us which happens at signings it does and you just have to be zen about it. Although you’re muttering to yourself. Oh this sucks? Um, but apolllykon people jumped on it I mean they were.

19:34.51
jeffekennedy
Within minutes they were there and they were laying the tape out on the floor and getting the line to snake so it didn’t block. Anyone’s table and I was super impressed by that and then they were handing out wristbands for people. Um, at the end of the line so that they could come back later when their number group was called so. You know so it was like well why didn’t they predict Daniel Jensen would have a long line because she’s certainly very popular. She’s blown up recently blown up I love that we use these terms. So um, what was my point I know I had 1 oh. That it’s easy to to succumb to the envy. Um and the proddings of ego and be like well well I just don your gentlemen have such a huge long line and I don’t um but I had steady flow. And it was really cool I had people showing up with like old copies of the mark of the tala or the pages of the mind which I did not have copies there with me. Um one person showed up like first thing Saturday morning she was like on a trajectory. And she came in she brought her whole stack of like all of the 12 kingdoms and the unchartered realm’s books and that was so cool and it was. It’s gratifying to to meet those people who have been reading you for a long time but I realized that. It’s slightly loud at the garbage trucks going by on the street if you’re hearing that but it’s um, for me I had so many readers coming to my table saying you’re a new to me author tell me about your books. And I realized that the authors with the huge long lines they weren’t reaching new readers necessarily maybe they got some but for me I reached so many new readers and that was like Jeffie this is the point this is why you’re here. Um. And so that was so productive for me with this with this convention. Um I will be back in April for the Twenty Twenty three one and it’ll be interesting to me to see how it goes will there be a certain point at which. Reading new readers taps out and as you’re a very successful author like you know Jennifer L Armentrout has this huge audience now. So maybe she doesn’t need to reach new readers. Although I know it’s something that Darynda thinks about all the time. Ah, but you know like for Danielle Jensen

22:20.21
jeffekennedy
Um, how do you do that balance between making sure that your fans get to see you but then also reaching new readers. It’s ah it’s an ongoing question right? But anyway great convention for this. Um. And I think it’s important to remember that there’s just like different circles of readers because Jennifer Estep like I said sitting next to me has this huge huge platform in urban fantasy and some in fantasy romance but she did not have a long enough line to be ticketed and I think at times was like well you know. It’s easy to just you know to feel a little sad about that. But I think it’s because this set of readership. We should keep track of how many mosquitoes did I kill during this podcast. Um that you know this readership was slightly different enough from her usual platform. She did have readers showing up with like all 19 elemental assassins books. But then she had other people wanting to know who she was and what she wrote so so you want that balance all right long podcast today. But that’s my cheese. That one just dive bomb straight for my nose. Um, that’s my assessment of Apollycon thumbs up I don’t know if you can still get on for 2023 but it’s worth a try right um. I’ll I’ll see if I can put the author interest form in the show notes just in case all right I hope that you all have a wonderful Monday and I will talk to tomorrow morning you all take care bye bye.