Tag: author kerfuffles

First Cup of Coffee – April 4, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I am here with my first cup of coffee which those of you on video will note is Starbucks espresso still trying to figure out. What I can have that’s like not a latte so I had to come back to the room and heat up water to add more water to it I think maybe what I want is an americano I might try that next time. Ah because I’m not at home if you’re on video you could see I am in a hotel room today is Monday April. Fourth. And I am on mini break with my hubs and his siblings and behind me. That’s a little bit of a glare there with the rising sun but the beautiful Colorado rocky mountains behind me. So um, yeah, doing the podcast here from the hotel room kind of a dicey wireless connection. We’re on a very high floor which is cool. But um, yeah, apparently high floor means not so much with the internet but. We’ll see how it works out. Um, yeah, so we came up here yesterday Sunday and amazingly fast drive like faster than it’s been in years I don’t know if it’s like the price of gas or what it is. But um, there was like it was kind of a rainy Sunday afternoon but the roads were good and we have not made that drive from. We went up dinnerstate from Santa Fe to Denver and then cut over on E4 seventy for those of you who what? know. And just took e four seventy around to where it connects with 70 right at Golden there and then hop skip and the jump up the rest of the way and um, yeah, it was so fast. Ah. If. We had been going to my stepdaughter’s House. We would have made it there in 5 hours and we have not made that trip in only 5 hours and years I was talking with some people at um, the hot tub last night they have um, a rooftop pool here and. Which is I’m on the thirty first floor and the pool’s on the thirty fourth floor and so they had this this great rooftop pool and hot tub and they had fire pits which some of you may know is like my happy place so they were saying.

02:47.87
jeffekennedy
Asking me where I was from because they’re looking for somewhere else to move and they said yeah that they’re um, fifteen com minute commute or no their 5 minute commute I think 5 minute commute has become a 50 minute commute and either the traffic candior just terrible but not yesterday. So we lucked out. We leave here tomorrow and I don’t know I don’t expect it to be nearly that slick. We shall see I don’t know if I’ll do a podcast tomorrow. We’ll see how we feel might see how David feels but we might just um. Get up early and go so we’ll just see um probably if I do that I will um, do a podcast on Wednesday Wednesday to keep my mom happy I did get up and turn down the heat I think because I’m sitting like right. It’s coming out of the vents across from there I was like starting to swlter here so I did figure out what it was I’d meant to talk about on Friday and found my note it was like underneath other notes I’d written on the pad. I’m hot I might have to take this jacket off. Okay I took the jacket off. Its like pretty outfit though. So and it was corene. She she listened ah assistantrene she listened to the podcast later and she said well you didn’t promise anyone anything unless it was me. And I was like oh wait it was um, but by then I had found my no one so one of the big curfuffles in the author community at the moment. It’s kind of author reader community is that people. Apparently there was a viral tick to and you guys I’m just beginning to loathe the term viral you we have a highrell I don’t know and and and then I see people talk about how do you make something go viral. It’s like the whole point of something going viral is that you don’t know how you did it. Ah, but everybody wants viral I don’t reader I do not want viral I shouldn’t mess with my hair because then I just make it look worse I did at the casino last night um this guy sat down at the slot machine as I was getting up and. Yeah, what he said are you done and I was like yeah and go ahead. Good luck and heat and he paused and he goes you are an unbelievably beautiful woman I was so thank you I was like how much have we had to drink but still made me feel good. So um.

05:38.40
jeffekennedy
That was not my point so I talked about this before and my mom and a couple other people commented that they just didn’t know that people did this that they take advantage of Amazon’s very generous return policy and people read books and return them. Not everybody. It’s vanishingly small. Ah but it does happen and it becomes kind of a weaponized thing too. Ah, but apparently someone made a Tiktok video telling people how you could do this and advising readers to do this same. That it’s an author problem not a reader problem that it’s not their problem if authors are upset that readers read and then return their books. The problem is just to make this entirely clear in case people don’t understand the economics of this. Is that if somebody buys your book and returns it then the author does not get any money for that book. Ah, and there are some readers who apparently think that authors are really rich and there are some who are really rich and they’re very high profile. But most are not most are scraping by are just barely putting it together. Besides which if you read someone’s book then you should pay for it. You know at least something but there is some. You know a contingent of people out there who feel like if they get something if they can get away with something if they can get something for free then they will and Ebook pirating has been a thing since the beginning of ebooks.

07:33.70
jeffekennedy
I was gonna pause but now it won’t let me because I it’s funny with the um dicecy internet connection pausing becomes more difficult I just realized they didn’t silence my phone I thought I’d better. Do that. So anyway, um, it’s It’s a conundrum. It’s a problem and a lot of authors are very upset about this just like people have been upset about piracy from the beginning you know piracy is when somebody takes your book. And uploads it to a torrent site or some other site and sometimes they charge people a subscription to the site you know and then it’s like oh you can read on all these books for free. The author does not get money for those reads either. So the thing is um. Even though I have seen some authors saying things like that she got like apparently there was one who said that she had um, a hundred returns of her book in one week ah but I think that this sort of gets to be a vindictive thing because um. Um, I’m have to look at all of my notes here. Yeah excuse me so I had coherent thoughts on this but I haven’t had enough coffee yet. So. I’ve seen a slight uptick in returns I happen to notice it especially on the most popular books. Ah, and by this I mean percentage wise um you know because obviously the most popular books have the most sales. And I did notice that on like on dark wizard and fire of the frost 2 of the newer and more popular books that there has been ah a few more returns on it. Um, but by this I mean each of them had 10 returns. Which worked out to like 3% and that was just in 1 1 slice that I went and looked at it and I didn’t really compare over time I don’t worry about returns. Um, but this is the same thing for me that I have never worried much about piracy. I wanted to say privacy I’ve never worried much about piracy. Um, and this is because I truly believe that those people out there that want to pirate books that want to read free books that.

10:21.80
jeffekennedy
Do this thing of reading and returning. Um I don’t think that those people would ever pay for my books in the first place they’re not the loyal readers and the good customers. Who have been so generous as to make my career possible because and you guys those people are not listening to this podcast either I can almost promise that ah you guys who are listening to this podcast would not do this kind of thing right? So you know they’re. Here we come around to preaching preaching to the choir right? But the readers who value and love my books. Um, they are willing to pay for it. They pay several times. Ah some of them get. Arcs of my books and then buy copies for themselves head to sneeze there. Um, so the thing is a lot of these authors are very upset saying why is Amazon doing this Um, and why why are they not prohibiting it. And I go back and forth on this and there’s like a petition out there which I have not signed because I think internet petitions are not worth much to get Amazon to change their ways and I don’t think this is how you get Amazon to change their ways. Ah there are some good options out there. That if somebody has read more than half of a book which we know Amazon can tell that there’s not able to return it. Ah the one that I’m mostly most in favor of is we know that Amazon can track reader activity and they can tell. If somebody is systematically buying reading and returning books and I feel like those people Amazon should not allow to do that anymore. You know like you maybe get 5 returns in a year or something like that and we know that they have the capability of doing this. Whether they want to do it is another question. Um, we can see because we have pretty real time sales activity on our dashboards you know like I can see somebody doing this working their way through my series where you know they’ll buy it. And two days later return it and then the next book in the series by two days later return and systematically works the whole series I can see it which means Amazon can see it. Um and I I do think that Amazon should consider um, limiting those particular.

13:05.85
jeffekennedy
Offenders because they are few and far between but they are also regular offenders and apparently one of the outcries has been that these people say well that they can’t afford to buy the books and read them and so that’s why they do this, you know and. And other people are pointing out. That’s why libraries exist because yes, this is why libraries exist and if you get the book from the library and you can get an ebook through overdrive from any library anywhere then the author gets paid. So that’s why you should do it which. I’m talking to all the people who are not listening to this podcast right? but that is why so the reason that Amazon does this is. It’s a very basic practice of serving the customer that the. No questions asked return and the reason that they do this is because Amazon is serving the 99% of good customers who do not abuse the policy and they know and this is ah you know fairly. I don’t know if I want to say basic but it’s well-known business practice that the businesses that focus on the criminals that are so worried about shoplifting and so forth and there’s been studies on this that they do more to. Alienate the good customers than they do to to control the bad customers. So for instance, when you walk into a store you being the wonderful lawabiding ah paying authors for books citizen who listens to my podcast. When you walk into a store and you see a bunch of signs that say shoplifters will be prosecuted and you’re on camera and we hate shoplifters and don’t you dare touch this you feel alienated right? You you feel bad about it. I know I do could be and you you get this. Bad feeling about the business. It’s like well how come they think I’m going to steal everything from them. It’s because they’re focusing on that like 1% or less than 1% I don’t know what the number is of people who shoplift they’re more worried about that than they are about the 99% of the people who come in and pay for the goods. Amazon is very very smart and that they’re putting their money on those 99% who don’t do this return. Don’t take advantage of it in an illegal way in ethical way unethical I was gonna say immoral. But I then I got confused with my Ms. And uns.

15:51.33
jeffekennedy
it’s um it’s it’s a it’s one of the very smart ways that Amazon runs their business.

16:02.33
jeffekennedy
So one of the reasons that um that this came to my attention I mean a lot of the authors around me are talking about it. Ah, but Karine had mentioned that like this gal who like had a hundred returns in a week. Um. She had posted a long rant about it being very upset about it and part of what’s happening here. Is you know people talk about oh well, you know like it’s a toxic community on Tiktok and book talk but people do get personally involved. So. And I don’t know exactly what happened but here’s my guess from what people have told me is that you know like somebody put up this video or whatever on hey how you know here’s a way to read books for free. You know you go ahead and buy them and then read it and return and Amazon will let you and you should do this and then these. Authors or perhaps other readers came back and said hey this is really a shitty thing to do and the original people and their cohort doubled down and they were like let’s make this go viral. Everybody should do this. The reason that they’re doing that is they want to feel right? if. You can say well everybody’s doing it then it must be okay, that’s because they know in their hearts. Everybody knows that it’s a shitty thing to do that. It is stealing um and they want to rationalize it. That’s part of why they’re saying. It’s an author problem. It’s no. My problem but they know on their heart side. It is you know one of the things about human beings is that they almost always know when they are doing something wrong. They find ways to rationalize it and to excuse it. But that’s part of why our legal system makes. Such a big differentiation between whether or not the person is capable mentally capable of understanding right from wrong most human beings unless they are sociopaths or mentally afflicted in some way understand right? from wrong. So these people understand that it’s wrong. But if they can get more and more people to do this then they can feel more right because if everybody’s doing it well then it’s not that wrong, right? It’s still wrong. So anyway, this gal um, who’s getting tons of returns. It’s. Because she was going up against these folks and they were gonna punish her. Um and that’s their way of doing it but then somebody else took her post and shared it and that was where correne saw it and that person had finished up with this. Let this be a warning to you? um.

18:51.88
jeffekennedy
It’s ah it’s not entirely clear to me. What was a warning except I think that this a lot of authors very naturally want to go to the position of if everybody keeps returning my books I will not be able to make money and and some authors you know like they’re selling so few. That they’re like getting negative royalties which sucks I mean it sucks and they’re struggling and you know so authors want to take the position of if you do not pay for my books then I will not be able to write them anymore I won’t I won’t be able to make a living doing this. You have to pay out and you know it’s not exactly a viable profession and obviously I’m very much in favor of writers being able to make money writing their books. That’s the whole mission of sapwa. Um. It’s my personal mission since that’s what I do and it’s still preaching to the choir right? because if you go out there and you say let this be a warning to you. You are reaching your loyal readers. As Corine was for for this person and um, no longer felt friendly. So here. We are back to the same thing right? Ah coreine felt like she was being treated like. Ah, potential criminal right? like a shoplifter instead of like the loyal book buying fan that she is green spends money on books she buys paper books sometimes at prices that I can’t believe she wants to pay for things I like just read the book and because that’s what I do but she’s like no, it’s collectible I want this. We love you carring. So I know what’s the take home message here. Um, it’s kind of my same message that I’ve had all along about piracy which is you know, chill chill people. Ah, it’s not It’s It’s not that big of a problem and you’re better served by approaching this like a company like Amazon. It’s not an accident that Amazon is so successful and part of why they’re successful is is because they do not worry about. That small percentage that are trying to cheat things instead. They entirely focus on the people who are here take my money and they are taking the money. So so that that’s my whole thought on that. Um and I’m already over 20 minutes here so I’m going to head on my way.

21:35.55
jeffekennedy
But um I am going to get this posted and I’m going to do some writing this morning here in the hotel room going to sit the other way so I can look out at the mountains and be a good kitty cat and get my words in and and then yeah this afternoon I get to do a spa treatment. I get to have a body scrub and a body wrap. Ah which I’m really excited about I’ve been saving up my money to do. Um I feel like I have lizards skin and I’ve not been able to have a good expiliation for um I don’t know at 2019 and I don’t know when before that. So very excited for that. Thank you for buying my books to enable me to not have lizard skin and for me to be able to make a living doing this I appreciate each and every one of you and I think you know that I work. Very hard to make sure that you get that value for your money. So um, maybe tomorrow definitely Wednesday and you all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 18, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.67
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:16.73
jeffekennedy
Sometimes you just have to take a moment to savor the coffee. Um today is say it with me Friday woo March eighteenth kind of a darkish morning here in Santa Fe we from. Been getting a lot of sort of rain snow very springtime in the rockies around here. Great moisture. Did I tell you guys I don’t think I did I’m supposed to let go of this and I haven’t let go of it yet. We had a substitute postal carrier and he ran over my rain gauge I have. Had bought a rain gauge and put it out. We have sort of we have like a circular driveway with this cactus garden in the middle and I had it like two feet inside of the rock border of the cactus garden and this guy who was obnoxious anyway and I I woke. I won’t bitch about all the ways in which he was invasive I only saw the 2 days like our regular guy who’s fantastic and we tip in generously every year because he’s fantastic must have been on vacation or something how dare he and so there’s a substitute guy and he’d like. Clipped so far over into the cactus garden that he ran over my ringage and shattered it and I know I’m supposed to be letting go of it. It was not an expensive rainage. But I have no idea how much moisture we’ve gotten in the last few days because ran over my rain. Gauge I am bitter I haven’t complained about I considered it but he hasn’t been back so anyway. Ah yeah, so ongoing rains. No sleep. Little bit of accumulation. Not a lot. Not super cold either. It’s like hovering right around freezing. But yeah, very um, winterry kind of wintry press lots precipitations March which is good. We want it? Ah so. Yesterday yesterday was a day. Ah I did not get my 2000 words I got a little over a thousand. Um I I hit tired I I did my first couple of hours and I was gonna do my third and I still had like 900 words to go and i. Really hit tired I I wonder if it was partly from having the stuff done the day before like my body was still recovering from anesthesia or you know just like being poked at and all of that. But yeah I felt tired and so I um finished out some stuff.

03:03.13
jeffekennedy
You know, handled some SFWA things that I needed to approve and so forth and then I knocked off early and started watching snuggled into my chair and started watching Severance you guys been watching Severance? It’s on Apple Tv um I saw one gel I follow Regina Small who used to be with RT and was like when the first people to love my books so she obviously has fantastic taste and she had posted a funny set of pictures because they she’s got a little boy who’s like for and. She and her husband had a date night and so she had photos of her and her husband in New York with their wine and she said um, yes, your mom and dad had date night so that they could drink went out to pick oh that we was um. Splurched spl fliurched on a babysitter so that they could go out drink wine and talk about severance and I thought huh what is severance so I start watching it and there’s um, 6 episodes out so far. The sixth 1 comes out today and some it’s kind of a freaky show. And like especially after that episode 5 I’m like now I want to go out and drink wine and talk about severance with somebody facto I should tell Megan that so that she will um, put that on her schedule. Ah, yeah, it’s it’s one of those shows where I’m I’m so intrigued and it keeps getting twistier and twistier and I hope they won’t like make it so Twisty and weird that it ends up making no sense anyway. So I was watching my show and then. I had watched an episode and it’s pretty intense. So I bounced off and my mom had told me to watch a 60 minutes thing about Ted Lasso because I’d got my mom to watch Ted Lasso so I went and found that on Youtube and I was watching that mom and it had a fire going on the fireplace and I thought. You know, as soon as that was done. It was like a 15 minute segment I was going to get up and feed the cats and pour some wine and put some lazonia in the oven because David had decided to go out and get a few rides he drives through uber and so he said he’d go out and get a few rides before. You know evening the afternoon flights coming in and so forth. So about four thirty David text man he got rear ended so I will put picture on the show notes everybody was fine. Our car may be totaled. It’s.

05:48.90
jeffekennedy
It’s hard to say the the rear end is really missed up. Um, kicked off the muffler and the whole exhaust train pipe underneath I’m not a car person and ripped off the back bumper and kind of jacked up the trunk I mean it’s a. It’s a Toyota camera that’s got over two hundred thousand miles on it. 225000 so I mean it’s had a good life. It’s served as well. We’ll find out if it can be repaired so I drove into town to get David he had passengers at the time 2 really nice guys. Polish guys. From Denver originally from Poland I guess Polish accents but have been in Denver for like 20 years and they were just down here touring and they just wanted to get to the Plaza. They just wanted to see the Santa Fe Plaza and the cops had kept them there for a long time keeping everyone’s id so. Um, what had happened was I I won’t go too into the weeds for you guys because you don’t know Santa Fe streets and stuff. But this gal was in It’s a fairly busy street. It was on serreos for those of you who do know but serreos on the plaza side of St Francis so they had crossed st francis it was after the railroad runner train had gone by so over they surging forward. Leaping forward to get out and you know be ah free at last and this gal in front of David was in the left hand lane and he was right behind her in the left hand lane and. This other person came zooming up on the right cut left in front of her and across traffic to turn into this street where la shows is if you know Santa Fe I said I wouldn’t get into the weights and I did sorry and and so she hit the brakes and David. Stopped and had his foot on the brake and he was making sure that he didn’t hit hurt which he didn’t and the gal behind him slammed into him so but fortunately the gal in front of David got the plate of the person who pulled that shit because they. Toward left in there. But then there was traffic and they weren’t able to Zoom off. So apparently the cops had told David that they had already located that person so we’re David’s fine he seems to be doing well he’s had a couple hot bas. But so far now. Ill effects and I think they um you know didn’t hit terribly hard despite the the damage he says he got a little bit of Whiplash. So we’ll see how he did so it was a good thing I hadn’t started.

08:34.94
jeffekennedy
Drinking my wine I had to figure out how to put out the fire I’d won those fire logs and I to put it out because I thought all we needed was for me to come back and have the house be on fire. It was fine so went got him and then gave his passengers a ride dropped them off to the pla I’m like do you want me to. Drop you off at our favorite bar. That’s like a block from the plaza so you guys can get a drink and and they’re like no we want to get to the Plaza. So I was like all right, take it right to the plaza and drop them off so at least they achieved their destination but only at like an hour’s delay more than an hour. Probably. Ah, the 2 cars had to get towed off. Yeah so that was our excitement. We’ll see what happens with getting another car if this one’s totaled. We didn’t owe much on it. So maybe we’ll be able to get something else. Although David was saying I really don’t want to try to shop for a car in this market and that’s like you know it? So so hard to get cars right now. But maybe we can get a good use. 1 David’s really been wanting to get an electric car. Which would be great for you know, doing stuff around Santa Fe so maybe we’ll look into that that’ll be nice. So um, that’s what we’re doing and I’m going to the nice thing about. My new schedule is that I only need 2800 words 28 61 to hit 10 k for the week so I am going to try for that today because it’s less than 3000 math and. We’ll see if I can get that and that way I’ll be back on track and if not oh well that’s just worth worth shooting for right um. Yeah I’m closing in on the act 1 climax so I may be slowing down slightly on that because I I do need to get the stake set up and I’m still not entirely sure how this is gonna go I even asked doranda about this the other day because this is um, The Storm Princess and the Raven King last book in Heirs of Magic. Um, this is Salena and Rhyian’s story and I set this up in the prequel. Novella The Long Night of the Crystalline Moon and I knew from then kind of what.

11:15.77
jeffekennedy
At least what trope I wanted to use for this fourth book and and and those of I don’t some of you have been reading. Others have not but they have ah a huge problem. With their love affair and I think I could tell you because this is not spoilery because it comes out at the very very beginning of the prequel novella and book one so that Salena and Rhyian were lovers when they were teenagers first. Love beautiful and all of this and Rhyian screwed it up by cheating on her. And I know and in an unforgivable way. I mean is there a forgivable way to cheat. But um, you know basically he panicked she told him she was in love with him and he panicked and he screwed it up kind of on purpose because Rhyian is a messed up boy. So. Now. They’ve sort of been trusting each other’s company on this whole quest and fighting with each other for those of you keeping up with it and so now comes great resolution and so I’ve known kind of how I want them to come back together. But. Now I’m not sure how it’s going to dovetail with the external arc of the quest of what they need to do to resolve the quest and so I’m I’m overthinking I’m thinking too much. We’ll see how it goes but I’ve got like 18000 words on it so far eighteenth eighteen four 60 so and I’m shooting for around 95 so it’s not terrible. Um, we shall see him. So um I did make a note that I wanted to talk about cliff hangers which. This is a term that’s getting thrown about in reader stuff yesterday and some of this comes from responses to what I talked about yesterday with the readers really going after Jennifer L Armentrout which I am am reliably told Meghan Ciana Doidge commented on the Instagram post. That she thinks readers are reading it wrong and you know what do you do this happens I remember when I was teaching at community college teaching writing and I was using best american short stories and we were. Talking about some of the stories and one of the gals in the class said this story sucks. There’s there’s no nothing redeemable in this story and I said well the story doesn’t suck.

13:58.27
jeffekennedy
Story isn’t a bad story because obviously enough people thought that it was a really good story for it to get best americans short stories. So there are things that you don’t like about it. But it’s not objectively bad and she said no it is bad. She said my opinion matters. And I and I find that very interesting because I do think we’ve moved that way as a culture where everybody’s opinion has equal weight and it’s like well yeah I mean you get to say whether or not you like a thing you know and as a reader. Yeah, absolutely read the thing that you like and if you don’t like a book. Yeah, you don’t like it. But you don’t necessarily get to say this is what the book does ah because that is your subjective opinion and what happened with Jennifer is that apparently she tried to explain. That readers had misinterpreted some things about the book which Megan says yeah they misinterpreted but it’s it’s a balance right? because as I mentioned yesterday readers take in a book and make it their own. We all read things to our subjective lens. And I’ve talked about numerous times on here about going back and rereading books. Ah you know thirty years later and reading it in a totally different way because I bring a totally different set of experiences to the story than I did when I read it when I was younger. So this is something that really happens. Um, do readers read things wrong probably I mean there are times when people bring their own experiences to something and so they say well this is bad and it’s like well it’s not bad. And and and we can go to the other end of the spectrum on this because you guys have heard me rant before you know like um, Stephen King said that Stephenie Meyer was a bad writer you know and and people talk about like twilight being badly written and it’s like no no, no. People don’t read 5-800 pages of a book that is badly written. It may not fit a particular aesthetic that you have but that doesn’t mean it’s bad so cliff hangers. 1 thing that and I get this all the time too. People will say that a story ends that my stories end in cliffhangers and the thing is is if you are writing a series you are going to have open ended threads at the end of the book and.

16:47.44
jeffekennedy
Different readers have varying tolerances for how open endeded that ending is so let’s talk about what a cliffhanger actually is a cliffhanger is a deliberate device that was developed in serials I think from like melodramas. Where it was literally. The story would end with a person hanging off of a cliff. Okay, you know like we have the whole joke about um, you don’t like those old melodramas where the heroin is tied up on the railroad tracks and here comes the train lone game jones there is a song. Um, and they would end with the character in grave peril hanging off of a cliff a cliff hangar that is what a cliffhanger means it’s it’s a non ending well readers really throw this around now. That they call anything that doesn’t have every any story that doesn’t sufficiently tie up everything that they want to know by the end of the story. They tend to call a cliff hair and as my assistant Karine will say you know she says I don’t think they know what this word means and it’s like yeah. It’s it’s being misapplied and the thing is is that there are a lot of authors out there doing the serial cliffhanger style approach. It’s being used a whole lot in. Kindle unlimited ecosystem right? I even listened to a class taught by 1 gal who said that she’d built her career off of cliffhans and she said make them the cliffiest of cliffhangers make those cliffhangers sharp. She said those readers will. Write to you and they will bitch at you and then they will read the next book and so she was leveraging that it. It’s a method. It’s a way of doing things hydrop pause to sneeze there. So and I read. 1 of her books and it did end with the hero and heroine in grave peril you know it was like they were surrounded and it looked like they’re going to get killed I can’t remember the specifics but it was something like that and it ended and it’s like that. Is a cliffhanger if you have someone writing a series and you know it’s a series in particular if if a book doesn’t claim to be standalone then you’re going to have dangling threads at the end you are going to have some things that are open-ended.

19:38.23
jeffekennedy
Even a book that finishes a series or is a standalone may not answer every single question because sometimes there are things that can’t be answered. So. Maybe we’d need a different term I like open-ended. You know we could call it something else, but it’s not a cliffhaner and you know I actually don’t pay much attention to when readers complain that my book ends on a cliff hanger. Maybe I do pay some attention because I it irritates me because I actually don’t do cliffhangers I don’t do the literal definition of a cliffhanger I may have unresolved threads but not cliff hangers. So um. Just thoughts on that you know if you guys don’t if if you guys you know if readers don’t like open-ended endings then then maybe don’t read series. That’s one way to do it. And I know that there are some readers who deliberately look just for standalones. There aren’t a lot of those anymore. That’s true. Although um, dorda and I have been talking about wanting to have cliff hangers or not cliffhanars sorry wanting to have standalones. Just because we do get kind of tired of the cliffhaner accusation and also writing the last book in a series as heart. So it would be nice to skip that. So anyway, I’m going to go write mine. I hope you all have wonderful Friday I hope you have a great weekend and I hope it’s uneventful. Let’s go for uneventful, right? You all take care bye bye.

First Cup of Coffee – March 17, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast




Transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.

00:13.81
jeffekennedy
Delicious. Today is Thursday March Seventeenth St Patrick’s day so I’m a wearing the green. Yes I am irish – irish and scot come back from a. Long line of irish and scottish immigrants I know the scottish isn’t relevant for ah St Patrick’s day but some of the things I am wearing like the earrings my green celtic knot earrings I actually got in Scotland but. I am drinking coffee today out of my green Jameson mug which I did buy at the jamison brewery distillery gift shop in Ireland. Was kind of funny because David and I went to the Jameson distillery which is now located outside of Dublin and I forget the name of the town that it’s in but we he had been fishing that morning and we’d gone to this really cool remote beach where he’d been fishing and it was a. Very gray and rainy day which it seemed like it always was in Ireland at least the whole time we were there and we went to the distillery on our what you know we thought oh well we might as well go do a distillery tour since it’s all gray and rainy and of course the cruise ship. Tour buses had chased us even there but we were there at a pretty good time but the tour was like $30 a person I mean to tour the distillery and we were like well fuck that shit. Didn’t want to say it that badly. So instead. We went to the gift shop and and we spent way too much money in the gift shop but we had cool things I know some people talk about ah you know like it’s for I don’t know if it’s still a thing I haven’t been invited to a wedding in a while. But there was a time where like the young people getting married had these things where they wanted experience stuff. So sorry I got a phone call the clinic from yesterday following up to see how I am I am fine. Um. So what was I saying about shopping at the gift shop jamison distillery game them I lost my train of thought. But anyway we bought things there. Oh the experience thing that it’s um, you know that there was.

02:52.60
jeffekennedy
Like there was this one couple who got married and they like went to his particular website where instead of buying them plates or you know, whatever on their wedding registry. You could buy them parasaling or something like that and they were all you know we want experiences more than we want things which. You know, fair enough? Whatever but I thought this was funny that we kind of traded things for the experience. It was like now we did not need the experience of touring the jamison distillery but we did buy whiskey and my coffee mug and. Got gifts for people and I got an amazing jamison umbrella which I almost never get to use here because I live in the desert and it doesn’t rain all the time it is snowing a little bit this morning bright light snow. So anyway, happy St Patrick’s day to you all. Always find it a good um celebration of irishness. It’s not much of a party thing for me but enjoy the the nod the nod to the ancestors. So. Um, my week is going well the revised schedule of going for 2000 words a day you guys it feels downright luxurious. It’s just it’s amazing. How luxurious it feels and i’m. I mean I’m sure I’ll get used to it but I almost feel a little bit at loose ends because I’m not exhausted when I’m done so now I may be able to just start getting to some of this business stuff. But I think I’m so used to not getting to some of the business stuff that it’s it’s kind of unusual. No writer coffee today because all of my people are busy doing other things which people are out of town and taking classes and I don’t know what all they’re doing. But. So I’m trying to think if I have much to say today. Um, yesterday was kind of a funny day because you know I I think I mentioned on Tuesday that I’d go get the colonoscopy Darynda and I were laughing about it because I told her. My joke that you know I was saying you know a girl never forgets her first colonoscopy and Darynda was laughing and laughing and I was saying you know at least she gets me because other people are just like well I I guess you wouldn’t but and durantda thought it was so funny and she told her sister when she got there and k neverters.

05:39.27
jeffekennedy
You know she told Netters the joke and net is is like well yeah I guess you wouldn’t forget, you’re you know, getting a colonoscopy and it’s like during it’s like no you joke get the joke so you know at least we get each other um finished book 5 of the 7 waters series and started book 6 I guess I start today say that yesterday was kind of a funny day because I did log out by about one thirty and went on my way to to get my first colonoscopy and then afterwards just you know, got home around four thirty or 5 and kind of. David got takeout from harry’s roadhouse for us and I just kind of veged and I generally feel pretty good that that was actually the phone call I got oh I said that that the clinic was calling to follow up. So I guess that was nice. They said drive questions. It’s like what questions could there be. And everything’s fine. But so I do feel kind of bad segueing into the medical stuff. But then somebody out there commented saying that it was timely on hearing about the trials and tribulations of the medical stuff too. So I figure. All fair here at first cup of coffee. We talk about writing we talk about getting our colonoscopies. It’s that everything’s out on the table here. Yeah oh and I just remembered something else I need to do hold on. So yeah I’m getting closer to committing to. Setting a preorder date for storm princess and the Raven King since I’m feeling so much better I would set it for doing this at the two k per day schedule at my current rate. If I can sustain this which so far it’s feeling pretty sustainable. Um I could yeah have it out by the end of may which is a bet since it’s mid -march now it that I would make it a nice luxurious end of may date like may thirty first possibly except that’s the day that st martin’s releases all their paperbacks. There was considerable debate yesterday among a couple different groups of Jennifer L Armentrout

08:20.78
jeffekennedy
Massively successful author of fantasy romance started out in paranormal romance and then like many have sort of segued more into the fantasy romance. Um, and I’ve I’ve met Jennifer and she’s ah she’s a delightful person that. For those of you who haven’t been around for a dinosaurs age which I’m starting to feel like um Stephanie Prater high Stephanie a very sweet person I believe her nickname is the care bear reminded me that it was my author birthday yesterday. So these girls celebrate. The anniversary of their first publication and I couldn’t even remember what I had officially said was I was trying to figure out what my author book day would be and so I went with the publication of my first book which was wyoming trucks. True love and the weather channel. Which turned out to have an official publication date of March Sixteenth ah two thousand and four which is a funny thing because I actually had copies of the book I remember this that I had copies of the book in like November and I did. Book signings. You know what I should put a photo I’m not put a photo on the podcast of me you could see baby Jeffe um I’d look so young to myself now signing that book at my book launch event in Laramie Wyoming at my favorite local indie bookstore where. My best friend was the manager and all of our friends came because it was a small town and it was winter and there was nothing else to do. My mother came up for it. She gave me a beautiful necklace as a celebratory celebratory gift and then we had a party at a bar afterwards. We didn’t. Like have the bar totally closed off but it was mostly us I don’t remember it was a week night and winter and we we catered in food and it was such a fun party. It was you know like all my writer friends and other friends from around town and it was a great time. But anyway I know that that was well before March maybe it was January I wonder if this photo says let me look well interesting. It looks like that signing was on March first two thousand and four so we did a little ahead of the release date but not as much as I thought but. Ah, tell you what you guys Laramie Wyoming March first might as well have been I mean that’s dead of winter still one of the reasons why I don’t miss living there. You’ll see in that photo though that I’m wearing a ah long gray cashmere dress.

11:07.71
jeffekennedy
Which was one that my mom gave me there used to be a store. Do you remember that mom. There was like a store that was like all cashmere stuff I don’t remember what it was called and it it was very expensive I loved that dress. Loved that dress. Um, it was way too hot. To wear in Santa Fe I remember wearing it all the time me and moved here. It was like it was way too hot and the thing about living here is we have mots and if you have something that is 100 % wool or something like that with no acrylic in it at all even a little bit acrylic will save it. But the mas will get to the wo and I’ve got like cedar things everywhere and they still get to it and they put holes in it. It broke my heart I have a couple other things that the moths got to and yeah, once once you get those gaping holes and stuff I don’t think there’s much you can do about it. So now. Let’s see what date. That was I mean day of the week I know I don’t have to tell you guys I’m pausing but I don’t know have it. Okay, it wasn’t monday did I say that already I think the photo properties even said that it was a Monday I just I didn’t register that properly. Yeah. Monday March First two thousand and four so um author birthday on that March Sixteenth being the official book release eighteen years and so yeah, they were joking about. Whether or not my writing career could drink it and they’re they’re really wonderful and it’s you know I get I get asked a lot how I celebrate things and it turns out I don’t celebrate things enough so it’s cool to celebrate that. Although I was noting that my very first publication was in 97 and I meant to look for the exact date of that so hold on. Oh it didn’t pass. Did you see that. But.

13:16.59
jeffekennedy
Make sure it unpaused since it was being I don’t know I think if I pause too many times it gets sticky. Um, so first publication wyoming magazine and it says winter 1998 but this is the weird thing about magazines is. Because I know it came out in 9097 because I have that written down what’s interesting and I did not remember this is that it the byline is Jennifer Kennedy which is my actual name I mean Jeffe everybody calls me Jeffe but there it is. Wyoming Trucks, True love, and the Weather Channel which I then it titled the essay collection after this. So this was the very first publication. So in that case it means it would probably be sometime late this fall probably November or December I don’t have an exact date for this one. Will be 25 years 25 years and then this was my first like more this North Carolina literary review this was in 1998 but I don’t have an exact date on it and this was um. And know as I share pages with Lee Smith that was pretty cool. Ah. Yeah, but this was I was looking for the exact story was um, inheritances and I don’t know what they put it under oral history in North Carolina because this was about oh there it is inheritances poetry and prose and this is Jeffe Kennedy I think that Jennifer Kennedy was a mistake I think maybe I sent stuff out under that name says it was my legal name and I think I learned my lesson. Just not even to offer them Jennifer because they would like go to that. Oh I even had it marked huh with my mom’s this is this is a blast from the past I won’t show it because identity theft type stuff but this is a card mom. Um, will take a photo of this and send it to you that says for Kathy and Leo Kennedy and their address and home phone number and ah an email address for both of them. My mom still has this email address and a.

15:47.20
jeffekennedy
Number that tells you something. Okay and so then there’s Inheritances and it seemed like I was going to show you guys 1 other thing. Oh I’ll I’ll show you one other thing since we’re doing show and tell. Okay, so this is the big milestone one two thousand when I had an essay in Redbook. Me and Faith Hill and so this was my story that was in there Ambushed by Love not my title they didn’t even clear that title with me but they paid me a dollar a word. $3000 for one essay I have books that have not made that much money. Those were the days. So. So yeah I have all of these magazines I have like a copy of like all of the stuff that I had my short work in. So. Author birthday dayss I guess that’s how I got off on that. It’s it’s not clear to me how to measure that and I guess that was why I picked the publication of the book because you know magazines you wouldn’t have an exact date that those came out but yeah 25 years since um. Got those first publications and decided that but it was longer ago than that that I decided that I didn’t want to be a scientist and wanted to be a writer so you know it’s interesting because the the girls were all being lovely and congratulating me and. Saying you know mad respect for a long career which I’ve come to appreciate is is an important thing because there are so many people now that I look back friends who were writers over these last twenty five years that fell away that did not stick with writing. It’s not easy to stick with. So so there’s that I didn’t finish talking about Jennifer L. Armentrout that was how I got started on this because I knew her forever ago and there was this whole thing for a while there because there was another Jennifer Armintrout who was published at the same time I think she was m I n. Um, ah Armintrout and she changed her name to Jenny Trout and she even had like this big essay that she put up about how like Jennifer L Armentrout stole her career because they were published at the same time and had the same name and and then she became Jenny Trout and I think Jenny Trout is out there still but I would remember when they were still Jennifer Armintrout I would remember them because Jennifer L Armentrout was love because she’s delightful person and every time I met her. She was wonderful to be around and.

18:37.46
jeffekennedy
So she came out with a book on Tuesday and her wildly wildly successful series that I forget it’s like I tell you what you guys I can’t keep these titles straight you know ashen something courts and blood and whatever. And I started to read the first book I didn’t really get into it. But you know I wish Jennifer? Well she is. She’s you know deserves every bit of success. But apparently there was a big pile on that people were readers were disappointed in some aspect and Jennifer. Holds them and this is all like third hand at this point I think because I heard it from other people who I think heard it from other people. Some might have heard it seen it happening but like in her fan groups and stuff people were complaining about. I don’t know like emotional infidelity between the characters and that they were upset by that which romance readers will get very upset about and she apparently said that they were reading it wrong which you just don’t get to say that as an author you can think it. And you can vent to your friends and you can be like how stupid are these people but because sometimes it is frustrating because readers will be like well obviously it was this this and this and it’s like no actually you read that wrong, but you don’t get to say it. Ah and. Is there such a thing as wrong. Arguably no I mean once you release that creation into the world. Ah you know readers take it in and transform it and make it and knock over their coffee cups I did not it was close. So. Still some coffee in there. Um, you know you kind of have to let go of it. But anyway, um, you know there’s a thing that happens when authors become very very successful where people somehow stop regarding them as being human beings and. Reader um, um, I’m not getting burlint I don’t know why it’s and but nobody stops being a human being nobody reaches a point of success where they no longer feel. The. The slings and arrows right? Um yes, you can be disappointed in a work totally prerogative as a reader certainly has happened to me like I said I didn’t get into this series I can think that Jennifer is a lovely person and not love this particular series.

21:20.72
jeffekennedy
But you know try to keep that in mind you guys that especially if you’re tagging authors on stuff or doing very high profile things. It can be this big pile on and everybody loves the attention clicks and all of that but remember that this is a human being. And think about whether you would actually sit there and say these things to her face and that she might cry because because we feel it you know that’s that’s part of being a creative. So on that note I’m gonna go be creative. Do my thing. Hope you all have a wonderful Thursday and I will talk to you all tomorrow take care bye bye.