First Cup of Coffee – July 16, 2021

First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy

First Cup of Coffee - July 16, 2021

July 16, 2021

Jeffe Kennedy

The importance of Platform for an author and what aspects of it are under your control and what isn't. See also: phenoms. We all want it to happen, but there are no magic formulas or handy algorithms to produce one.

You can find WEDDED TO DARKNESS here (https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/product/B099BP5RC2).

You can watch this podcast on YouTube here (https://youtu.be/3CNdTXgBfjI).

First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!

Support the show

Contact Jeffe!

Find me on Threads
Visit my website https://jeffekennedy.com
Follow me on Amazon or BookBub
Sign up for my Newsletter!
Find me on Instagram and TikTok!

Thanks for listening!



First Cup of Coffee – June 4, 2021

First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy

First Cup of Coffee - June 4, 2021

June 04, 2021

Jeffe Kennedy

An amusing review of an audio book from the dirty part of the publishing pool, a funny story about GRRM vs JRRT and the perception of one's own success, including how perplexing it can be to become a phenom.

You can watch the You Tube video of the podcast here (https://youtu.be/2Jlk3tD5gsM).

First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!

Support the show

Contact Jeffe!

Find me on Threads
Visit my website https://jeffekennedy.com
Follow me on Amazon or BookBub
Sign up for my Newsletter!
Find me on Instagram and TikTok!

Thanks for listening!



First Cup of Coffee – February 26, 2021

First Cup of Coffee with Jeffe Kennedy

First Cup of Coffee - February 26, 2021

February 26, 2021

Jeffe Kennedy

I'm talking about genre definitions today, what drives them, where they're relevant and not - and how much is in the eye of the beholder. Also a bit on being disappointed by authors who turn out to be monsters.

You can check out DARK WIZARD here. ​

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for the video version of the podcast here.

First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!

Support the show

Contact Jeffe!

Find me on Threads
Visit my website https://jeffekennedy.com
Follow me on Amazon or BookBub
Sign up for my Newsletter!
Find me on Instagram and TikTok!

Thanks for listening!



Strategy Games and Martial Arts in SFF Worldbuilding

When I was in Denver for the RWA National Conference, my friend and writing buddy, Darynda Jones, and I took a lunch break at Ship Tavern in the Brown Palace Hotel. While there, I spotted this guy and snapped a pic. It seemed like a good omen, because I finished THE ORCHID THRONE during our mini-writing retreat there, and now (finally!) am going back to THE ARROWS OF THE HEART. This image is highly relevant to the story, for those of you who’ve studied the cover. 

Once I finish this blog post, I’m diving back into THE ARROWS OF THE HEART. It gave my own heart a little stab to see I haven’t opened the document since March 20, 2018. That’s over four months ago. A third of a year! Where has it gone??? I have no idea. 

Anyway, our topic this week at the SFF Seven is: If you had to invent a sport or game for your novels (or ever have), what would it be? Come on over to find out mine. 

Ho-Hum to OMG

This is an old picture, taken while I was doing some field work on Pinto Creek near Globe, Arizona.

Random choice, I know.

That’s kind of how life is, though; how people are. Some days a certain or image is in our minds and the next, something else. For a while I’ll be madly in love with a certain band and later I’ll think of them fondly, with a certain nostalgic affection. Celebrities are hot one moment and yesterday’s kitty litter the next. People spend time and money trying to track and, better, create these phenomena. They can’t. Our attention is riveted, then lost.

Yesterday I read a published author’s blog post about a conversation with her agent. They’d been discussing what she’d write next. They went over a number of ideas and the agent said, which one are you most excited about – except this one. Of course the idea the agent eliminated from discussion is the one the author was most excited about. But the market has been tepid for her books. She’s had a bad run and the publishing houses aren’t picking her up like they used to. She and her agent are trying to reposition her and it’s clear she’s feeling down about it. Like everyone, she frequently refers to the “changing publishing industry.” Things are just difficult right now, she says.

I also have a couple of friends who are querying their manuscripts and getting not much response. They’re not getting requests for even partials. These are good writers with good books. But people in the industry, in the top tiers, aren’t looking for that right now. They’re looking for hot and hip. They want the next phenomenon.

Earlier this month, I mentioned Oprah’s interview with JK Rowling. You can watch it on You Tube and it’s worth the time. The best moment, I thought, was when Oprah asked JK if she had ever imagined Harry Potter would become such a phenomenon. She said no and turned the question around. It was fascinating to hear these two vastly successful women, both of whom had once been in the poorest of circumstances, discuss the amazing serendipity of their successes. Especially now that both are at the end of their particular comet-rides. Oprah is ending her talk show and Rowling has ended the Harry Potter series.

Oprah asked Rowling if she’d try to do something like it again and Rowling instantly said no. She said, in fact, that people regularly warn her that she’ll never do anything that huge again. She’s promised herself that she’s not spending the rest of her life chasing the phenomenon, trying to top what she did with Harry Potter. Oprah said she finds herself thinking about how to do it with her new network, how to make it be the sensation like her show has been. She stops herself, too.

They both referenced a moment in an interview with one of Michael Jackson’s people. How no one had expected Thriller to become such a worldwide phenomenon. And how Michael Jackson then spent the rest of his career and his life chasing it, trying to make it happen again.

He is now, of course, the great cautionary tale for all creative types.

Ambition is a necessary thing. It’s what keeps us going in the face of adversity. In the face of people who just aren’t sufficiently enthusiastic about your work. But it’s the love of the work itself that’s truly meaningful. Neil Gaiman (my hero, you know) was featured in an episode of a children’s show, Arthur. It’s only something like 12 minutes long. I thought I’d only watch a minute or two, since my boy did the voice. Then I got so drawn in and, yes, even a little emotional, I watched the whole thing.

It’s about writing a story – a graphic novel, actually – and sticking to what you want to write, rather than what people like. (I admit I did grumpily mutter, when Neil tells the little girl that he wants a copy of her book when she gets it published, something along the lines of “easy for you to say, you’re Neil Fucking Gaiman.” But it was just a little spat – he still has my heart. He can be my inner Neil anytime.)

At any rate, I think those “lessons for children” are good lessons for all of us. You never know what people will like. And what made them say ho-hum yesterday might be OMG tomorrow.

I do know this: we need to love it first.