First Cup of Coffee - June 24, 2024

A discussion of the agent taking a querying author's idea and asking someone else to write it, on ideas in general, and why you still shouldn't worry about people stealing them. Also, a party at GRRM's and how even famous writers are still people.

The preorder links for RELUCTANT WIZARD, out August 27, are here https://www.jeffekennedy.com/reluctant-wizard

The posture-correcting sports bra I love almost more than life itself is here https://forme.therave.co/37FY6Z5MTJAUKQGA

You can buy tickets for Wild & Windy in Phoenix (February 2025) here https://www.wildandwindybookevent.com/phoenix-authors

Join my Patreon and Discord for mentoring, coaching, and conversation with me! Find it at https://www.patreon.com/JeffesCloset

You can always buy print copies of my books from my local indie, Beastly Books! https://www.beastlybooks.com/

If you want to support me and the podcast, click on the little heart or follow this link (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/jeffekennedy).

Sign up for my newsletter here! (https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/r2y4b9)

You can watch this podcast on video via YouTube https://youtu.be/_HSkkJ9uQhQ

Transcript

00:01.88
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:12.27
jeffekennedy
Ah, delicious. It's especially delicious today. I don't know why. Perfect. ah Today is Monday, June 24th, last week of June. How these things happen, I don't know. oh time The relentless march of time, yes. ah But things are good here. I hope things are good with all of you. um I'm trying to think of what I have to report. I did not make any notes today. But um I did have a few things to to talk about, I suppose. First off, report on Reluctant Wizard. I did cover reveal, as you know. Pre-order links are up. Thanks to all of you who immediately pre-ordered

01:01.17
jeffekennedy
You warm my heart. Pre-ordering physical copies, pre-ordering e-books from the website. If you do want to pre-order a print copy, you can do it from the website. um Not for the person in Canada, I'm sorry. But as soon as I can do a print pre-order, I will. um Most of the retail sites won't let you do that.

01:27.16
jeffekennedy
I was just looking to see if I could maybe do it on Draft2Digital, and then I thought, well, I shouldn't go down that rabbit hole in the middle of my podcast, right? So I made myself a note to check that most of the retail sites won't let you set up pre-orders on print books. I don't know why. um So, but I am making progress on Reluctant Wizard. I'm feeling good about it. It's um finally, kicking in as lately it seems to be doing for me around midpoint. I'm past 42,000 words. I'm anticipating that this book will come out somewhere around 87.

02:08.94
jeffekennedy
eighty seven What did it say here? 676 is my current prediction.

02:18.56
jeffekennedy
And yeah, so last week was was better, thank goodness, productivity-wise. Sometimes it just takes time to get these things back up there. It was the best word count week that I have had since um the end of February, ah saliently, since my stepfather died. ah I've been encouraged to stop saying things like that. He inconveniently dropped dead yeah under my hands. This is how I handle things, people. um yeah So I do feel as if I'm emerging from a fog. My mom is still pretty sad. She really misses him. I really miss him. um

03:12.09
jeffekennedy
You know, seeing the pictures go by. no So anyway, um it does feel good to get this book going. I'm really excited to write the next book in ah the follow-up to Never the Roses, which I think I am by working title is going to be A Rose in the Mirror. um at least that's I should let me walk that back that is my working title that's what I have put on my spreadsheets and so forth and that story is is patiently waiting I really want to write it but it's waiting I have been um

03:57.57
jeffekennedy
sending out requests for endorsement quotes as i mentioned last week and yes i hear you when you say it's really hard not to have those negative thoughts to be thinking that the reason people haven't gotten back to you is because they actually hate you you know the thing about negative self-talk uh one of the best things i've ever heard about it is best pieces of advice, I guess, is, is this something that you would say to your best friend, to the person that you love most in the world? And if it isn't, then you shouldn't say it to yourself.

04:39.45
jeffekennedy
um So I think all of those things are in order. I had a lovely weekend. I did get to go to a party on Saturday night, a solstice party at George RR Martin's house. And I posted some pictures to social media. ah His gardens, people, his gardens are amazing. And I was teasing George. I asked him if he did all the work himself and he was like, no. um you know many of you know I love to garden and so it's one of those um I'm torn on it that I kind of want to make it an author goal to have a professional gardener except I also love to garden um

05:25.93
jeffekennedy
But I really have garden envy now. His gardens are so freaking beautiful. He's got tons of delphiniums and I don't know why my delphiniums aren't growing the way I want to. I think I need irrigation. Where I live, I need to put in irrigation. So I should probably just put that on my list of expensive things that I want to have and cannot yet have. I think that would be cheaper than hiring a gardener, right? And this winter, I really did try. I was really diligent about watering through the winter, which everybody here says you have to do. But I've still got these big bear patches in my garden and I plant things there and they they don't come back. that I don't know what all is going on there. I need like

06:15.21
jeffekennedy
a master gardener advice or something like that or get diligent about doing my research. I don't know. Everybody says that the secret garden is pretty sneeze, but it just doesn't look like George's Gardens. But then I don't have George's money. Wouldn't that be nice? So anyway, it was a great party. It was really lovely. um On Facebook, one person commented, I thought it was semi snarky and then it was confirmed because someone else replied. But um she's someone I think I've only ever talked to on the internet. And so perhaps slightly awkward socially, but she said something like, um, way to drop the information that your buds with George R.R. Martin.

07:08.01
jeffekennedy
And someone else replied, for me, Richard Man, who is the photographer who took my head shots, he does the photography for SFWA. And he said, um he said, well, I think he even said Miss Kennedy. I think, I don't know if he said Jeffe, but he said, um she lives, she's been writing a long time. She's the president of SFWA and she lives in the same town as George. it would be strange if they did not know each other. And I thought that was just really nice of him to step in and and say that. So he got points in my book for ah for doing that. And, you know, yeah, and besides, you know, George is, yeah, he's got money and he's got fame, but

07:54.36
jeffekennedy
I feel like it's an ongoing theme here at First Cup of Coffee that we talk about this, right? You know that he is also a writer. He is a guy who's a writer. um He writes fantasy. I write fantasy. We like talking writing. we yeah It's one thing that writers, you know, we spend a lot of time by ourselves and we like to get together and talk about our favorite topic, us and our work. and George is a very supportive person. you know he's He's made some missteps. um you know The whole Worldcon thing was really unfortunate. For those who don't know, you know involved like mispronouncing some names, talking about, well, I won't go into the whole thing because really it wasn't it wasn't fair.

08:46.45
jeffekennedy
the There were things that were fair about it, but it was particularly upsetting because um they were mistakes, and George is not that guy. ah He is very, very supportive of women, of people of color, you know, I'll be the first to criticize some of the the rate-tastic stuff in his books. But George is just a really nice human being. And it was but inpart a birthday party for his wife, and they had hoop dancers there. And you know George really gives back to the community. And it was it was a fabulous party. There were cupcakes. There was a Hawaiian shave ice machine. um There was a bartender. It was it was fabulous.

09:39.80
jeffekennedy
if you're on video you might notice I have this bruise on my arm. I went to the doctor and had my blood drawn last week and I think this bruise is from where she put the the ligature on me you know. It's like and it's sore but I can't believe I have such a big bruise from it. All right so the other thing I want to talk about is there was some brouhaha over the weekend because an agent at a very well-established ah literary agency, shall we call out the name? I think we might as well.

10:18.65
jeffekennedy
So this is interesting because I went to the website to verify. Her name is Hilary Harwell. yeah And I'm going to say it here, formerly of KT Literary, um because she is no longer listed on their website. I haven't seen if KT Literary made an announcement or anything like that. ah Hilary Harwell has since deleted her Twitter account ah So, i I had a feeling that, in fact, I predicted yesterday, so I love this, in my private author discords, that she was going to get fired for this. um What happened is that Hillary Harwell tweeted that she had gotten a query for a book that was, this comp meets that comp, and she would love it if someone would write her that book.

11:12.36
jeffekennedy
And people asked and said, wait a minute, but you got a query for a book on this. And she said, yes, but the opening wasn't strong enough. So basically what she did was she got a query for a book that she loved the premise, the theme, the idea, and then went on the internet and said she would love for some other writer to write that for her. So there's a number of levels to this. um Yes, ideas can't be copyrighted. Victoria Strauss, who does Writer Beware for CIFFWA, called it unfortunate, but said that ideas can't be copyrighted, and there's a reason for it, which is true. And we will always say, always give the advice to each other, to younger writers and so forth, that

12:05.82
jeffekennedy
um You know, ideas are cheap. It's easy to have a good idea. ah What's difficult is to write it. ah Writing the story is um is where all of the the skill in crafting creativity come in.

12:24.90
jeffekennedy
so So yeah, there was nothing illegal about what she did. um

12:32.93
jeffekennedy
However, it was highly unethical and it was really disrespectful of this author who queried her because there is a lot of trust involved in that process. um you know I'm trusting you with my my baby book idea ah and not to go through it on the internet and say, somebody else write this better. Right? And when she was, when Hillary was initially called out by people for this saying that this seemed like kind of a shitty thing to do, um she kind of came back with that she was also an author and so she understands what it's like. ah And it's like, well, do you though? but Because this behavior doesn't seem to indicate that.

13:28.65
jeffekennedy
you don't and it It does make me rethink some things because there are really great ideas out there. right you know and we talk about I've talked about it on here quite a lot. Let me know if you want me to talk about it again, but you know like how do you know that something's a good idea? Yes, it's in the execution, but there are our also great ideas. Suzanne Collins coming up with Hunger Games, that was a great idea.

14:01.13
jeffekennedy
um There are other stories like that that are simply really great ideas. And if it were not true that, I'm feeling my way through this, If it were not true that ideas have power on their own, they might not be copyrightable, but if it were not true that a great book idea is, has a power of its own, then this kind of thing would not happen, right? And I talked a couple of weeks ago about the, you know, the lawsuit against entangled and against the agent.

14:48.40
jeffekennedy
for ah you know lifting a book and series idea and having someone else write it. ah This kind of thing does happen in the industry, unfortunately. Even though we promise you that you're safe sending out your ideas, um i my own agent, an impeccable source, told me once that she had an editor who I will not name, because T, um contacted her saying that she had tried to buy a book. Someone else had bought it. A different publisher had bought it. And she wondered if my agent had a client who would like to write the idea because she still wanted a book on that premise. And my agent was like, I don't know what she told the editor. She told me about it. And she's like, I'm not going to ask my clients to do that. It's um it's it's shitty behavior.

15:47.19
jeffekennedy
ah On the one hand, I will always tell you that, you know, ideas come from everywhere. We get ideas from other work. It's not plagiarizing if you read something in a book that seems like an amazing idea and you want to riff on it. um It's not even illegal if you want to basically retell somebody else's story. But it does get into this, into the ethics of this thing. And it's a small community. It really is. When you're a newbie author, it feels very big and it's not. I mean, pretty much everybody knows everybody at some point. And

16:35.29
jeffekennedy
you know being shitty to people it'll it'll come back around it'll come back around and I knew that as soon as I saw that I knew that KT literary would not want to keep this agent on because There is trust involved in this process. The agent-author relationship is completely founded on trust. I often compare it to a marriage. Some people get mad at me and they're like, it's not like a marriage, it's a business relationship. And it's like, yeah, but marriage is kind of like a business relationship too.

17:16.01
jeffekennedy
and There is an intimacy to the author-agent relationship. So even even just querying, you are trusting someone with that creative idea. And if the agent shows herself to be um not respectful of that, then that's a problem. And KT literary, I have immense respect for um Kate who founded it and for Sarah Megabow, who's senior vice president there. And I knew that they would, not because of social media pressure, it would not be, oh, well, we can't afford this. I knew they would have a problem with the ethics of this.

17:56.53
jeffekennedy
it was um It was a betrayal of trust and you just can't you can't have that. um

18:08.05
jeffekennedy
you know and Inevitably, there's always the person who comments on this and says, this is why I never query my ideas because I don't want people to steal them. And the thing is, then okay fine, but you can't go through life being worried about people stealing stuff from you. ah I'm not gonna say it never happens, obviously it happens. And if you have a great idea, you know, it's incumbent on you to write that thing. You gotta to get, buckle down, you gotta write it.

18:41.63
jeffekennedy
ah But, You also, you know, it's it's kind of like living in fear, right? You can't live your life in fear. People obviously do it, but you don't walk down the street being worried about being mugged every moment. You know, if you're getting over trauma, that's one thing. But otherwise, you know, it comes to a point where you have to live your life. And living your life means that working with other people, trusting people with your ideas.

19:14.72
jeffekennedy
you know, sort of circling background to George, you know, he doesn't have to have parties. He doesn't have to have the Hawaiian shave ice machine and the bartender and people there, you know, and it wasn't so that everyone could pay attention to him. Um, you know, we, we all want to need community. So, and you know, what I think what's important is, is yeah, People acted on that. They commented on that agent saying those things. They said, you know, this isn't appropriate. And, you know, it's up to us to make sure the community stays a good and safe place where we respect each other. On that note, I'm going to go get to work. I hope you all have a fantastic week and I will talk to you all.

20:05.01
jeffekennedy
I do that sometimes on calls. I'm gesturing and I hit the the wind chimes. Apologies there. I will talk to you all on Friday. You all take care. Bye-bye.