First Cup of Coffee - September 10, 2024

An exciting sneak peek of the interior design of NEVER THE ROSES! Also, a deep dive into author finances, how to manage income by maximizing tax-deductions, promoting your work, and when to DIY vs. paying an expert.

RELUCTANT WIZARD is out now!! https://www.jeffekennedy.com/reluctant-wizard

You can preorder STRANGE FAMILIAR at https://www.jeffekennedy.com/strange-familiar

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

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Transcript

00:01.98
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:13.01
jeffekennedy
ah Excellent. Today is Tuesday, September 10th. I emphasize the Tuesday because it is obviously not Monday. I did not do my podcast yesterday.

00:30.25
jeffekennedy
ah It ended up being kind of a crazy morning. And now I'm kind of contemplating ah doing Tuesdays and Fridays instead. Because I feel like I miss Mondays a fair amount. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe I miss Fridays more often. But um I don't know. I'm going to contemplate that.

00:48.74
jeffekennedy
I don't think you all care, right? And there was like consistency is curious, you know, you must consistently post on the same days. But I feel like most of you subscribe. So, you know, like when it pops up, you see it. um So anyway, if you have thoughts, please share. But yeah, ah so yesterday, um I had a took my car in for an oil change. I had an 8 a.m. appointment, which normally would not have been a big deal. I would have planned around that. But I was kind of tired. I was out with friends on Sunday. ah So I didn't I kind of had an idea. I'd get up super early. But I think you all know I don't set an alarm. So I didn't wake up till like six thirty, which is late for me. Took the dog for a walk. Then I pretty much had to run, take the car and wait for the oil change.

01:44.52
jeffekennedy
And then when I got back here, there were already a couple of guys here because we are starting work. I believe I mentioned this on building the Casita. We are building a Casita on our property.

01:59.32
jeffekennedy
ah I might post a lot of before and after and in progress pictures. But yeah, this is so that my mom can come and eventually live with us. At least she could start out by visiting, gives her a place to stay. She can ring our cats, stay with us like during the summer, and then eventually be here full time as she likes.

02:24.29
jeffekennedy
So it's very exciting. We've got all the plans and yesterday we had to look at like where the septic system is. Every house out here in our unincorporated neighborhood in the country is on septic. So it turns out that that where we want to build the casita is slightly on the leech field.

02:44.25
jeffekennedy
um But the good news is is that the septic guy who's incredibly experienced says that we can cut off part of the leech field and turn it the other way. So we could put the casino where we want. It's going to have this amazing view down the valley. It's going to be just beautiful. My mom is funding the the building. We would not be able to afford this otherwise. Someone was asking me the other day about author finances.

03:15.23
jeffekennedy
And I mean, there's a lot to unpack with other author finances. I feel like I talk about this a fair amount, but I also know that you all are kind of a rotating audience. ah So I'm going to talk about that some today and um also exciting news to share on Never the Roses. It's probably similar. I don't know. I think it's exciting news.

03:41.22
jeffekennedy
um The bound galley proofs went out to people who were reading, um and I'm trying to show you this photo. How come the phones don't cooperate when you want them to? Technology, right? So here's um one bookseller, if you're on video, who got the bound galley and texted me a picture of it. um It just says, it's fairly plain, it just says, um Never the Roses, Jennifer K. Lambert, which is the name it's going out under with the big Bramble logo, which is pretty. It's a B with, looks like it's made of rose canes with the thorns.

04:17.99
jeffekennedy
um And it has the quote, it says so uncorrected bound manuscript, so it's not even ARC yet. And then um quote from Dorinda Jones, New York Times bestselling author that says absolutely exquisite. Great quote, Dorinda.

04:35.32
jeffekennedy
ah So that's gone out. ah And the bookseller who ah texted me that, ah I guess there's no reason to be coy, is Twig at Beastly Books here in Santa Fe, George RR Martin's bookstore. And Twig said he was going to start reading it last night, which um is always fraught, never ceases to be fraught for me. I actually kind of hate it when somebody tells me, sorry Twig if you're listening, ah when they tell me they're reading my book because you would think, you would think with now 66 published titles, this one sort of quasi 67, right? Is that right? Yeah, this one's sort of quasi 67, but I don't think it will be it

05:26.00
jeffekennedy
is going to be, I mean, because I count by, you know, that's so many published titles, um I think that it will end up being 68 or 69. I should probably try to manipulate it so it's 69, although this book isn't tremendously sexy. I mean, it's of course sexy because it's me, but it's not, um not if if we put my books on a spectrum which might be entertaining, it's not the most

05:55.79
jeffekennedy
know, I kind of want to do that, drop a thing of where my books are on the hotness scale. So anyway, yeah you would think that at this point, I would be inured um to the fact that I am not. There's always a there's always nerves when you know someone's reading your book. When I know someone's reading my book. I did have one friend who was an aspiring author who did not have this at all that did not bother him at all and I don't know looking back I think

06:35.89
jeffekennedy
Oh, this this is gonna be like a judgment thing. and And I don't know, I'm curious to know those of you who are authors and a listening, how you feel about this. But I think that if you don't feel some sensitivity about people reading your book, then you know may be lost at something important. I'm gonna say that. um There should always be that that sensitivity, I think.

07:05.14
jeffekennedy
So anyway, um, I got the interior design for the book. They sent that to me for approval and you all it's so pretty. Um, I'm going to put the picture on the show notes and I'm going to share it on social media, but, um, there is this absolutely gorgeous, I wonder if I can show it here. and Hold on. Okay. I pulled it up on Dropbox on my phone.

07:32.47
jeffekennedy
So those of you who are on YouTube video, because I don't always have it on the show notes very well on YouTube. Okay, so here's the title page. Look at that font. Isn't that gorgeous? It's a very fantasy-ish font. And then here's the how the chapter headers are going to look. I'm trying to leave off the words.

08:02.76
jeffekennedy
Well, I guess it doesn't matter. Okay, so there. Oh, getting the camera to focus. Look at that. Isn't that beautiful with the roses? I'm just thrilled. I'm just thrilled. This is the fun thing about working with a traditional publisher is you get to find out um cool things, you know, cause you don't do them yourself, right? When you self publish, there is the advantage in that you, um,

08:33.39
jeffekennedy
you know, you control everything. But then it's such a delight when you're working with a publisher and they come up with these things that it's like a collaborative process in a way where they think they say, well, we think that the look book would look beautiful this way. And it's so cool to see what they add to it. So then here's like another that's chapter 36. Come on, camera our focus. There we go.

09:03.75
jeffekennedy
Look at that, isn't that pretty? So for those of you on audio, the image will be on the show notes. I'll throw it up on social media. um I'm going to start using, I got permission. I'd ask for permission to share it. ah So now I'm going to ah start posting things to the Jennifer K Lambert social media. The other thing I have to do is set up a website. I already did grab the URL a while ago for the pen name. So now I've been talking to my website designer about

09:36.11
jeffekennedy
um having in fact i need to make a note sorry i'm gonna have like basically a pass through website i just had to make myself a note to send the details to the web designer oh So you know they'll be the Jennifer K Lambert side and then the Jeffe Kennedy side and they will cross reference. So it's one of those complicated things when people ask about having pen names. ah One reason not to do it is it's basically double the social media work. You have to do everything together and I have to start getting good at that.

10:13.95
jeffekennedy
um But fortunately, some some things are opening up with me now that I am no longer so heavily involved with SFWA. I do have some more time. It's it's amazing, actually, how much bandwidth has opened up. And so i'm going I need to start doing more marketing things. I know I hate it.

10:38.77
jeffekennedy
ah But also, I don't think I've mentioned I'm here, but assistant Kareen has some health issues, unfortunately, and she um Yeah, she's really having to step back in what she's doing. She may have tap surgery. That's, it's hard, but the positive thing is that she's been dealing with murky symptoms for a long time. And now she has a definitive diagnosis and it's not terrible. Uh, it's not great, but at least now they know what's wrong with her and they can start working on fixing her.

11:17.93
jeffekennedy
So one thing I'm going to do is have it on my list. I've had it on my list forever. I need to start doing things like A plus marketing on my books. I, um, I would love to hire this out, but you know, it's always this trade off, right? Of money versus time, right? Website design, uh, back in the day, back in the early nineties, I used to do my own website design.

11:45.51
jeffekennedy
I no longer do it myself because the technology just got complicated to keep up with. I understand it's simpler now, but I'm just fully committed to farming that part out. And I keep thinking about hiring a publicist, but, and I kind of love to have someone do publicity for me, but It's expensive. It's really expensive. And so this is a thing when we talk author finances, um, you know, I love with reluctant wizard coming out last week. Was it just last week? Maybe two weeks ago. Uh, I love getting enough pre-orders that it pays for my investment on release day. That's great. So then everything after that is profit.

12:37.70
jeffekennedy
not counting the audiobook production costs. Audiobooks take a lot longer. They're more expensive, that's my biggest investment at this point, and they take a lot longer to earn out, at least for me.

12:53.34
jeffekennedy
so Yeah, I don't know if I will, um on my self published books, I'm committed to finishing out ah the whole Bonds of Magic, Renegades of Magic, Warriors of Magic series with Deborah Baum, who's an amazing narrator. I love having her as my narrator. ah It's very expensive. And did I mention expensive? I mean, two to $3,000 per book. And so it just takes a long time to earn that out.

13:26.21
jeffekennedy
ah So, you know, it's a balance of what things can I do myself. And I don't think I'm great at publicity, but I signed up for a sub-stack with ah Charlie, who does Charlie's book recs. I think I mentioned her before. And she's taking questions and giving marketing advice.

13:51.23
jeffekennedy
oh It's an ironic thing. Is it ironic? I always have trouble with people quibbling about, oh, that's not what irony means. And it's like you understand what I'm getting at. ah Publicists, I think, make a lot more money per hour than authors do. And I mean, that's just life, right?

14:16.93
jeffekennedy
It's nice that it's tax deductible, but unless you're really killing it book-wise, you hope that if you ah pay a publicist and invest a certain amount of money that you will make that back in sales. But you don't know, right? It's the um it's the eternal risk assessment of the small business, the cost benefit. If I invest this money, will I get not only a return on my money, but a profit?

14:47.38
jeffekennedy
so So yeah, I need to, because I don't like paying for advertising, I need to think some more about ah things that I can be doing for marketing. It's great that Tor is going to have a publicity team on Never the Roses. I'm very hopeful that all of the publicity will do for that. We'll start feeding into um awareness of my other books. That's partly why I'll have the two-way pass-through on the websites.

15:19.33
jeffekennedy
um But I think many of you know that I do not have a salaried spouse, and point of fact, I have a disabled spouse. ah He gets his small retirement income and Social Security, but that's all he brings in. And so everything else is up to me. And I have us, he's now on Medicare, which is great. He turned 65.

15:43.40
jeffekennedy
ah But I still self-insure through the Affordable Care Act. Fortunately in New Mexico, that's a great place to to be on it because they're really taking care of people here. So my health insurance is not expensive.

16:00.24
jeffekennedy
um Yeah, but it's also because my after tax income is not very big. but It's actually incredibly low. And this is this is something that you can do um as part of the balancing act is if you are self-employed, which you are as a writer, you count as self-employed, you try to have as many of your expenses as possible be tax deductible as in applying to your writing.

16:35.29
jeffekennedy
um And if you are like me and your life is entirely built around your career writing career, ah almost everything is tax deductible, you know, within reason, you know, like a portion of the house that I use for the writing, everything I spend on Zencastr and Zoom and the podcast and so forth, my know internet, all of those fees, that's all tax deductible. In fact,

17:02.77
jeffekennedy
I can be kind of irritated when something is not tax deductible. Like yesterday, getting the oil changed in my car, that was not tax deductible. And it irritates me. It's like, well, why did I have to spend this money that was not tax deductible? But that's the way it works out is that you um I do employ an accountant. happy Again, that's you know I'm paying for that expertise.

17:29.95
jeffekennedy
and she um you know we work it out you know like here's all the money I made from writing and here's all of the money that I paid the tax deductible and then that remainder is what I am actually taxed on so I ended up being in a pretty low income bracket ah and The finesse here is to be either in that really low income bracket or shoot up high enough that I have plenty of money that it won't matter that I'm in a higher income bracket. um So we'll see. We'll see. I am hopeful that there is going to be money coming in with this book release. I've got one set of foreign rights money looking forward to the other.

18:20.21
jeffekennedy
oh But yeah, I mean, it's nice that my mom has the investment money that we can use that to pay for the casita, which then comes, feeds back to ah improve our property values. At this point, my major investment is this house. And, you know, so I won't end up on the streets. I could always get a job. I could always get a day job, right?

18:47.12
jeffekennedy
ah But fortunately, i'm I'm in a pretty good place. I'm one of those rare writers that I actually make a living at this. I'm not rolling in it, but we're doing all right. Getting by, keeping the lights on. But it is ah it is not for the faint-hearted, right? you You really have to be um you know, watching those finances. you You can't, it's not a secure profession, right? And there's always that if you don't have a salaried spouse, if you have a salaried spouse, a benefited spouse, that's great because you have that reliable income. ah That's the thing about having a job is you know exactly how much money is coming in each month. When you're a writer, you don't know, you know, and you always hope for the big money, but sometimes it's lean money. So,

19:42.38
jeffekennedy
On that note, I'm going to go get to work. um I did not report, but last week was my best word count week of the entire year so far. wo So I do feel like I have my mojo back. Very excited. I got um over 10,000 words last week. So working my way back up to 15,000 word weeks. Yesterday, not so much, but um it was all off kilter.

20:07.15
jeffekennedy
And though I think I didn't finish. That's why I didn't do the podcast because by the time the construction guys left, it was late and I was discombobulated and I had to get to work and it was a slow riding day. But hopefully today will be better. So I will definitely ah be here on Friday and I will talk to you then. You all take care. Bye bye.