First Cup of Coffee - September 20, 2024

Some tough love today! I explain how no one will ever care about your writing career as much as you do and how other people will always be happy to suck up your time and energy. Also, exciting news on NEVER THE ROSES!

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

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Transcript

00:02.31
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:12.77
jeffekennedy
It's delicious. If you're on video, you will see that it's actually a paper cup from the coffee shop, and I have been sipping it so far. Full disclosure. Today is, say it with me, people, it is Friday. Woo-hoo! September 20th.

00:31.63
jeffekennedy
So yes, here we are then. It's kind of a cool and rainy morning here in Santa Fe. We've been getting great rain this week. um Hot, golden afternoons. It's been incredible weather. It really just has been.

00:49.00
jeffekennedy
And God, it's been a crazy week for me. So regular listeners will recall that on Tuesday, well, Monday I had vet stuff. I had all kinds of drama.

01:04.04
jeffekennedy
um and posted the podcast Tuesday. um My week has shaped up some, but it has not been a banner word count week. And sometimes that's just the break. Sometimes life interferes. I've gotten 4,000 words so far this week, which I am just frankly grateful to have gotten that much. um Yeah, just things and things, right?

01:34.65
jeffekennedy
Yesterday was very busy with did not do writer coffee because I was just Had other things going on had to call him for my mom's doctor's appointment and we're still working on her health stuff mom ah Which she knows that's a distraction and Had to take David down for a doctor appointment yesterday afternoon but

02:05.42
jeffekennedy
It is what it is. um One of my mentees on my Discord, my mentoring Discord, which you can join. ah is is struggling. She posted some stuff. We have different channels for different days and one of them is Friday Freak Out. So she posted the Friday Freak Out today because she's, you know, kids back in school and she was really hoping for things to get better with the kid being back in school, having more time to write. But now she's got all of these volunteer parent responsibilities, right? All of these things that she's got to do for that.

02:43.32
jeffekennedy
um and various other stuff for her kid that I won't get into because of course it's her kid and that's private. But I replied and it's not necessarily helpful I know but sometimes there's only so much you can do but it's like you get wrapped into these volunteer gigs and You know, i'm I'm the original volunteer slut. We all know that I recently um extracted myself from the SFWA stuff and it's made an unbelievable difference in my bandwidth. Like, who who would have guessed that?

03:22.58
jeffekennedy
um Yeah, so so here's the thing. and And this is the tough love portion of Friday Freakout. And we actually have a tough love channel and I try to be very careful on my mentoring discord to only administer tough love ah in that channel because we're not always ready for it. I mean, that's it's tough, right? It's tough for a reason. um So... You know who you are, Mentee Darling. If you are listening to this, stop if you don't want to hear the tough love. Cause I already gave you some tough-ish responses, which were, since you already heard these, um, how about your co-parent? I know there was another parent in this relationship. Um, yeah, he has a demanding job, but does everything have to fall on you?

04:26.67
jeffekennedy
ah And then the other piece is, you know you've gotten caught up in this volunteer responsibility for the school, something that you didn't know you were going to have.

04:39.63
jeffekennedy
You know, you can quit. I know you feel like you can't, but you can. That possibility is there. That option is there without, you know, taking away all of the reasons why, you know, oh, you'd be letting someone down and you'd be leaving someone else on the alert and you pop couldn't possibly do that to such and so. and What would people think and that you would feel guilty and terrible if you take all of those things away? Remember that the option is there and certainly I know I feel like I'm the poster child for this. That's right. You know sometimes you have to deal with your life stuff and

05:20.52
jeffekennedy
writing counts as your life's stuff. I just feel like we can't say this often enough that you know if I just don't see it happening. right and and Maybe some of you all can show me examples where this is happening, but can you imagine a man who is a writer, his wife is working full-time demanding job, day of a child, and he is not writing his books because he's volunteering at the school so much. um

05:57.06
jeffekennedy
I just feel like this doesn't happen. Maybe it does. Maybe it does. But I think that women, we are so programmed. And that's how this kind of social programming works is that we don't realize it. We don't realize that when somebody says, oh, hey, by the way, we made you in charge of this fundraising activity at the school that we don't say, oh,

06:23.93
jeffekennedy
No, I can't possibly do that I have to work on this book that I'm writing and no I'm not published yet, which makes it harder. It's so hard when you're aspiring because people are looking around going well what books.

06:35.35
jeffekennedy
i mean ah I meet people all the time, you know, like I'm at my 66 published titles, you know, and the guy at the coffee shop asks us if he's heard of me, and i then he turns out he reads a lot of fantasy. And so I tell him my author name, he's never heard of me. You know, so it's sort of like, well, what are you spending your time doing?

06:55.01
jeffekennedy
ah

06:59.03
jeffekennedy
I totally get how hard it is. I totally get it. And yet, Nobody else is going to care about your writing and your career as an author as much as you do. No one ever, ever will. And that is the core tough love message.

07:19.27
jeffekennedy
um My agent, she is fantastic. I love Sarah. Sarah cares about my career. She doesn't care about my career as much as I do. My editor, love my editor. She loves this book. um She wants me to succeed as an author. She's totally on my team. She doesn't care as much as I do. um My spouse, my husband is supportive. I probably wouldn't be where I am as a writer without him. He doesn't care as much as I do.

07:50.34
jeffekennedy
i I am the one who cares the most. And I am the one who has to say, no, this is important. I have to spend my time doing this. ah It's just...

08:06.05
jeffekennedy
I don't know. I don't know why. Maybe this is true of all careers or maybe it's true of all creative careers. ah when When you have a job, when you work for someone else, we perceive it in a different way. And in some ways, volunteer jobs get looped into that because you have like responsibilities to other people. Oh, you can't let such and so down. You can't not go to work today because then you won't get paid. Uh,

08:35.45
jeffekennedy
If you are volunteering to do stuff and, frankly, parenting counts as volunteering because you don't get paid, right? You volunteer to be a parent and there's good reasons to volunteer because you support those projects, you you want those things to succeed. I mean, I absolutely was there with SFWA. I want, I believe in the mission. um How much of your own dreams, your own wants and needs and desires, are you going to sacrifice to what someone else wants? Whether it's your child, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your parents, whether it's society, whether it's your boss, whether it's this great cause that you volunteer for, how much are you willing to sacrifice to it? Everything?

09:34.72
jeffekennedy
90%, 50%? This is why it's tough love. These are the questions you have to ask yourself because if you decide that you're not willing to sacrifice that much, then you have to be willing to say, I ain't going to do it anymore. And people are going to be mad at you and people are going to be upset with you and you're going to let people down. And that's why it's That's why it's hard. That's why you have to make these choices. um But any of you listening, not just the person I'm talking to, because you probably did keep listening, um because you're smart that way.

10:24.97
jeffekennedy
oh You know, you have to, you have, I mean, I'm not into this whole thing of loving yourself, right? You have to love yourself before anyone else will love you. I don't know if that's true. ah I think there's plenty of people who don't love themselves that are loved by other people.

10:47.04
jeffekennedy
but

10:50.09
jeffekennedy
you have to be willing to put yourself first. And this is something that women are not good at because we are relentlessly trained not to do that. We are relentlessly trained to put other people first, our children, our spouses, um things related to that, these concentric circles outward of things that are, we are supposed to be supporting. You know, we talk about the unpaid emotional labor of women,

11:15.50
jeffekennedy
and physical labor of women, ah our society is built on this, right? It's built on this idea that we are going to do these things, that we are going to give to everybody else first. And when we don't do it, we get pushback.

11:35.07
jeffekennedy
and we are called selfish and we are, people tell us that we've let them down. I'll i'll tell you one story. um Way back when I used to, when I lived in Wyoming and I was on the University of Wyoming campus, lived nearby, graduate got my graduate degree there, but I was part of the Association for Women in Science. Brand new group, new local chapter of it, um something I believed in and they Supported me they paid for me to go to this great conference. I was telling a story about that conference not long ago um and it was We'd started a an annual ah Conference of our own we had one that went really well that I spent all of this time organizing I think I was president for a while my you know my volunteer slut ways and

12:28.75
jeffekennedy
the next year somebody else was president and they were organizing a conference and I'd done lots to pitch in and I was sick. I've gotten a terrible flu that winter and I could not kick this cough and my doctor told me that I was on the verge of getting mono, that I was going to like if I didn't slow down and rest and see if things don't change with me, right? That if I didn't take care of myself, that I was going to make myself very, very sick. And he recommended I just cut out everything that I possibly could

13:08.18
jeffekennedy
ah So here it's that same thing, right? You know, it's all these volunteer things. It's like anything that I did absolutely have to do, like the job that paid me, that I should stop doing. And so I did. And I told this gal that I couldn't... Why? I said, i'm you know, I'm sick and I can't do this conference. And, you know, you're just going to have to do it on your own.

13:33.08
jeffekennedy
and and she did not did not accept that she's like well i don't see why you can't do this one thing and i you know and i explained and i'm sick um then i'm gonna keep getting sicker i've got to rest and she was so angry at me so angry it ruined the friendship i mean she stopped being my friend and she talked about me to other people later and probably this is not convincing you to do this thing, but I want you to know that I've been there. um She, you know, was, it and like I saw her years later and she said, you know, I can't believe that you, you know, just bailed on me and all of this and it's like, people do not like it when you put yourself first.

14:23.19
jeffekennedy
Especially if you're a woman and you've been expected to be doing this, you know, let me clarify that was unpaid labor, right? You know, that was a volunteer thing. Uh, and it wasn't even my direct responsibility.

14:40.47
jeffekennedy
and It was a responsibility I had been kind of conscripted into. So. I know it's hard to defend the writing. I know it is. That's partly why I spend so much freaking time talking about it, that we have to build these fences around it, and you have to defend it vigilantly. I mean, it's it's crazy. I still have to. i My husband, who's been with me all this time, the whole time I've been writing, who knows that he's not supposed to disturb me when I'm writing. Some days he does.

15:16.53
jeffekennedy
It's like, what the, what the frack? What are you doing? And it's, it's like, well, I didn't know what, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, it's just people will constantly make these bids for you to pay attention to them first. And they will, they will let you, right? They will be very happy to let you run the fundraiser and they won't give a moments bit of guilt to the fact that they've kept you from finishing this book that you're working on. You know, they're, oh, we all get it done. You'll be great. You know, your children don't need to be grateful for the time that you give them because that's not the deal there, right? That's not why you're their parent. But children will never feel bad that they kept you from doing something.

16:10.40
jeffekennedy
you know you're You're busy, overworked spouse is probably not gonna feel really bad that they kept you from doing something because they have their own things. So nobody's gonna care as much as you do. And if you're waiting for that to happen, ain't gonna happen. Alas for that.

16:35.37
jeffekennedy
All right, let's wind up on some happy news. I got some very exciting news yesterday. I got the interim cover for Never the Roses. So I want to read you this great email that I got from editor Diana, who is working in the interim while Ali is on parental leave.

17:01.72
jeffekennedy
We don't have the cover yet. um She says, unfortunately, I don't bring news on that end yet. But please do know the cover is not stuck. And then we're actively working on it. The team, Monique, Debbie, and Ellie and I, of course, have big expectations on this cover. And we're trying to get you the best of the best. Rest assured, I'll be literally running to your inbox as soon as I have something to share with you.

17:25.09
jeffekennedy
She says, now onto the galleys topic. We've decided to do two rounds of galleys for this title, which is great. Yay. We usually do this with the biggest titles of the season to double our marketing efforts. the The first round will be a type only galley. um Please see the final attached and I will share screenshots of this. These will mainly be used for New York Comic Con on their side.

17:50.66
jeffekennedy
um I'll receive a few copies as well um that I can use at my own discretion. And then there will be a second count round of the regular galleys with the cover included. So that's super cool.

18:06.05
jeffekennedy
and I want to, um I'll give you screenshots, but this first galley, it's so pretty. They did this really cool purple font. They put Darynda's quote, absolutely exquisite, great new taglines, unstoppable war, unspeakable sins, impossible love. And on the back it says, a sorceress haunted by unforgivable sins, a sorcerer caught in the wars of men, their treacherous bond might be their ruin.

18:37.98
jeffekennedy
Uh, and then it's got the marketing campaign on there. And yeah, like some of these things can change, but the marketing campaign says national author tour and appearances at major festivals and romance conventions, um, are mailings to booksellers and librarians and SFF and the romance genre, special promotions tied to major conventions and festivals, Apollycon, San Diego comic con, romantasy book con, and more.

19:08.58
jeffekennedy
Pre-publication trade and consumer advertising to build buzz and highlight special packaging. Early awareness social media campaign featuring animated graphics and reels highlighting the gorgeous stenciled edges. Blockbuster consumer advertising campaign including outlets like TikTok, Meta, and Goodreads.

19:30.23
jeffekennedy
And there there's more um Library marketing campaign holiday advertising campaign national print an online publicity campaign ah In short, it's awesome. It's awesome. I've never gotten anything none of my books have gotten this kind of treatment before so It's so exciting. It's just It's just amazing Makes me a little verklempt Because that's one of the things with traditional publishing. You just never know what kind of marketing and publicity investment you will get. And this book is is getting it. So um yeah, that's my exciting news. I hope that you all have a brilliant weekend. um Please carve out some time for yourself. Maybe pick one thing that somebody wants you to do that you are not going to do.

20:27.83
jeffekennedy
and go do something for yourself instead. Go work on your project. um You have my, oh, I have the permission wand at hand. You have my permission to be selfish. Please go do that for me. In fact, it's an order. You all take care. Bye bye.