First Cup of Coffee - February 9, 2024

More foreign rights news, this time Russian! Also a fun panel on Romantasy tomorrow at Beastly Books and Instagram Live. And thoughts on influencing social media algorithms being the new superstition.

You can find out about tomorrow's panel here https://www.instagram.com/p/C3GV5ORvtg3/

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Transcript

00:00.52
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I'm here with my first cup of coffee ooh delightful today is say it with me people. It is Friday woo. February Ninth and yeah I was talking with a friend of mine and I'll just out her CM Nascosta who posted a ah tiktok real. What have you short video yesterday on her pretty new. Ah. Special editions for a polyon and a couple other conferences but she started talking about saying how it was already eight weeks eight days sorry eight days into the new year and Xyz moving books around all this kind of thing and so I messaged her and I said you do realize. That the new year does not start on February first and she said yes it does that she goes on a fiscal year of February first to January thirty first and she doesn't know how the rest of us budget January and figure out our ah roi by not doing it that way. So for the record. I do think she's crazy. Um, taxes are still on the calendar year but I do think it's an interesting point because it does bring up the fact that in doing author finances in planning our lives and so forth.

01:35.82
jeffekennedy
That we do not have to treat. Um the calendar year as written in stone many corporations work on different fiscal years I always found it confusing personally. but but it's true you can make the year. Be whatever you want? um. I think it's a little confusing to your readers if you go on and say that it's eight days into the new year when for most of us it is thirty nine days into the new year but she can live in whatever universe she wants to clearly good morning. Ah. So um, let's see I have things to tell you all if you are in the Santa Fe area or want to be can arrange to be at the last moment we are doing a panel tomorrow at beastly books the delightful Vela Roth. Is coming up from El Paso and will be here in person with me and then online from the other side of the world. We will have AJ Lancaster and AK Mulford we are going to be talking about our romantasy era like we are Taylor Swift um I did not come up with that title. But it's cute. Of course romantasy as the very hot portmanteau word for what we write I I was been noticing that like on the podcast I so still say.

03:00.96
jeffekennedy
Epic fantasy romance and I should maybe change that at some point but I don't know there. It's interesting because there are a fair number of people who find romantasy to be very cringe mostly older like my age older people. Um. I don't know if it's like the portmanteau nature 1 reader complained to me and and she's a woman my age you know a very smart professional woman and she felt like it was taking the romance out of it. Um I don't know it doesn't bother me. But I think I'm more flexible about language than a lot of people anyway, the panel will also be online. We are going to be streaming I had to look it'll be streaming on Instagram live white here for some of you who are watching on Instagram live. Um, you all watch this in many different places so but at any rate it'll be at 2 p M Mountain time so yeah it should be a fun conversation if you feel like listening in please do so. We may even have opportunities to answer questions and so forth. So I've made a list today on ti organized I also wanted to tell you that it's funny because remember to tell you all that we sold.

04:32.35
jeffekennedy
Italian writers on o nira on Monday and people commented made me realize that I need to keep up more on the ah the news, the exciting news because since then we also sold russian rights to oirra. Ah yeah, isn't that great. It was interesting because. Ah, agent Sarah did ask me if I had reservations about selling to Russia given how annoyed we all are with Russia at this point in time and my nose is running and to pause there. Um.

05:11.72
jeffekennedy
And various ways that I could do this mitigating factors. She had kind of gone through with other authors and but 1 thing she said is that the russian people are not the russian government which I think we all feel having been through a really terrible american government. Ah, we won't go into that but I did see I I guess I will go into that I did see some old white guy being interviewed the other day wearing his bagga hat saying that America needed a dictator looks like oh. Well yeah, that's the american way Thanks anyway? Um, but yeah I tro I do very much believe that the russian people are not the russian government and she said then the russian people deserve my books because she's a good agent.

06:10.49
jeffekennedy
Ah, but the other part for me and you all most of you have not read Onera yet but a big piece of it for me is that oera is about the devastation of war in part and it's about the lengths that.

06:29.36
jeffekennedy
Decent people will go to to avert a devastating war and I feel yeah like very good about getting this particular book into that part of the world at this time.

06:49.46
jeffekennedy
Which is a great thing about being a writer right? that you get to put that message out there. Um, a little update on the ah you know I talked on Monday about those horrible. Contest comments that I got and people sent me very nice notes about it and I appreciate it. Um, and I'm glad I said something to the contest coordinator about it because those comments did get in my head I've been thinking about them all this week you know like every time I'm going just trying to write on the book that is now the first order of the fay realms I'm questioning my word choices because you know I keep hearing that snarky voice saying you know words that readers have to go look up. Um, I've been seeing a fair amount of that I kind of went to look for it and then I decided that's a rabbit hole I don't need but I did see like in passing on threads which am feeling like threads is not a happy place. It's. Interesting because I know I'm going off on attention I will come back? Um I did post to threads this morning more than an hour ago and said for those of you noticing contentious content here in threads.

08:15.50
jeffekennedy
Remember that threads equals meta equals Facebook which was notoriously discovered to have elevated upsetting content to increase engagement and interestingly there had been like no likes on it in over an hour now almost two. So. I have more to say about social media. But um, yeah I did see like going by a reader saying something like that. They why did there have to be difficult words in books and that they didn't want to have to think while reading and it's like. You know? Okay, there's books for all kinds of people. It's an it's an interesting part of our culture today with all of the book banning that's going on right that there are. It's not enough for people to just be able to choose the books they want to read but that they also like want the books that they don't want to read to not exist. It's um, it's a weird thing. So funny it's a funny world um I've been struggling with writing. First order of the fay realms. Ah I don't know why it's just been. This has been a hard book for me to write when agent Sarah and I had our meeting a couple of weeks ago ah and talked about it. She asked me if I was enjoying writing it.

09:49.87
jeffekennedy
Which I it wasn't small talk. It wasn't the usual. Oh you know? are you enjoying writing it that kind of thing she wanted to know um and I think we will see how this comes out because it is interesting and all of my friends. Keep saying to me in um, very smug ways that I actually don't mind. It's like a a joint celebration smugness if that makes sense but like when I say oh and now I sold russian rights to this book and all of that they say well. Guess it was the book you were supposed to be writing and that doesn't happen very often right? that I get a book that just lands on me and insists on being written dark wizard but excuse me I get all choked up about it. Um. Chok on my coffee dark wizard was like that it it really wanted to be written. Um, but in general and I know I've talked about this many times there is simply not a correlation between the books that write easily or that you love writing. And the books that do well but every once and while there is so I think Sarah is interested to see like how this book comes out. Um, it's not that I'm not liking writing it.

11:23.67
jeffekennedy
It's just been a challenge and that was what I said to her you know it's it's a lot of action scenes and it's hard for me to write action scenes. Why did I think that it was a great idea to start with I don't know but I did. And and that's a thing about writing too is that you start out. Um with an idea and and I know I've talked about this but it's probably worth revisiting that there's some good advice out there I heard it from John Scalzi. That you in figuring out which ideas to pursue that one technique is when you have an idea that you kind of play with it for a little bit and then you set it aside. And if you still remember it the next day then you play with a little bit more and then you set it aside and then it fits there the next week and the next month and I think for him like even went to like a year if like a year later you still have that idea because presumably you're working on other things if you're a career writer. You're going to be working on other things and you can't chase the new shiny right? That's one of the rules and.

12:46.70
jeffekennedy
Funny I just sort of lost my train of thought there ilinked um I I have been working hard on this book and I think it is I can feel a little bit of book brain going on even though I've not got a massive amount of words this week um it's clearly taking it out of me so that's kind of a good thing.

13:05.74
jeffekennedy
But anyway he says like a year later if it's still there then it's maybe an idea with staying power and I think that's a very interesting way to go about it and it's interesting too for me that this is an idea that I had I think. Two years ago um because I remember talking to agent Sarah about it at our annual meeting. Not last January but the january before. So yeah. and and I had the idea I you know before that so I've had this idea for a long time which I mean it does have staying power and she really liked it. So so we've been going with it and it got lots of interest on submission right.

14:04.29
jeffekennedy
Including from the film scouts. So I'm I'm interested to see how it turns out. Um I you know it's that ongoing observation right? that I talk about a whole lot that you pay attention to how your process works. It's different for every book. Um, and you just never know you never know what's gonna be successful that it's the unpredictability of the business. What you do know and I think this is really important to keep in mind is. That the 1 thing you can control is writing the book and when I say that I occasionally have people push back at me and say but I can't control even that and it's like well control is maybe the the wrong word. It is the 1 thing that is completely within your power that does not rely on anyone else. Um, and I totally get that sometimes it feels like you don't have a lot of direct power over how well the book writes or how many words you can write on it a day that kind of thing. It's yeah, that. The the creative energy. What have you? Maybe it's there. Maybe it's not but it is the 1 aspect of the whole thing that depends on no one else right? You know, even.

15:32.20
jeffekennedy
If this self publishers out there are wanting to jump up and down and say yes, but I control the whole process. It's like but do you I mean you still rely on software that belongs to other people you rely on Amazon right? You have all of these other factors. Plus the readers right? You've got the readers out there who like maybe don't want to have to look up the words you use so there are all these things that are beyond your control and I'm circling back around now to social media because social media is one of those things that is. Beyond your control and I say this because and I was talking with a couple people about it yesterday. We both like looked at threads in the morning which clearly I have to stop doing and people were freaking out about the algorithm and the. You know posts getting suppressed and you know like how do we bump up the algorithm to to get engagement and some of the people. Ah who are talking about this are Instagram influencers right? or threads influencers. It's the same thing and. See aforementioned threads equals instagram equals me equals Facebook. Um, so yeah, there are people who are trying to make their living off of this right? Ah say with Tiktok right? These you know they build up these big audiences and then they get paid.

17:08.83
jeffekennedy
To influence people and and I even saw 1 creator saying well that they'd had a call with meta and because they'd reached out to her because they care about their creators and I was thinking. No they don't they don't care about creators. Did care about their program working and they care about making money and the the rest is incidental. Ah, if they feel like you're doing well for them then maybe they'll like you better, but this whole idea that they care is. Is not true. Um, and the algorithm this whole thing around trying to manipulate the algorithm and people freaking out. Ah but mean really getting emotional about you know. How many people are saying their posts and the insights and all of this kind of thing and it's to me. It's like it's the new superstition right? It's like these are the kind of tangible gods of our era who can either give blessings or curses. And you might as well sacrifice a dove to Mark Zuckerberg for all of the good it will do you if you are an author and you are spending time and energy worrying about your social media influence.

18:42.75
jeffekennedy
Then I urge you not don't just let it go. It is in one of those vast realms of things that are not within your control and doing these. Modern superstitious practices of like trying to wait things so that the algorithm will work with you. It's it's not worth it. You know what's worth it spending the time and energy on your writing. So that feels like a good place to stop for Friday I hope you all have a fabulous weekend I hope that you um I'm just gonna hope that you go out and spend some time working on the thing that is important to you and that. Is within your control. That's what life is about and I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.