First Cup of Coffee - February 26, 2024

Sharing the OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL super exciting news today on NEVER THE ROSES, the book I sold to Tor. I'm explaining the Publisher's Marketplace lingo, how foreign sales work, and why creatives can't be thick-skinned.

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Transcript

00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Oh delightful today is Monday February Twenty sixth and exciting day for me here in Jeffeland because the official announcement is out. We're coming out. It's in publisher's marketplace for my book that I sold to Tor so there will be burbling about that today. Um, I think I told you all I don't remember what I told you all already I know I've been dropping Watson heads of kids. But so like here's the full deal right? Um, it is the book that I have been calling Oneira I did get a question of why it had been called Oneira. Ah, that is the name of the protagonist. She is a sorceress and she is an oneriomancer meaning that she does magic through dreams and this is the book that I was ah partly inspired by Sandman. Ah. But let me read you the deal announcement that will tell you a lot I'm also putting it. It's gonna be everywhere. But here you go um, increasing it? Okay, so and then I'll explain everything ah never the roses by Jennifer K Lambert

01:33.52
jeffekennedy
Imprint tor Fazi clever Jeffe Kennedy writing as Jennifer K Lambert's never the roses pitched as this is how you lose the time war meets the forgotten beasts of eld in which the world's most powerful sorcess reflects on her atrocities in exile as she awaits her death. Which she impulsively steals from her nemesis. They begin an unlikely correspondence. But when their warring kingdoms call for aid they must choose between life death and love to Ali Fisher at tor in a six figure deal in a preempt. In a 2 book deal for publication in Summer Twenty Twenty five by Sarah Younger at Nancy Yoast literary literary agency world english writes also to fazi italy by Roberta Oliva of nicoli natoli Stefan and Oliver. And clever russian federation by Julia Tim Cheko of the van leer agency translation rights Cheryl Patienka at Nancy Yost literary agency. So ya, ah, it's so exciting. So let me answer some questions. Just go through this for those of you who'd like don't know how deal announcements work. We did go back and forth with agent Sarah she puts it together. Make sure that editor Allie is good with everything then it gets submitted this publisher's marketplace who often does some minor tweaks. Also.

03:06.65
jeffekennedy
And then they publish these and this is um, a record of the reason the agent does it is because it's largely a record of agent sales. So a common piece of advice to writers who are wanting to sell to to to traditional publishing. Is to look at publishers marketplace you can get a subscription and you can see which agents are selling what kinds of books to what editors exactly as in this deal announcement. So. Category sci-fi fantasy has the deal report date February Twenty Third that was the date that Sarah submitted it. Never the roses is the title we settled upon. It's a um, comes from a line in the book that was it was never about the roses. Ali suggested that title and we all loved it. Um, and it is by Jennifer K Lambert so this is my new pen name. Obviously this what we call a transparent pen name. In fact, the publishers marketplace thing says Jeffe Kennedy writing ass Jennifer K Lambert so sometimes a pen name is presented as completely obscure. It is ah you know you you wouldn't have known it would have been ah a debut novel by Jennifer K Lambert which i.

04:37.80
jeffekennedy
Think I've told you folks before it happens all the time. In fact, there are sometimes people having conversations about it saying it's amazing that this debut novel is so good. It's so rich and complex I can't believe it's a deep a debut novelist. It's like yeah well might not be and. Debut it's debut for the name. Ah so Sarah did well she just says Jeffe Kennedy writing as Jennifer K. Lambert oh I have to go to cat rescue hold on mo one moment. So it's some. But. Cat is rescued untangled. Ah, it is a little bit of a sleight of hand we're doing it for a couple of reasons when we went out on submission with this book. Sarah suggested we do it under a pseudonym um to sort of get people to give a fresh look to my work. Ah, because I've been very mid listy and you know no shame in that ah most authors are which is why it's the middle. Ah, but what this does is it sort of takes away the preconceived ideas an editor might have so. She was very vague about it. She just said Jennifer K Lambert is a sifwa member. Um and we didn't say much more about who I was that's a little bit of an in-joke because if you know in order to be a SFWA member. You do have to have professional sales so that was a little bit of a hat tip to.

06:12.65
jeffekennedy
Not really a full deb debut novelist. Um and and Devi Pillai at Tor commented on that she said yeah we had a feeling um but they like the name we spent a lot of time thinking about the name. Ah. Additional cat rescue. He's not happy out this morning. So Sarah and I spent time thinking up the name. There are good reasons for the name I don't know if I'll explain them or not I will say that Lambert is a family name. So. Felt like I kind of wanted a name that I was I don't always say entitled to. but but yeah it's a couple generations back but you know giving a little nod to my to my ancestors as it were um.

07:06.17
jeffekennedy
So ah, the other reason that we're keeping it is well. There's a couple um to give that same fresh fuel to the booksellers that this is not someone that they have heard of before. It's also to communicate to the to all of you. That this is a slightly different story. It's um, it's really more of a fantasy than a romance. Although the romance is a big part of it. Ah I should probably read you the wonderful quote that Maria Vale gave me on it but let's finish this first. All right? so.

07:45.61
jeffekennedy
Ah, Jennifer Jeffe Kennedy writing is Jennifer K Lambert Neverthelesss ah pitched as this is how you lose the time war meets the forgotten beasts of eld and you know we always do those comps. It's um yeah, it's.

08:02.51
jeffekennedy
Those are good comps like I don't think I need to say more than that. Um, sometimes the comps are you really wonder how they came up with them in this case. Yeah um, in which the world's most powerful sorceress reflects on her atrocities an exile issue awaits her death. When she opulsively impulsively steals from her nemesis. They begin an unlikely correspondence. But when they're warring kingdoms call for aid they must choose between life death and love all pretty self-explanatory to Aie Fisher at tour executive Editor tour Ali's been great. Um, she loves this book so much and she's been amazing to work with I already did revisions and she um, yeah, she had such great insights making the book better. Ah, 6 figure deal in a preempt. Um, a preempt means that there were several editors interested in the book and we could have gone to auction auction is when there's a bunch of different people who want it and just like any auction they put out bids and you kind of stoke the fires and hope to get more and more money. And this was on a Friday afternoon and Allie wanted the book and she said is this and we we had an hour long meeting where we talked about the book and talked about ideas probably verifying that I wasn't a crazy person all of these things.

09:32.82
jeffekennedy
And in many ways ali made a pitch for why she was the right editor for the book which was really fun and so then we hung up and Sarah immediately called me and said okay now we just need her to make an offer so I went to report to David on. Ah, hol a coard went and by the time I came back Sarah had texted me about 10 times and called ah because I guess it took me a while I didn't think I was gone that long but she's like where are yeah um and we had an offer and Ali said is this enough money to take it off the table. It's kind of like the buy it now button. No more auction. We just want to buy it now and dear reader it was enough money so that's what a preempt is we're preempting the auction to book deal. Um, we will talk about what the second book is but it's not yet written but that's really nice. Somebody was commenting to me. Why are they seeing all 2 book deals these days instead 3 book deals I think there's a couple of reasons. Um the person who asked me the author who asked me said is it because traditional publishing doesn't want to commit to 3 books and i. Think that that's a piece of it when you have the 3 book deal. You're really looking 3 years out whereas a 2 book deal is more like 2 years out and so it's a little bit it whittles down the scope. But it's also a better deal for authors because.

11:04.63
jeffekennedy
Less commitment for us right? You know and I think because the market is changing rapidly these days that gives both sides more room to maneuver. Um, also this is great for me that it's a 2 book deal because it means it's the same amount of money. But spread over 2 books instead of over 3 um for publication in summer 2025 we have settled on a release date. It'll be August Fifth 2025 ah by Sarah Younger my wonderful agent at Nancy Yost literary agency world english and so when it says world english that means that they bought the english version of the book to be sold anywhere in the world. We kept the foreign rights which is why there is an addition on this. That we have already sold rights to fatsi in italy I don't know if I'm saying these right and clever in Russia and translation rights are sold by our foreign rights agent at the Nancy Yost literary agency Cheryl Patienka does that so and we're hoping more foreign rights are coming so then and somebody had asked me how does that work so these are other publishers a italian publisher and a russian publisher.

12:36.62
jeffekennedy
So they are another publisher like tor or Berkeley or you know like what have you and then they hire a translator to translate the book and then they publish it and put their own cover on it and everything it's just as if it's it's basically parallel to. Tor bought this book and they're going to publish it foxi bought the book and they're going to publish it. It's just that they're doing it in italian so and that cool very exciting to have that out. Um. I'm trying to think of things that I skipped over saying that I said I could explain later and I can't think of what they were now. This is the disadvantage of me just talking to my own face instead of having you remind me or be able to ask me questions live. Um, yeah, so revision is done Allie says she had looked it over and that it looked good and she said she lived what she saw so far. Lots of Os and bs so and she thinks that our next phase will be copy edits. So what that means is is that she's probably just suggesting line edits at this point she's not asking for any more developmental or substantive changes. She didn't ask for a lot. The first time it was mostly um, deepening and expanding which is like me I'm always doing that on edits.

14:08.34
jeffekennedy
So it's exciting to have this news out in the world I was just looking at my other notes a couple things I watched the movie the eternals marvel universe I think I mentioned that Jon Barr at Eastern new mexico university I think I mentioned it on Friday had sent me a very interesting article. Um about that movie being panned and how one of the actors in the movie had actually sought out therapy because he was so impacted by people. Saying terrible things about the movie that it affected him emotionally and it sort of in line for so with some of the things that I've been talking about you know that we're much as creators try to separate ourselves from our creations. It's not always that simple and ah. And the thick skin metaphor just doesn't work for me. It's if you are creative you are sensitive to the world and you don't want a thick skin when I think of someone with a thick skin. Um, you know frankly i. I think of like the magga types you know like these crusty old white guys getting on the news and saying how America needs a dictator. Um I I think of people who are incapable of compassion I think of people who are so thick scold. They can't appreciate art.

15:37.60
jeffekennedy
And maybe I should not sound so scathing about that I'm wrapping it up into politics I think sometimes people just don't have that ability. But that's what thick skinned is to me thick-skinned is being so caught up inside of your own. Gaily hide that you're not able to um, be open to the world and be open to the experiences of other people and as creatives. Um, we are thin skinned that's part of being a creative sensitive human being If. We were not able to be compassionate about other people we would have difficulty writing good characters right? You know you can't write if you don't understand characters.

16:31.83
jeffekennedy
And this is slightly tangential. But when we talk about someone with ethics skin I mentioned last week that there was some bruhaha with ah Rwa ah promoting a workshop on using Ai to. Plot your books and and I probably should have said then I feel like I should add this disclaimer every time that using something like chat Gpt or one of these other ah story generative apps is not really ai. It's not artificial intelligence. It's. Machine learning language but somebody just shared this that apparently the person teaching that class has posted to social media saying Ai is here to stay. You can either learn to churn or plot to Rot l o l o l um so a charming personality right? there right? Um, yeah, that's what you want to do with your books if you want to ah churn out books. Ah. You know I'm not going to stop you but that does seem like a thick hided thing to say right? So thick skin isn't a great metaphor. Um, and I think I came up with one and now I can't remember it what I thought was a slightly better metaphor. But.

18:05.87
jeffekennedy
You know it's it's that ability to to step away from your work and to be and to understand that everything is subjective and that there are assholes out in the world who say things like that and that they are never going to understand your book every once in a while. This is probably I don't know if I'm going to regret saying these things. Um, when somebody says I don't know how this person could have reviewed my book this way or that sort of thing I'll say you know sometimes what I do is I think about ah the person in my high school who I liked the least. The most annoying. Ah the densest most obnoxious person at my high school and I imagine them reviewing my book and that kind of puts it into perspective you'll like in high school. We kind of had a sense of who people were because it was such a small pond and when you get out in the world. You forget. That like some of these people who are voting are you know, like that 1 guy who was such an asshole to everybody it kind of it helps me to think in those terms. Ah, and none of it was you people because that guy would not be listening to this podcast. Um, so anyway I watched the terminals because I don't remember even knowing that it came out you know people say oh so widely panned and all of that I don't even remember hearing anything about it.

19:37.90
jeffekennedy
So I don't know if the studio you know, like quietly put it away or what but it was. It was a good movie I enjoyed it I advise you to go watch it come in. It's not a classic Marvel universe movie. It is more slowly paced. It is more um I don't know there's lots of fight scenes and stuff in it. But it's worth thoughtful. It's more philosophical maybe um, but definitely worth watching. So. I think we should all go in and I'm tempted as I have been occasionally before to sign up for I am db um I just always use it for free to just so I can go in and write this movie high. Ah, but I've done it here. So anyway. Um yeah. So. That's my big news ah feel free to share far and wide. Let me know if you have questions I'm happy to answer questions and I will talk to you all on Friday you all take care bye bye.