First Cup of Coffee - March 22, 2024

Some schooling today on business, things authors should really know, and arcania on how traditional publishing decides how to handle releases. Also, the "new" genre term Romantasy and why I think it came to be coined.

The sports bra I rave about 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/3BQUFoVjoDI

Transcript

00:01.44
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance - romantasy - I might change it to romantasy I'm gonna talk about that today is say it with me people. Oh wait. Sorry and you started to say it too didn't you wait. And here with my first cup of coffee I got all distracted by the romancy thing. Ah and it truly is my first step. How could I forgot all right now today is you can really say it with me take a deep breath. It is Friday woo March Twenty second sorry for that false alarm there. Um do any of you do yoga you know, like in yoga class. There's the whole thing where you at the beginning. You're all going to say ohm together 3 times you know and so it's like it's kind of at your own pace. But also you want to do it with everyone else because you don't want to be oming too soon or. Too late. Although there are those people who like have to show how long they can draw out the om if you do yoga I think you will feel me on this one. But yeah, you know it's like the um say it with me have to do the whole you'll like you. Are in your yoga class and you' aligned in you're clearing your mind and keeping your word in mind and all of these things have you take your deep breath and you're ready to let it out the om but like then it's the teacher hasn't done it yet and you're like there.

01:34.20
jeffekennedy
But is it just me. It could be just me. Ah so um, happy Friday ah, clearly I am perrkier today than I thought it's been a good week for me. I did finish I finished I finished first order of the pay rums yep I finished it on Tuesday I even figured out the ending in part with help from my dear friend Kelly Robson she had some. She said the right thing at the right time doesn't always work totally work this time. so ah so yeah that was great to get done send it off Tuesday to agent Sarah um, and she wants to give it a full read. Um, so she'll get back to me in like around mid-april I think so that was great to get out and now I have started reluctant wizard I have like 1500 words on it so far for the last couple of days 1 of the things I've been thinking about is that could be that my brain is aging. Don't say it's not so ah, but also I mean I've written a lot of books at this point and.

03:00.39
jeffekennedy
I need to stop creating new worlds and new magic systems people I'm gonna say that I need to do this doing full well that I'm not going to do this and um, some of it is having written in 3 different world and magic systems in the last four months

03:20.48
jeffekennedy
Switching over to this one even though it's a well-established world. It's set up them the the bonds of magic world. It was a little much ah I could just kind of hear my neurons creaking as they like I put. It's probably a bad metaphor. But I'm sort of imagining them like sending. Ah, it's like 1 of those mine shaft deals right? You know like with the conveyor belt and the buckets that go down and like they're dipping the buckets back down into what what is thison it's that like needs to be oiled and all this dredging up the rules for this world. Because I started to write something in there that I realized was from the world of never the roses speaking of never the roses I have some super exciting news. Super exciting you? Um, and i. And going to explain a little bit about how the industry works here too. Ah because it's surprising to me how many people don't know this so I got the ah memo that my from my assistant from the assistant Editor Denna she sent me this memo that they are sending to the art department on how to create the cover and she wanted to make sure she sent it to me and agent Sarah and wanted to make sure that we were good with everything that was in the in that memo and.

04:51.55
jeffekennedy
So in there I saw the super exciting news that I feel like I gotta they're gonna release it in hardback hardback people heart pack heart pack. Um, so this is really cool. This is super exciting. News. They they. Asking for a cover for a hardbackck book. Um, oh and let me tell you what else they said in there they said this really cool thing hang on so this is how they described it for the art department I mean they had all these other descriptions to explaining you like theme and all this but this is the super cool part. They said. Breakout hit. This is a new darker direction for celebrated romantasy author Jeffie Kennedy this is the debut of her pen name and the first of her books that is decidedly not a happy ever after we could talk about that significant hit potential. Me repeat that significant hit potential in the new ravenous romantasy readership. We'll talk about the term romantasy in a moment but um, significant. Potential. So I mean you know nothing set in stone things can change. But ah, the fact that they are doing a hardback cover is. it's the top it's it's the shit people. Ah.

06:22.17
jeffekennedy
So allow me to explain because it has been frankly, very surprising to me in my circle of friends as I share my gleeful news. How few people understand the significance why it works this way even published authors. Have been unclear on the concept. Ah, and 1 of the great takeaways of all of this has been and I was having a conversation with another author friend of mine who is you know spent 30 years in corporate America in retail and she understands marketing she understands business. And sometimes it's really shocking how few authors creatives understand business and how business works and it's not um, I'm not throwing stones at you if it's that way because clearly we we did not guess. Get business degrees she did but most of us didn't go anywhere near the business school in college right? This was not what we were about I was in the science buildings but still not business. Ah, and so it's unfortunate that creatives who very often end up being self-employed. Freelancing having to make business decisions ah are the people who are like from the farthest end of the campus. You know like on my campus you know both my undergraduate and my graduate school the fine arts people were like way the flock down at the other end of campus.

07:55.92
jeffekennedy
From the business people. It was like never the Twain shall meet right? But if you are self-employed if you are a freelancer if you are are creative dealing with business people then you've just got to learn business. You've got to know how these things work. So. Um, I've gotten this sort of wide variety of responses from people where they were like how could you not know that it was going to be in hardback somebody even said, um, well didn't your agent negotiate for that didn't you ask for that. So crash course and how. This works with traditional publishing deals when you sell the rights to a book to a publishing house. You sell what's called first world english rights. Um, hopefully that's all you're selling if you're selling more than that then you should be negotiating right? because you want to be able to. Have separate negotiations for your foreign rights. But let's just say you've sold first world english rights and then they will have a list of all the formats that they are buying from you. Um now I was going to say 99% of the time. It used to be 99% of the time. It's gone down to like maybe 80% of the time and we'll talk about why but 80% of the time they are buying all formats from you and it will be listed out. It'll say heartback trade paperback mass market paperback audio.

09:28.28
jeffekennedy
Um, they'll have listings for film and Tv like if someone wants to buy the film rights. It goes to them. You still get paid. You know like you and and it's all broken out. It's like you know if we sell film rights and you get this percentage and we get this percentage and variant gets this percentage. You know it's all in there. But.

09:47.57
jeffekennedy
They do typically buy all formats and it used to be that like that was just what you did you sold all formats. The caveat here is that more and more publishing houses are starting to pick up very successful indie authors and arranging for. Only print or only audio with them the savvy and I'm gonna if you're listening indie authors the savvy indie author will not give up their ebooks because most indie authors make all their money on ah on ebooks. But what a traditional publisher can get you if you have an already successful series is they can get you print distribution. They can pay for the audio recording they can deal with the film rights maybe deal with the foreign rights but you know so that's changed. A little bit over time. Um, So why didn't I know it. It's gonna be in hardback because every single one of my traditionally published books has had the option to being hard back. And so what happens and this is especially true in the big 5 where they are working with teams of people at stages of Development. So my editor you know the one who decides to to acquire the book. She might.

11:18.20
jeffekennedy
Want hardback she might want um a really expensive author she might want to take every marketing dollar that the publishing house has and use it to support my book which she's also working on right? But. You have to remember that this is a business right? It's a corporation. There are different departments. So what she has to do is she has to sell this to the other departments and they have meetings. There's ah you know it's corporate America right? So there's meetings and meetings. You know so they meet with the sales team and the sales team looks at stuff. Um, the sales team will read the books they will maybe just read the summaries. You never know people are busy. So there's people at all stages of production. Ah starting with your editor who acquires the book. But then there's all these other people all the way down the line to the people at the bookstores who are buying the books and they get feedback from those books book buyers that you know like bartons and noble or what have you where they look at it and they say oh you know I don't think this book would move in my store or they say oh yeah, ah. Ah, new dark romantasy um, you'll put it in part heartc cover and give me sprayed edges and I will sell the shit out of this. Um and I haven't been unknown those conversations but but you can imagine if you apply what you understand about other kinds of business. This is how it works. Um.

12:50.92
jeffekennedy
Bookstores shockingly enough are invested in selling books and it's not that they want to you know like they might support authors and they might support books but they also want to keep the lights on it and make money and be able to report to their higher ups that they are making a profit right. So they want the significant hits. You know they love that That's great for them. It's great for all of us because it gets people in the bookstores. So for example, um, my last traditionally published series was forgotten empires. That I did was St Martin's and the first book. The orchid throne came out in 2019. It had a beautiful, beautiful cover but it was not as expensive a cover as my editor had originally envisioned because even then they did not understand how to. Position romantic fantasy 5 years and it's just incredible that this change has come about. Ah maybe not incredible, but exciting really and and I was talking with Grace Draven the other day about this how it's kind of dizzying that this. That we used to be like so in the ah we don't want to say in the dog house but we were in like the rare most cassita in the compound we were way the flock on the other end of campus right? You know it was just we were not a well-known wellers understood some genre.

14:26.84
jeffekennedy
And that's why there's so many names for it. You know, fantasy romance epic fantasy romance dark fantasy. Romance oric fantasy. There's all of these definitions and no one was really clear on what it is or how to position it. Ah and so my editor at St Martin's who has since left. But she really wanted the you know she wanted a big splash for this book. They you know it's told me they wanted to break me out. You know, which means significant hit potential right? They want to do that but somewhere along the way and these meetings that the authors don't attend that it's like you know in-house meetings. The sales team or whoever those people are they decided that it wasn't worth putting that kind of money into it's expensive to produce a heartback. It's expensive to produce a paper a trade paperback I paused to sneeze the pollen season is kicking up here yesterday and today on dog walk. I came back with um, it's the the juniper pollen ah making me go so um, but at any rate they ended up releasing the book in mass market paperback with a a less expensive cover. They didn't have an artist. Do it. They didn't pay an an artist or much less the artist that my editor had picked out. They used more like I don't want to say clip art but stock art. Yeah so I mean that's just the breaks. You don't know what they're going to do so this time somewhere in all those meetings with the.

16:02.52
jeffekennedy
They're saying we think this has significant hit potential have I said that enough times and they're going to bring it out in hardback because that is what the romantic see readers are buying. They love collectors type hardbacks. But it's very good for me. Because that means that they are putting money behind this book. It means that they're going to have it out there. They might have it on the end caps I remember with one of my books a long time ago. My mom sent me a photo from the bookstore of an endcap which is like that display. You know that's like on the cardboard thing and they have the books there. Like not on the shelf but at the end ah same thing with like the grocery store where they put all the easter candy that sort of thing bookstore. They have the end cap with the books and she sent me this photo of an end cap with you know, like that was all filled with you know all the copies of the exact same book. With this gorgeous cover and she said how come they didn't do this for your book mother. That's why it's like I would love to have that and now I'm gonna give it ah so I'm very excited and never the roses o nira the book I wasn't supposed to be writing. But. Just goes to show so I want to talk just slightly about the term romantic see I was interviewed yesterday by a writing an article I believe for paste magazine.

17:26.21
jeffekennedy
And so that forced me to articulate some of my thoughts there have been a ah lot of conversation on social media I know I've touched on it here. But yeah, like people have been talking about what is romancy. How is it different from fantasy romance and I don't know writers love to parse out the whole. Especially indies I think you know it's like well what should we call it and does the book have to have this element and that element but not this element so that we could call it this and you know people it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Um, what somebody else actually that same gal who's very good at business asked me. She said well do traditionally published writers get to choose what genre their publisher labels their book says and I said haha no they don't no they don't and a lot of times we don't find out till we get the copy in our hand and you look on this fine and you see what they decided to call it. Ah you know there's some team in the publishing house. There. Decided which is why Kensington called my books fantasy. They called them. Fantasy romance? Um Satan Martin's called those books romantic fantasy I think I'm writing pretty much the same thing. So romantasy.

18:40.87
jeffekennedy
Ah, portmanteau word that has been coming into use in the recent years I think I first heard it a couple of years ago at Jennifer L Armintrout's a polyon mostly coming out of the readership. That's one of the interesting things is that this is a term. Coined by the readers. This is not the bookstores saying you know we have shelves for this this and this it's not the publishing house stamping it on the spine though they will start doing that because romantasy is hot and. I think it's actually a decent term because it it incorporates a lot of subgenres. It incorporates fantasy romance and romantic fantasy and urban fantasy and or paranoal romance. It's basically romance and fantasy together. Give me both. Give me my peanut butter and my chocolate in my delicious Reese's peanut butter cup and I shall be happy I will even eat the knock off brands of various kinds of chocolate and peanut butter together. So. But 1 thing that occurred to me as I was writing this up as often happens for me which is probably why I'm an intuitive writer is that romantasy has come up as a form of pushback against y a fantasy because for a very long time.

20:11.00
jeffekennedy
These books have been called YA fantasy or young adult Fantasy Sarah J Maas her wildly popular books called YA fantasy. Ah, there's so many and there are many of us who have had these conversations that. Books written by women tend to be called YA which is like this really interesting emanation of the patriarchy that somehow if a woman writes a fantasy book. It becomes YA it must be for a younger audience because I don't know our little brains can't. Encompass really complex Fantasy I Can't even tell you but it's weird because even those of us who write decidedly adult like yours truly my books are adult not just. Like sexual content but my I have adult characters even my younger characters are still facing adult issues I've never written why in my life and probably won't It's just I don't have a YA voice. It's not my shtick. It doesn't have to be., But this has happened to so many writers of adult fantasy with romance and sex and kissing and all of that great stuff that they get pigeonholed as Y a and like invited to be on YA fantasy panels and they're like but I don't write why a fantasy and they're like oh no, it's ok, but.

21:41.19
jeffekennedy
Um, and I think everybody's tired of it. Ah because these books are not young and old some of them are you know it's great to have y a fantasy but not all of these books are YA fantasy. So romantasy, great term overarching term. YA fantasy is underneath that. Um and I'm I'm kind of into it I might start saying romantasy so on that note I hope you all have a great weekend and I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.