First Cup of Coffee - April 1, 2024

April Fool's Day and the cruelest prank I ever witnessed, my favorite reader compliment to get, and how author ROI varies depending on short or long term. Also, Clifton Strengths, Becca Syme, and what I've learned about Connectedness.
 
The blog post on ROI is here https://blog.jeffekennedy.com/2024/03/31/calculating-roi-and-accounting-for-the-intangible/

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Transcript

00:01.40
jeffekennedy
Good morning. Everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of romantasy I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:11.85
jeffekennedy
Excellent I still stumble over that a bit don't I I still want to say epic fantasy romance I don't know maybe I can say both I've got to figure it out so not a polished production around here today is monday. April First April fools day here in the us I don't know if that's like a thing elsewhere in the world. Um, interestingly to me over the last um t years whatever I've been seeing more and more pushback against. April fools day and pranks people saying that pranking is cruel and not to try to fool people I've never been a fan of of practical jokes or pranks I tend to agree that there is a. A cruelty to it. A bullying aspect. Ah there are times when it is super witty and that's always enjoyable, but for the most part it's yeah, there is a kind of unkindness.

01:26.43
jeffekennedy
To it I remember my mom dated someone for a little while who um was very fond of jokes and pranks and yeah, he did have ah a mean side to him but we.

01:43.92
jeffekennedy
We're up at a cabin for Christmas the family got together and he came I think it's the only Christmas he spent with us and my mom's sister my Aunt Karen and her husband came along and my husband David so there were 6 of us and it was a nice Christmas. Um, and this guy who shall remain unnamed ah convinced my mom to go along with this great prank that he had I don't know if he'd played it before but he'd kind of figured it out. Um, but he said what you do is you look in the newspaper and you see what the winning lottery ticket number was for the day before and then you go and you buy a lottery ticket with those exact same numbers and show it to somebody. And let's say am I getting it right? Yeah and then you show them the paper and and so that they'll think that you won right? So he kind of bamboozled my mom into going along with this. She didn't really want to but so she did this so she showed um. Karen the lottery ticket and the you know just that page on the paper showing where the the numbers were and she's like Karen I I think maybe I won and Terence's like oh I Don you know I don't know what's how she looks at it and she's going wait wait they all match they all matched cheap.

03:18.55
jeffekennedy
She got really excited and David and I were in on it. We knew what was going on I think because my mom had told me and but my aunt Karen like actually started to jump up and down and she's like Kathy you won and. It was um ah I don't know how to describe it. It was it was heartbreaking. Um the reveal. It was not funny. It was she had been so tremendously happy for my mom. In those few minutes. Ah and then to have it just be crushed and not only have that joy taken away but to know that it was done at her expense.

04:12.35
jeffekennedy
And my mom hated herself for going along with it and it was yeah it was really just kind of awful 1 of the more deliberately cruel things I've ever seen somebody do which I suppose means that I've lived a pretty good life. But still anyway, there will be no April fools jokes on the podcast today. Ah not into it not into it the one that I do know about that turned out really well was ah quite a few years back um ilona andrews the couple that writes urban fantasy Kick daniels books. They did an April fool's joke where they announced that they were going to write a book with q as the hero being the you know the. Who had been the villain sorry I'm not explain this well he'd been the villain through all of the Kate Daniels books and a really reprehensible guy and so they did this book announcement with like the full book blurb saying that you know like you was going to be the reformed villain and become the hero. And they had um yeah like teamed him up to fall in love with this witch and all of this kind of thing and everybody glommed onto the idea they were so shocked. Everybody's like yes, give us this book give us this book and they ended up writing it.

05:46.46
jeffekennedy
But it was really kind of funny because they had originally intended it it as you like nobody wants here was a romantic hero and they misjudged their audience. They misjudged our loves of a ah, a reformed villain.

06:05.29
jeffekennedy
So um, yeah, there we are April fools jokes I'm kind of amused if you're on video you could see but if not I'll describe I'm wearing a t-shirt that I bought in Ireland and so it's got a ah celtic cross on it on the sort of the left side here. The left breast. And it's a surfing t-shirt from Ireland and then um also have on this jacket that I bought in Tucson which has a glittery soaro cactus on the left breast and so they're kind of overlapping and it's a funny juxtaposition. It's like irish surfing and. desert suaro but I feel like that actually covers the spectrum of me and who I am rather rather well so let's see um I didn't get a ton written on saturday or. Not at all on saturday on friday um I had a decent ish first hour and then I hit tired but it was ah it was an okay week for my first week of ramping up again. Um I got. 4600 words a little over 4600 words. So now I am diving completely in I finished listening to the audiobook for reluctant wizard I really like that it's much easier for me to get my head back into the story space.

07:37.60
jeffekennedy
By listening to the audio book than reading or looking at notes or anything else I'm not sure why that is but I think it has to do with the fact that I'm an auditory learner and so. Listening to audiobooks for me is problematic because I forget to pay attention to the audiobook start I start spinning other stories in my head other people's audio books but listening to audio formats of my own books. I start spinning this story and it's on the correct topic. So it's it's really a very useful way to go about it. So I'm very happy because now I have finished listening to the Audiobook I think I know I'm where I'm going with this new book. Um I've had a.

08:32.79
jeffekennedy
Some some nice feedback over the last couple of days a friend of assistant Carien started reading dark wizard Karine messaged me about it. Let's see when so green messaged me on Friday saying that her friend had a. Finished dark wizard at Eleven P M the evening before and decided to make a start on bright familiar and it was a short night I tell you what? that's like 1 of my favorite things. Although I feel bad for people missing out on sleep. But I love it when readers tell me that they like stayed up all night reading the book and couldn't stop I always want to have a pass to give to people's bosses the next day you know like ah, a sick pass a nap pass. Because I do feel responsible but it's a glorious glorious responsibility. It's the best compliment there is so yeah, then she apparently went ahead and bought um all of the books and she's she read all 6 starting on thursday. Now. She's read all 6 and she messaged me and asked me how long she was going to have to wait for elisa's book. So it's like well I'm writing it now but you hope to have it out in by the end of may that I don't know if I've mentioned that here but that is my goal it kind of.

10:04.18
jeffekennedy
Ah, pens on if um Editor Ali comes back with any substantive edits on. Never the roses I haven't heard from her on that I kind of wish you would because I would like to get my next installment of money. Ah, ah, but also. Like put this off um, did I tell you all I think I did I'll tell you again because it's such great news. Oh I told you on Friday just that I found out that they're planning to do book 2 and hard back also and so isn't that exciting. They said that. So. Hardback of never the roses is going to come out on August Fifth 2025 and then they said the paperback version of it will come out on like July Sixth Twenty Twenty six so it's just gonna be in Hardback for a long time I assume also ebook. It's got to be any book too. Um, but as far as paper versions. It's gonna be in hardback for nearly a year before they do paperback. Um, and then they said that that would be a month before the release of book 2 in hardback.

11:21.77
jeffekennedy
Which is exciting. Um, yeah so I did say that I would be nice to know what my deadline was for writing book too. But like it's funny because I was talking with actually I think it was um. The delightful grace draven where we we just catch up periodically on texting and mostly Discord Dm these days. So many communication modalities right? And so I was telling her. About all of that and she listens to the podcast too. So hi Grace darling. Ah but she said um that if I said well I think that probably they will want the book in September ish.

12:09.97
jeffekennedy
You know, maybe a little bit later but that was when we sold the first book and they want this on the same schedule. So I'm guessing it's gonna be something like that and she was like if somebody told me that I had to deliver a book. Somebody told me now on the first of April that I had to deliver a book by September. Ah.

12:29.50
jeffekennedy
What did she say exactly. She's so colorful. Well all she said was that she'd flip out so grace you have let us all down on the colorful category but hey it was me who said built up expectations there but she she is darling. There's a reason why I love her. But. Um, yeah that's I'll have to ah yeah I can write it in like three months for most if it's really difficult right? So that's not terrible. So but I would like to know i. And I did ask and I don't know yet there we go. Oh let's see so um, do I have anything to talk about otherwise it's had a really nice weekend. A really quiet weekend I I did a lot of downtime and that helped I'm feeling perkier.

13:28.64
jeffekennedy
And yeah, spent some good social time with people. Ah you like I don't know if we've talked about oops on here the ah the clifton strengths thing Becca Syme does a lot of author coaching and she's like in her corporate life learned how to. Teach people how to use their Clifton strengths and I did my Clifton strengths and got the top 5 and just did like the free online I did pay like twenty bucks for that. But then I did like the free online analysis but I'm sorry Beck I did not do. Your coaching or anything like that I just what can I say I'm cheap and so I found out my clifton strengths which I can share here. So my strengths are the my top 5 number one is connectedness and I think I've ranted about that on here before because it's like why am i. Supposed to do with connectedness. Um, the number 2 is learner 3 is achiever 4 is intellection 5 is input so you don't like my other 4 strengths are pretty much what you'd expect. Um, and. Um, and what I regard as useful but connectedness I hadn't really you know you know people have explained it to me. You know, like oh well, you know like the the fact I'm a taoist that I believe in the connectedness of the universe probably comes out there and my you know like.

15:03.20
jeffekennedy
Volunteering and working with people and even this this is a connectedness thing for me I've never been really sure how to use it as a strength and I was going back and forth a little bit with Becca on threads and she's so generous. Um. And gives great advice. So I I really do recommend her but she said that she was having to remember about her own connectedness strength and I was like oh wait but I haven't met anybody else. That's like also into connectedness I suppose there's probably a parallel that we both do things like. Mentoring and coaching but she said that um to to ping her connectedness strength she has to remember to connect with people that spending time with people on shared interests on things that you both enjoy is. Is how she feeds that part of herself and I found that really useful. Um, so I have been trying to do that more trying to deliberately reach out and connect with people. So I got to do several fun social things this weekend and some of the gun it works. Ah, it did help refill the well. So that was great I did a blog post yesterday on ah Roi and return on investment and so that might be interesting to look at I've gotten some nice comments on it. Ah I know I talk about threads a lot. But i.

16:35.72
jeffekennedy
I actually get engagement on threads I actually have conversations with people and like if I post my link to the blog post like I did yesterday a couple of people picked up that ah blog post and commented on it. And I'm not getting that on any other social media. Really I know that seems funny to say you know like getting actual engagement having conversations with people. Um I'm on blue sky and like nobody ever says anything to me on there I don't know if the algorithm or what but it's like. You almost never get any kind of interaction whereas threads. There's a lot of good interaction. So and Facebook I still get interaction and Twitter x whatever a little bit but anyway I'm I'm actually kind of liking threads. Instagram I still like to anyway. Um I had a point. Oh yeah, ah roi return on investment I was very interested I did a little bit of research as I was writing the blog post to find out that this is the return on investment is. Also known as the Dupont model or method and it was developed in 1914 as a way to analyze whether or not a business was viable and one of my things and I talk about this in the blog post. So I won't go on a whole lot here is.

18:08.40
jeffekennedy
I hear authors talk about ah roi a lot mostly like citing things like female romance authors citing things that their husbands have said about them going to conferences like well what kind of ah roi do you get from a conference. Are you going to sell enough books to justify the cost which has always struck me as the husband's not wanting their wives to go to the conference like I know one gal who told me that she wasn't going to be able to come back to our w eight conference the next year because her husband felt like they should spend that money on a family vacation that they could all do together and it's like oh to think that's why you know I I know that there's a number of you guys out there who listen and love you all. But that's why I tend to focus on. The challenge is facing female creatives because this is a huge one. It's like well how dare you spend money and going to something that's only for you. Um, we should spend this money on a vacation with me and the kids. What's the ah roi. So anyway, um. 1 of my points and always has been is that a whole lot of being a career author is the long game and I feel like I can say this with some a flora tie now because I have been doing this since well, it's really 30 years

19:35.80
jeffekennedy
Cannot believe it. Um my first published work was in 1994? Um, and I have always thought of this as the long game that it is a gradual accumulation and reputation and I knew it was gonna be up and down. And you know that was the the wave I was willing to commit to ah and ah roi is is a lot of your investment is intangible right. Going to a conference. You never know when some reader like like this friend of Assistant Carien's you know like that she bought all 6 books this weekend. Those books have been out for a long time right? You just don't know when people are going to pick things up. It's like I've been talking about with this whole rise of romantasy. Ah, you know it's like well who knew who knew what that it was going to like all of a sudden be the hot genre right? I always thought it would be because it's sort of my my blessing and my curse like the fairy godmother who kissed my brow in the cradle. Ah, said that I would always be ahead of my time and I am I am like ten years ahead of of everybody else. Um, and it is people respond to that and say oh you know that's really great. You know at least I'm not chasing trends but um, being 10 years ahead of.

21:12.22
jeffekennedy
Ah, everybody else has it sucks in certain ways. But that's not the point. Um I think ah ROI is a useful analysis if you're looking at a very very specific situation and 1 person who commented was. @Charliesbookrecs who is starting a business on giving more advice to authors on marketing. She wants to give solid advice and she said authors ask her about ah roi a lot. She liked my post. So I mean we should say that and she said that she always says. You can only expect a measurable quantifiable. Ah roi if there is something explicit to track and she said that she thinks an authorship as I said there's a lot of intangible investment in return and she said but if you are looking for an equal x sales then you need to do trackable links. And I think that's really it's it's good advice because it's also a reminder that looking at something like ah Roi has to be very small and specific. Go read the blog post anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Monday I hope you have a great week ahead and I will talk to you all on friday. You all take care. Okay bye bye.