First Cup of Coffee - January 13, 2020

On finishing THE FATE OF THE TALA and how my process differs between trad and indie books. Also on introversion and noise, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and why it's not awesome for authors to sign multi-book deals.

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Transcript

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Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Today is Monday, January 13th. And for those of you who don't know, I imagine most of you do, but I finished the fate of the Tala. Yay! There's much rejoicing. Um, I really did finish it Friday afternoon, about 4.15, sent it off to my copy editor. She's very funny because I said, here it is, it's really, really done. Don't bitch at me about how long it is, because it's almost 109,000 words. That's where it came out to. And she said, Yay, can't wait to start working on it. Don't bitch at me about how long it takes. So there you have it. Um, it is now officially out of my hands, and we're not allowed to bitch at Rebecca about how long it takes her to copy edit it. Um, one of my friends asked if it was the longest book I've ever written, and I said, no, not by a long shot. Um, because I think the talent of the hot came out at like 120,000 words. I haven't gone back to look. Uh, but it seems like the 10810 has been pretty consistent for me lately. Um, I think it's almost exactly the same length as Fiery Crown turned out after developmental edits. It was something that occurred to me is that my process on my self-published books is different than my process on the um Trad books I do. And it did give me some insight into what I'm doing because I had made the effort to no longer do developmental editing on my self-published books. I know, I know. I used to be the rabbit, you need an editor, you absolutely have to have an editor. If I was writing a book in a new world, I would maybe get a developmental editor pay for it. But, you know, the on a book that length, the developmental editing costs me about a thousand dollars. You know, like eight hundred, maybe eight, nine hundred thousand. It's a significant outlay. Uh, the copy editing, the line and copy editing will probably cost me that much. But I'm not gonna um skimp on that because Rebecca catches a lot of stuff. And see, that's the thing, is that Rebecca's a very special kind of editor for me because she has been with me since the very beginning. I met her because she was the production editor on the Mark of the Tala way back. And she actually wrote me an email telling me how much she loved the books, that she was this huge fan of Lord of the Rings, and that she just thought that the Mark of the Tala was amazing and breathtaking. And it was really amazing for me to get an email like that from I'm like, who is this gal? She's like, you know, doing the copy edits on the book. Um, she does for Kensington, she doesn't like do all of the copy edits, but she processes them. Um and she puts together the style guide or reviews the style guide. It depends on the book. When she freelances for me, she goes through, and because she knows the whole story, she has her style guides and she knows everything about the world, and she picks out all of my little inconsistencies, and she'll sometimes point out things she doesn't necessarily like. Um, that she like, isn't this kind of whiny? That sort of thing. Um, so she's amazing. She's you wouldn't necessarily get that if you just hired someone out of the box. She knows the world and the story and the characters, and she loves them, and so that makes a big difference. The reason I decided not to do developmental edits on this book was why I haven't done them on my last few indie novels or novellas, just because they were all continuations of sick existing series, and I felt like I knew what I was doing. Um the last couple times, even though my content developmental editors, it's I use the term pretty interchangeably, even though they're pretty, you know, they're wonderful people, they just weren't telling me all that much about the story. It wasn't like a big change. Um yeah, I just I I don't know how to explain it. It just wasn't it wasn't monumental, it wasn't huge enough for me to, you know, I was like, well, am I really is this worth a thousand dollars? Am I getting a thousand dollars more value out of the book for it? Now, if I felt like the book was a problem, then I would definitely pay for it. Um, but you know, when I have some really good readers with whom I can just exchange reads, I I was getting pretty much the same thing from them. So I'm not sure what I'd do if it was a new thing. Now, see, by contrast, um, especially on like Fiery Crown, I wrote that draft pretty fast and I left a lot of things kind of open. I'm trying to think of another way to phrase that. But because I knew that my editor Jenny was going to be reading it and that she would have definite ideas, and she's a fantastic developmental editor. I thought there were things that I could put in there that I would just try, throw out there, and see what she thought. And so her developmental edits on that book, you know, for those of you who are listening at that time, I think I ended up cutting like 6,000 words and adding 30,000 words. So, you know, it ended up being like 25,000 words longer than what I had turned into her. But that draft was considerably more unfinished than what I could do with Fate of the Tala, because I knew I was going to be do doing a developmental edit round with her. And one thing I could have done with Fate, and which I had originally had in mind that I would do, is I thought that I would write it all the way through and get that draft, like I would turn into Jenny, and have some people read it, and then I would go back and revise. And it just didn't work out that way. Um and if you followed along, you sort of heard my travails with it. But I think maybe some of it was because I knew it wasn't going to see a developmental editor, but also I don't know, I just had to ease up on that ending. And with um both Orchid Throne and Fiery Crown knowing that they were going to a developmental editor, I really shortchanged those ends endings. I kind of sketched them in. Um, I really sketched them in. So with Fate of the Tala, I knew I wouldn't be able to do that, right? I knew I'd have to put in a lot more. So, so we'll see what Rebecca says. I did think of two things I need to mention in that final scene or penultimate scene. You know, as soon as you send it off, you think of things, but um, I just make notes on those and I can they're small things that I can just work in. And then um, you know, we're not allowed to bitch at her about how long it takes, so we'll see. Uh I'm hoping for usually she can do things in 14 days, but this is long. So I'm hoping for um that I can get it back to work on by January 27th. And then I should be able to get it formatten up before the end of the month. So that's what we're shooting for. And so then let's see. I had I actually made some notes. Oh, yeah, I have several things to talk about. And we're already nine minutes into the podcast. Oh well, we could do a long Monday. I did want to mention that I'm trying to tighten up my morning writing schedule so I'm not dragging it out, so I'm not taking such long breaks between my one hour uh work for an hour and take a break. And I'm really going to, I know I keep saying this every year, but really try to stay off of social media on those breaks. And instead, you know, go do some yoga or dishes or something like that, and then come back to it so that because I tend to write, you know, my overall writing time is you know, two to three hours, two and a half to three hours a day. And with the breaks in between, that can be anywhere from you know, like four hours total to like eight, depending on how much I'm dorking around. And I'd really like to change that dorking around time. So even though I'm recording the podcast in the morning like this, I won't post it till later because once I go on the internet, it's just the um the kiss of death. Just can't do that. I'm not disciplined enough, you guys. I just get caught up in things. So I'm I'm gonna post these a little bit later in the day, but still hopefully by early afternoon, if I can get this schedule going. I um on Saturday went down for my Lyra meeting, Land of Enchantment Romance Authors. It was a really good meeting. It was really great for everybody to get to talk about what had happened with RWA and make plans for our local chapter going forward. We have a very tight local chapter, a lot of good friendships. We also have a more diverse chapter than many, and I think that that helps. Um living in New Mexico, we're a lot more culturally diverse than some parts of the country, so I think that helps for us as well. Uh, I I listened to Leslie Penelope's podcast on the way down, and I thought it was very interesting, Leslie, that you're talking about introverts and noise level, because that is definitely a big thing for me, that I just um cannot take competing levels of noise. I don't mind loud sound necessarily, and I know people who mind loud noises, but if several people are talking to me at once, I just overload like boom. And I don't like there being several things going on at once. Like if I'm the same way, if my husband wants to talk to me, you know, it's like just mute the movie. Pause. Can we pause? Because I was actually listening to the dialogue on the movie, and I don't want to listen to two things at once. I do not listen to music while I'm writing. I like a very quiet house. I live in a very quiet place. So I thought that that was interesting. Um the research behind it is I remember learning this in in neurophysiology, that there is a very specific part of the brain called the alevocochlear bundle, which is responsible for suppressing background noise and allowing you to selectively pay attention to certain sounds above others. And I remembered at the time, and boy, you know, that was a long time ago, the 80s, when I learned about that, I thought, huh, I wonder if my alevocochlear bundle doesn't work well, because it's very difficult for me to pick out some sounds over background noise, you know, like conversations in a loud bar or that kind of thing. So very interesting. Uh Friday night, in order to celebrate, we uh watched Maleficent Mistress of Evil. Rent actually bought it, I guess, for you know, like 1999. I always like cringe at paying those prices, and it's like, yes, but it's cheaper than going to the movie theater, so just suck it up. And it was something I'd really been wanting to see. And I liked it. Um, I wish they didn't have to put the cute things in there. I just think that the uh cute things are I know that they feel like you know, it's a Disney thing and they feel like they have to put those in for the kids, but I know I've never liked cute fairies. I've always thought that fairies were um well, the opposite of cute. You know, they're they're little devilish creatures. So um yeah, those those tropes that they were inserting into it felt um clumsy and felt felt pasted in. They felt superfluous to the story, and I think that that's the one of a big problem is you know that they're like, oh, here, let's put on this particular window dressing to make it seem like it's for the kids. And it had nothing to do with the overall story arc for the most part. But arguably the movie wasn't made for me. However, I did think that the payoff at the end, which I don't want to spoiler you guys, but there is this moment that harkens back to uh one of the best moments of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, and it was awesome. And I laughed out loud, and it was like my seven-year-old self did a happy dance of joy. So I think it was probably worth my 20 bucks right there just for that moment. Uh, but you know, wait and rent it. Another thing, I'm actually going fast. This is good. Another thing I wanted to mention is, and this is for for you writers and aspiring writers out there, or for probably for you readers too. It's good for you to know this. But I saw it was a reader talking about this. I saw a reader saying about an author, oh hooray, she's been contracted for a whole bunch more books. I won't say the number because I don't want you guys to figure it out who it is, but you know, a lot of books. And I remember that was very exciting. You know, people were hugely excited when um John Scalsey was, you know, paid a million dollars for 10 books. He got a contract for that, and basically so he was set for life. And I could see that that would make him happy, and there is a great security in that. But in general, it's not smart to contract for a lot of books at once. Uh, most agents will not let their authors contract for more than three books at a time. And the reason for this is because ideally, you want every book deal to increase in money. So if they lock you down for six books or nine books or ten books or whatever, basically they are doing the I don't know, the Costco version of traditional publishing. They're getting you in bulk. And so, yes, it's nice to have the big chunk of money and you get that, you know, probably half of that advance up front. So that's great. I mean, I wouldn't sneeze at it, but you're also you're kind of betting against the house because they're figuring if they can lock you down at your current rates, it's great for them. But you're saying that you don't think you're gonna be worth more than later, and maybe you won't. But ideally, with each two or three book deal, then you go up in advance, you get more and more and more. And and that's part of what your agent does, you know, when you're negotiating the next deal. It's it's like, well, okay, let's let's get her some more money this time. You know, she did well for you. Now, if you think you're not gonna do well, then maybe it's nice to lock in all those books. But your publisher wanting to look you, lock look, excuse me, lock you in for a whole bunch of books at once is a sign that they do think you're going to sell well. And so they are, you know, they're they're basically saying, Oh, yeah, we want to make you our, you know, our our little author. I'm I I'm I'm dancing around not saying the same. I always think of like old Hollywood when they would talk about the stable of actors. You know, they want their stable of authors that they know that they can count on. And some people like that security. That can be a good thing. But you're really, as an author, limiting your own freedom. So I'm just mentioning that, you know, to readers, I know it's nice to be guaranteed that the books will come out. Um, you know, and so you know, it's like, yes, the entire series will be bought. But at the same time, it's not necessarily something to cheer about. And so, yeah, I would caution you not to be too excited when you see something like that because it's like, oh, well, you know, they may have locked themselves into a particular rate, which may not be all that high. You know, the Skalsy deals don't happen all that often. And even then, there were people I know who were like, well, you know, there are, you know, there are certainly authors who make far more than 100k per book. And, you know, the planning on getting that for the next 10 books for like the next 10 years is you know, security, but is but have you have you limited yourself? So those are things to to keep in mind, and just a little bit of businessy stuff there. And so now I am going to go work on a few things and maybe finally get my Christmas decorations down. I did get my new laptop set up. I don't know if I mentioned I got a new laptop for Christmas, and I got that set up this weekend. So making progress. Okay, um, Jeffy's first cup of coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Media Network. You can find more podcasts you'll love at frolic.media slash podcasts. And I will talk to you all tomorrow. Take care. Bye bye.