First Cup of Coffee - November 13, 2018

Celebrating the release of SEASONS OF SORCERY today with impromptu conga lines, possible pumpkin pie, croissants - and a bit of information on the tech side of self-publishing. Also a bit about life, Parkinson's Disease, and yoga. 

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Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, and today is Tuesday, November 13th, and release day for seasons of sorcery. Yay! Yay! Crowds go wild. I may have been dancing around uh singing what's uh jump on the line. I guess it's called jump on the line. Jump on the line, work your body in time. Oh yeah, I believe you. Um conga line around the house with me and the cats. You know, and the cats are really bad at doing conga lines. They're just uh too iconoclastic. They're good at salsa though, very loose. So yeah, I'm in a good mood today. I promise you no more weeping like there was yesterday. I don't know what that was about. But as a few of you contacted me and said, it's you know, sometimes that just happens and it's you know better out than in. And it's funny how those old griefs, you know, just every once in a while wow up, even if you don't think you have them. A little hot, very tasty. But uh you'd think I would know this or I or I would remember it because uh I often write about that sort of thing. And in fact, my story in Seasons of Sorcery, The Dragons of Summer, is very much about when those old griefs come up and well out suddenly and disrupt things. Um, and I'm really happy that you're all liking this story that much. I'm hearing a lot of really great things about it. Um, I think we've got the the weeping score on that story, how many times it made you cry. Um, I believe the record so far is three. I've heard a couple of people say they cried three times during the story. So, you know, whoo. You know, you have your like flame factor, so many flames hot, and then you have your tear factor, how many times you cried. So um, so yeah, I've been busy getting that up and out. Um, you know, there's just a lot of little strings to pull and T's to cross and I's to dot, and a whole lot of it has to do with dealing with computers. Because when you're self-publishing, you're dealing with all of these different retail platforms, and I do pay a formatter who gives me a stack of files. Um, I think I get like six or eight different files for the various different retailers, and then sometimes you have two per retailer because you have the digital version and the print version, and those have to get uploaded, and you know, and you have to remember to go to each one. And so, like yesterday I had tabs open for about four or five different retailers because you input something and then it has to upload, and then it has to, you know, like review the file and vet it, so you know, I'll let that one spin and then go fill in the information on the next one. Um amusingly enough, or oddly enough, actually frustratingly enough, um the print version on Amazon has been giving us fits. And I wasn't exactly sure what the deal was. We had done the pre-order for the digital, not for print, because um it doesn't work well, it's dicey and Amazon makes it a pain. So we just don't, we just make the print go live on release day like this. Well, so it's this multi-step process because the formatter has to know um has to have the the finished files. We send the finished files to the formatter, and I use um Paul at BBE Books Thailand, and he's great, he has a great operation. Uh so we send him the finished files, and then he lets us know how many pages the print version will be. And then I go back to our cover designer, Raven, who is the bomb, and I tell Raven, okay, it's going to be, in this case, 409 pages. And then she finishes formatting the print cover, sends that back to me, I send that, and then I have that ready. And when I go to do the print version on Amazon, I upload the POD, the print on demand version of the file to Amazon. And then I also upload the print cover. And then Amazon thinks about it for a while, and they're cute. I mean, because they like, you know, they show the spinning wheel, and then it says maybe you should go get a cup of coffee or make a sandwich because you know it's take a really long freaking time. And so then you finally, it finally finishes chewing on it, and then you get the launch the previewer, which you have to approve. And Amazon will flag errors. So it flags these errors, and it kept telling me that my print cover was wrong, that it was not the expected size, you know. And as I mentioned, Raven is the bomb, and she does not make mistakes like that. So, you know, I figured it's being. So I worked at it for a while and I keep getting it wrong. So finally I gave up last night, and I emailed her because she is in Europe, and so I knew she was asleep. You know, people have to sleep. I don't understand this. I often feel like Eve Dallas with the what is with this time zone thing. So this morning I woke up and Raven's like, that's just weird. And she gave me some things to tweak. So I tried those first thing. I got up and tried those so that it could crunch away while I was running and everything, and still getting the same error. So Raven's like, can you just double check the page count? Because that shouldn't be right. So I open up the POD file, which Amazon accepted that it passed and went through everything, and it's 490 pages, 490, not 409. So I said to Raven, we must have transposed the number somewhere along the way because that must be why. And then she says, Well, and I and she had sent me a stretched version of the cover because it kept Amazon kept telling me that they expected, you know, like 12.475 and it was 12.273 or something like this. So she sent me a stretched version, which she wasn't happy about because she felt like, well, it's not gonna look right, and she is a perfectionist, which is part of why she's a bomb. So I put in her stretched version that she sent me while I was running, and Amazon passed it. So I said, that's great. And she's like, eh, I don't know, that discrepancy is way too huge. So as I'm doing this, she's looking at it. I sent her the POD file, and I think she's redoing the template to make sure that's correct. So all of this is to explain why the print version is not available yet. Um and I might have to go back and change it on the other places, like Ingram and Barnes Noble, because I don't know if they just didn't catch it or it depends on what the problem was. So that's kind of like all of these little moving parts that you have to get right. And then a couple of the places, like it is uploaded to um Ingram and SmashWords, but I think with it being Veterans Day yesterday with the US holiday, that it's um I don't know, taking a while. They're they're all under review. Under review. So I'm not sure I believe that human beings really look at those, but who knows? Maybe the AIs get federal holidays too, because you know they need a break. So let's see. I also did work on sorcerer's moons more. It'll be good to have seasons of sorcery out there in the world, if only because now I can really focus on sorcerer's moons. Um and it's I've got the first chapter pretty well written, and it's that's always one of the longest, sort of setting up all of the story threads. And work on it pretty intensely this week. It's also going to be kind of a social week, which is unusual for me. Um, but I think it's because U.S. Thanksgiving is next week and people are thinking in terms of let's socialize, let's get together and have food. I was actually thinking this morning about having a slice of pumpkin pie for breakfast. Would that be wrong? I mean, it is release day, so I should celebrate. Um, and we have uh this Trader Joe's pumpkin pie, which by the way is really excellent. And I am like I would call myself a pumpkin pie purist. I like to make my own pumpkin pie, which um really nobody ever likes, I think, as much as I like. David kind of does, but you know, I like it spicy and not too sweet. But this Trader Joe's pumpkin pie has a very lovely texture and pumpkin flavor. It's a lot sweeter than I would make it, uh, which is probably why it's like 440 calories for a sixth of a pie. It's also a big size pie. Um, but it's good. We had some last night, and now I want more. I want more this morning. Um, Agent Sarah sent me, tweeted me a picture of a croissant, um, which is a little bit of an inside joke, because we are working on something that has to do with France. And I told her, if only if only we were dealing in croissants and wine, which would be ideal. But I think it's all gonna turn out well, and I'll be able to share that news with you all. But um yeah, seeing her croissant made me well, so here's the chain of thinking. We also got from Trader Joe's those um frozen chocolate croissants that I got those last week over the weekend, and uh you set them out overnight and they rise and you bake them in the morning, and those were good. Wow, those were delicious. I would totally buy those again. So that was how my thought went as I went. Sarah has a croissant. I want a croissant. I did have Trader Joe's croissants, which I don't any longer, but I do have Trader Joe's pumpkin pie. But I'll probably just have my hemp granola and be a good kitty cat. I don't think it's probably good to start off the day with that much sugar. Probably not that good to have that much sugar, regardless, but for some reason at night it feels less evil for no good reason. Um the other thing we did yesterday is we went for a private yoga session. I've been going to this uh great yoga studio here in Santa Fe called Yoga Source, and uh the my favorite teacher is Melissa Spammer. I don't know if she says Spamer or Spammer, I've never asked. S-P-A-M-E-R. But anyway, she's just fantastic. She's does a tremendous yin yoga class, she does a tremendous vinyasa class, and David has uh early onset Parkinson's, and so he deals with a lot of rigidity in his body, losing range of motion, um, and then the tremor drives him crazy. So for his birthday, I got him a gift certificate. I asked Melissa if she could do this, and it turns out she does private sessions. And I gave him a gift certificate for a private session with her because I wanted him to see if the yoga would work well for him. And he really didn't want to come to one of the classes with me because sometimes one of the aspects of Parkinson's is that his energy will just crash. Um, and he he can't take any more input. It's hard for him to be around people and he has to go be quiet. Sometimes he just has to go lie down and sleep for a bit. Uh, and so he was worried about being in a class situation and kind of being trapped, having too many demands. And so uh I thought, well, you know, he could get to know her, see what she's like, and see how she teaches the yoga. And so we went and did that yesterday afternoon, and that was really cool because it was a snowy afternoon and Veterans Day, so it was very quiet in town, and just the three of us in the yoga studio. And uh I wondered how well she would do recreating that feel of the flow of the class because one of the things I really like about her teaching is the way that she kind of um, you know, she creates the mood and helps you set the intention. She often connects it to the weather, to what the, you know, like how it feels outside and sort of making you um harmonize with the world. I really love that part. And then she kind of takes you through these, um, you know, through the asanas in a flowing way that almost feels like a story arc to me, really, and sort of gradually relaxing the body and moving it through different uh moving through different sort of energetic states. And I wasn't sure how well she'd be able to do that with sort of the one-on-one instruction and if she'd have to stop and help David quite a bit. So actually it worked out great. Um, she did create a lovely sequence and uh she really got some good stuff going for him. And she also assured him, which it was great for him to hear directly from her, um, that he could come to the class and just check out if he needs to. She said that she had a guy in her class the day before who had recently had surgery, she said, and he had and he spent half the class uh just lying on his mat, kind of resting and maybe drowsing a little bit. And it's one of the things I really love about this studio is that they um, and her in particular, although all of the teachers share this ethic, that they don't turn it into a competitive thing. And it's not like this um, you know, one reason why I don't like exercise classes in general, you know, is like when they're like, keep going, come on, you can do it. Uh I'm not that I'm not a team player person anyway. So, and I really don't like someone yelling at me and telling me what I can and can't do. I know a lot of people love this. I know what that's like inspiring and encourages them to keep going, not me. So uh yeah, he um he responded well to this. Uh, you know, you listen to your body and you follow what your body needs to do, and there are no, there's no prizes, nobody gets to win best yoga student or teacher's pet. I have a friend who talks about that her yin yoga class or her other yoga classes, you know, that the ladies in there are so competitive. I was like, how can I be competitive? You know, your your body does what it does. So anyway, I'm really happy that that went well. It worked out being a a good day for him to do it since uh you know town was really closed down, so he wouldn't have had much driving to do anyway. And we had um Yeah, kind of a dark and snowy and quiet day and did the yoga and got the book set up and now it's out in the world, and we're doing conga lines around the house. The sun is shining. Really pretty snowy. Maybe I'll try to grab a picture of the snow for you guys. So now I am going to go get some things done on social media. I can see on my screen from here that Raven sent me something else, so we'll see what's happening with that print version. My mom complained the other day that I didn't do a podcast, what it was on Friday, and I said, Well, that was because I did a blog post, and she said, Can't you do both? That's exactly the tone of voice she used, even though it was on text. And I said, No, I try not to, but today I'm going to do both. Uh it just, you know, setting up the posts and attaching the labels and all of the social media things take a little bit of time, but it's release day. So I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday. There's a lot of great books out today, uh, besides ours, uh, including Michelle Obama's memoir. Um, my bestie, Michelle. She and I talked about sharing a release day, and we thought that was really cool. We're probably gonna meet later for croissants and wine. You like how I tied all those story threads together? So I hope you all have an awesome Tuesday, and thank you for sharing my first cup of coffee with me. And I will almost certainly talk to you tomorrow. Bye bye.