First Cup of Coffee - February 28, 2025

Last day to sign up for my ARC team! Also, thoughts on success, the metrics we use, and strategies for determining what WE want from our writing careers and lives in general.

The ARC Team signup form is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd3qh21bQ8g02eg3z_sej824qOaytfm1RhVjUKVcFIvM3GnJA/viewform

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Transcript

00:02.70
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:13.71
Jeffe Kennedy
So good. um Today is, say with me, people. Not that. It's Friday! February Last day of February. twenty eighth last stay of February

00:27.25
Jeffe Kennedy
oh but um My coffee is so good that I'm inhaling it unwisely.

00:37.09
Jeffe Kennedy
So for those of you who are on video and keen-eyed, actually you probably can't tell, um I've switched back to having a latte. um I was monitoring my my weight to see if it made a difference, and I don't think that it does.

00:54.35
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm um doing oat milk hot taste. Finally found the thing that I like. Um, didn't like soy milk, didn't like almond milk, but I was feeling like even when I had a latte within my, um,

01:07.32
Jeffe Kennedy
technical non-fasting hours that, um, I was really noticing the, um, milkiness, the creaminess, the dairy. Um, a friend of mine who has gotten a prostate cancer diagnosis found out, I don't know, he's been reading too much stuff on the internet. We know how that goes.

01:28.93
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, But he found out that apparently dairy contributes a whole lot to the development of prostate cancer. So now he's quit dairy. I'm like, well, you don't have to quit now. You already have it, right?

01:42.80
Jeffe Kennedy
But um so it goes.

01:47.00
Jeffe Kennedy
And for happiness metrics, having ah having my latte again is definitely up there.

01:57.33
Jeffe Kennedy
All right, so have a lot of things to tell you all today besides coffee-related hijinks. um Let's see. I've even got a list. I'll give you a little update on actual writing-type things.

02:12.83
Jeffe Kennedy
I've had a great week writing-wise, been working on this revision. I'm 89 pages through out of, you know, I'm i'm at 25%, 26%. We'll give myself the the extra one percent um It has taken me how many days?

02:31.86
Jeffe Kennedy
Well, today doesn't count, right? Cause I haven't worked today yet. So it's taken me seven days a week. Well, not really. i mean, it depends on my weeks or five days long anyway, seven days to, to get through 26%, which means it's probably going to take me about as long as I think it will. Hopefully it'll start going a little faster.

02:54.04
Jeffe Kennedy
um I've added two entire new chapters. I did a lot of reworking. I've added 12,000 words. um Or at least I've put in.

03:06.38
Jeffe Kennedy
Let's see. Yeah. I think I've added about 12,000 words. of It's kind of hard to tell. I'm not being as scrupulous on my adding and subtracting. I'm taking things into the outtakes file and parking it and bringing it back in.

03:21.55
Jeffe Kennedy
yeah. Yeah. Who knows? But this is going to be ah very good month, nearly as good as last month. So I'm feeling productive. I'm happy with the revision. There's a lot of stuff coming out in this revision that was not in the first one.

03:40.11
Jeffe Kennedy
That's going to make it so much richer and actually it's making it make more sense. So Ali's great editor. Deanna is very insightful too. Deanna. And, um,

03:52.40
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, needed to be done for all my whining. and It is really nice to work with um really good professional editors like this. would When people ask, and usually it's self-publishing authors, indie authors ask, you know, like, what's the point of working with traditional publishing? You have no control and you, you know, don't get as much money and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah All their reasonings.

04:21.97
Jeffe Kennedy
And you know, one of, one of the reasons is to work with a really great editor. um You know, there's ah there's even been movies about editor-writer relationships.

04:35.80
Jeffe Kennedy
And I realized that sort of in our tech bro world where everybody thinks that, you know, like the language models are going to take over writing and we won't have to do it anymore. Although, did you all see that thing that Microsoft actually came out with a study showing that people who Google The AI tools that like chat GPT and so forth lose critical thinking skills because, boy, we need more of that in our society.

05:08.04
Jeffe Kennedy
Yet had another reason not to use them. ah But, yeah, um working with a really great editor – pardon the analogy, it's like fantastic sex.

05:19.05
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Yes, you can do it on your own and be fine. And sometimes that's better than working with someone terrible, right? But you get the right partner, you get someone who gets you and you get them, then you build this thing between you that's greater than yourselves. And it's awesome.

05:37.94
Jeffe Kennedy
so awesome So along those lines, um, thank you all. We've had tons of applications for the ARC team. Uh, Corrine has been sorting through them.

05:51.31
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, we'll probably leave it open through today or this weekend. It'll be her call, but we're going to wrap that up Um, speaking of wrapping things up today's the last day of the campaign, the vow for girls campaign. If you're going to donate, please donate.

06:05.12
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, we ah We need to end child marriage. I know there's a lot of things in the world on fire, ah but nine-year-old girls being married off to grown men is is a horror that we need to stop.

06:22.64
Jeffe Kennedy
All right, other things. ah So I talked about this. Oh, tip-in sheets update. um I got a my second batch, the replacement batch for long-time listeners. You will recall what we're talking about. These are the sheets that I'm signing that will go into the Owlcrate edition of the book of Never the Roses.

06:49.80
Jeffe Kennedy
And the original shipment had a bunch of messed up pages. So they sent me like... Tons more, tons more people.

07:00.43
Jeffe Kennedy
So um I don't know the exact number, but I can tell you that it is 83.5 inches. And before these came, I was over halfway through.

07:11.90
Jeffe Kennedy
um Now I am at, oops, I opened the wrong sheet. um I'm at 42%. But I just have to be done by March 17th.

07:24.98
Jeffe Kennedy
So that's all right.

07:29.46
Jeffe Kennedy
My Zencaster is being very strange again. My video seems to have gone away, but I'm just going to assume that it's still okay.

07:40.39
Jeffe Kennedy
And, okay, so sorry, this is being weird and I don't know what it caught and what it didn't catch. ah My video came back, but it was paused.

07:52.86
Jeffe Kennedy
um Anyway, 42% through tip-in sheets. ah have to do less than two inches per day between now and St. Patrick's day.

08:03.67
Jeffe Kennedy
Totally doable, right? Should be fun.

08:08.93
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, one thing I wanted to tell you all, ah first of all, um, reluctant wizard is officially wide again. it is no longer in Kindle unlimited, so it's available everywhere.

08:21.24
Jeffe Kennedy
ah I'm not going to do, Kindle Unlimited anymore. I know I keep saying this, i'm like every time I try it, I find that I don't make that much money on it. I get talked into trying it again.

08:33.18
Jeffe Kennedy
um For those who don't know, that's Amazon subscription plan, right? But you have to be exclusive to Amazon. And um so what I found was, and I put all of the bonds of magic,

08:47.67
Jeffe Kennedy
Renegades of Magic books in there. I put the Sorceress Moons books in there. Uh, so I had a good, that was what one of my friends said, you know, that I needed substantive library in there for readers to consume.

09:01.37
Jeffe Kennedy
And people did. i mean, I had really very nice page reads. I, you know, nothing to complain about, but what I found is, is that I made the same amount of money off of Amazon,

09:15.87
Jeffe Kennedy
ah having all of those books in Kindle Unlimited as I did with having them just for sale. And then I didn't have the income on those books from the other retailers. so So ah I'm just not going to do it anymore.

09:33.00
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Besides which, I don't know how many people are actually boycotting Amazon, but I think that's a reason not to be exclusive to them. I don't feel like anyone should have to patronize a yeah part of the oligarchy.

09:50.05
Jeffe Kennedy
You can always get my books directly from me via my website. ah Okay, so... Oh, i speaking of Reluctant Wizard, the audiobook is up on YouTube now. I put it up on there for free.

10:05.91
Jeffe Kennedy
For free. I'm putting that in air quotes because um i do get... money for listens, right? Because they play ads just like they do at the beginning of this podcast. If you listen on YouTube, ah you will have had to sit through probably like a VRBO ad, which, you know, like getting VRBOs. We've had very good luck with those.

10:30.80
Jeffe Kennedy
So sorry, sorry, but it is income for me. And you know, what' I wish I were independently wealthy, but I'm not. And the audio books, putting them on there for free reaches, you know, people can listen to it without paying anything.

10:50.03
Jeffe Kennedy
But yeah, there are ads and I'm sorry that they're frequent ads, but it's amazing to me. that I get people commenting with complaints about that saying, you know, well, it's such a great book and a wonderful listen.

11:04.77
Jeffe Kennedy
And the audio book is narrator is amazing. She has Deborah Balm. Her voice is like caramel. She's incredible. She does such a great job. It's, you know, they're like raving about the listening experience and saying too bad. My pleasure is interrupted by all of these ads. And I,

11:22.92
Jeffe Kennedy
Someone commented that just recently. And I replied and I said, you know how you can have an uninterrupted listening experience? You could actually buy the fucking audio book.

11:34.79
Jeffe Kennedy
Not even that. You can rent it from the library. You can get it through your Audible subscription. You can get it through your Everant subscription.

11:46.73
Jeffe Kennedy
You know, you could pay probably $10 or $12 or a library card. There are a lot of ways to listen to these audio books, um, where I still get paid, right? Cause you know, that wonderful book that you raved about, I spent time writing that book. That's how I'm making my living. That's how we keep the lights on.

12:08.97
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, you know, my narrator, she's amazing. She do not come cheap. I pay her, I pay the production costs. That's an investment on my part. Um,

12:19.90
Jeffe Kennedy
it's It's a weird form of entitlement, this whole, well, I don't want to have to listen to ads, but I also don't want to have to pay. um Now, I'm a solid Gen Xer.

12:30.42
Jeffe Kennedy
her I think many of you listening are. ah It's interesting how, like, sort of the way the population is whittling out. This is this is our time. I know so many more Gen Xers now than I feel like I even knew in high school.

12:45.05
Jeffe Kennedy
ah but it makes me mad if I have to both pay and listen to ads. um You know, like the Netflix model is that more and more of these companies are doing that. leo They figure we're so used to paying for the streaming that they can also make us listen to ads. And for me, it should be a trade-off.

13:02.23
Jeffe Kennedy
Either I pay or I listen to ads. um I don't want to have to do both. Anyway, I just wanted to share that with all of you. um I know some of you who listen to this podcast or watch this podcast on YouTube are also the audiobook listeners. And, you know, you people are amazing. I, you know, I am happy. um I'm delighted to put these books up on YouTube.

13:26.00
Jeffe Kennedy
I know that not everybody can afford to get the Audible subscription or you don't have access to a library or all of these things, you know, and that's fine.

13:37.23
Jeffe Kennedy
That's part of why I do this. But, you know, I'm sorry if the ads are annoying. Just every time you hear an ad, think of that you're buying a coffee pod for me.

13:53.20
Jeffe Kennedy
All right, moving on from that. Um, audio book coming, tip in sheets. Oh, okay. I wanted to talk about metric for success and I have to go meet someone for coffee soon. So I'm going to try to get through this quickly.

14:09.78
Jeffe Kennedy
and also have to get the breaks done on my Jag today. um, so um

14:17.60
Jeffe Kennedy
Success. Success is such a subjective thing. You know, we're we're living in this era where we're looking at Elon Musk becoming possibly the first trillionaire in existence, which is kind of money that we We can't really imagine how much money that is.

14:41.76
Jeffe Kennedy
and And frankly, it's not real because he hasn't sunk in so much stuff. You know, it's like the net value of this or that. It's it's play money. um And it's basically about power, right?

14:54.40
Jeffe Kennedy
At that point, it's not about what you can buy. It's just ah having the power to do things like control the president of you and that of the United States. um

15:07.04
Jeffe Kennedy
We won't go off on that tangent, but and so I have, um, you know, a number of mentees in my discord, as many of you know, and people get frustrated. You know, this is not an easy business. I almost feel like I need a podcast saying, you know, Jeffy Kennedy's first cup of coffee, and this is not an easy business.

15:30.71
Jeffe Kennedy
you know, people get into it thinking, you know you can work from home and you get to tell your stories and which is amazing. Don't get me wrong. It's an incredible job to have, but it is also, um, not, not easy.

15:47.09
Jeffe Kennedy
I mean, for want of a better word, it, and it never stops being difficult. Okay. There are always challenges, which kind of lends to what makes an amazing job, right? You know, it's, um,

16:01.51
Jeffe Kennedy
there's always something new to learn. There's always a new book to push yourself on, and a new metric to try, but what you want to get out of it just varies from person to person, right?

16:15.41
Jeffe Kennedy
And I think it's so important to remember that because we have these very loud voices out there saying, well, if you do, my five point promo plan, then you will rank in the top 100 of the Kindle store and you will make all of this money and you will stay there and you'll get the Kindle bonus and you'll um hit a bestseller list. And there's all these formulas for all this stuff.

16:41.49
Jeffe Kennedy
And sometimes it works, you know? Yeah. Sometimes it works great. Other times, not so great. um And it's, it's not, it's not a mathematical formula. It is not a chemical formula.

16:58.03
Jeffe Kennedy
It is not science. it is art. And you know why you can do exactly the same thing as somebody else and not hit a list. Nobody knows.

17:09.56
Jeffe Kennedy
Right. Uh, but also, you have to weigh how important it is because there are people who will say, oh, well, you know, you have to hit a list. And I hear, um you know, I know all sorts of people who've hit, you know, like the USA Today bestseller list with their books and then it stops there. You know, like you might make some money, you might pay off some bills, which is always great. where It's a great measure of success, right? Being able to pay your bills.

17:39.22
Jeffe Kennedy
um I think it's noteworthy that, ah Someone even like Elon Musk, a lot of things we hear about is like whether or not he can pay this or that bill. because you Of course, he's working on this monumental scale that none of us are. But it's like, you know, even that basic metric of being able to just pay your bills, ah for some reason that doesn't quite go away, right?

18:02.28
Jeffe Kennedy
They just change form. So...

18:10.03
Jeffe Kennedy
If one thing I do with when I'm doing one on one coaching and and I advise you all on here is to write down what it is you want from writing.

18:21.57
Jeffe Kennedy
What is it that you want to get from it? Because it's very easy to get caught up in this thing of, oh, I want to be in the top 100 Kindle store and that will make me a success. um someone was telling me who's a fairly new writer with new books and still trying to build an audience, you know, like less than a hundred reviews on Goodreads still there's, there's no shame in that. It takes time. And I'm always reminding people, this is a long game.

18:48.66
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, you know, those people who blaze up fast and hot make it seem like it's not a long game, but I can promise you, I know people who blazed up fast and hot 20 years ago and they are gone now.

19:01.33
Jeffe Kennedy
So, Long game people be in it for the endurance, be in it because you love it. um This gal who, you know, has her few books and she's been listening to me she's working on her, her long game and enjoying the journey, enjoying what she's doing.

19:19.15
Jeffe Kennedy
ah But she had a friend, ah some writer who was saying how she felt that she was inadequate or her books were inadequate or her career was inadequate. And I thought, you know, what an amazing word to use. Inadequate.

19:33.19
Jeffe Kennedy
It's full of judgment. But she was doing so much better than the gal who had told me about it, looking at just these metrics, looking at the numbers.

19:44.78
Jeffe Kennedy
And I think that, um you know, what what does that mean? i have a friend who really doesn't care. i mean, she likes getting paid money, but it's much more important to her to have approbation from a very specific literary community, ah to be given awards or to be nominated for things, that that's what matters to her for her writing.

20:12.53
Jeffe Kennedy
ah she It's important to her when another writer that she admires says that her work is good. um I mean, we all like that, but you rank these things. You decide what things matter to you most.

20:26.73
Jeffe Kennedy
And I think you could probably do this with anything in life, but don't get distracted by what other people tell you you should want. um You know, David asked me this morning what I would do if I had a trillion dollars.

20:40.42
Jeffe Kennedy
And I said, I don't want a trillion dollars. um And, you know, and he said, well, okay, you know, like a billion or a million, what would you do with it? And I'm like, I would probably, you know, once I got things set up the way I wanted it, you know, with You know, all of my people in good housing and bills paid off and all of that, you know, I would put the money towards causes, which is what a whole lot of people do, you know, like Melissa Gates.

21:05.73
Jeffe Kennedy
Anyway, I'm going to wind it up there. I hope that you all have had a good week. ah Do that exercise. Write down your your goals, your metrics. What do you want from your whole life? When you look back and, you know what will be a life well lived?

21:22.83
Jeffe Kennedy
what you want out of your writing career or your other creative career. um You know, the things that we really want are not the things that our capitalist society tells us we want.

21:35.47
Jeffe Kennedy
There's a little hint. All right. I'm heading out. You all have a great weekend and I will talk to you on Monday. You all take care. Bye-bye.