First Cup of Coffee – June 13, 2025

Talking to you all - but especially writers! - about the perils of seeking external validation, how the publishing industry is particularly challenging this way, and why "moving the needle" is a useless metaphor.

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Transcript

00:01.34
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert, authors of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:15.60
Jeffe Kennedy
Ah, delicious. Today is say it with me, people, it is Friday. Woo-hoo. Friday the 13th. June 13th, 2025.

00:27.07
Jeffe Kennedy
And if you're on video, you will have glimpsed my new tattoo. I posted it to my socials too, but it's ah the purple rose from the cover of Never the Roses. And I'm just thrilled with it. Isn't it pretty? I love the way it looks.

00:41.23
Jeffe Kennedy
I have a couple other tattoos, but they are ah on my shoulder and on the back of my neck and I can't ever see them. So this one i got on my forearm so I can see it and it makes me happy.

00:56.07
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, so it's been kind of uneven week for me. Um, although I've heard that I am supposed to get my edits back on rose in the mirror coming you next week.

01:08.77
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, it sounds like I still have work to do on this book. Um, I, yeah, just looks like I'm going to be working on it pretty hard in the next couple of months.

01:21.47
Jeffe Kennedy
And, uh, It is what it is. I don't know why this book is being weird for me. But I've been listening to the audiobook of Never the Roses.

01:33.16
Jeffe Kennedy
And all these audiobook narrators are so great. And I'm really just loving it. Um, so it's one thing about having a book that is hitting as big as Dipper of the Roses is because i am feeling a lot of pressure on book too.

01:49.71
Jeffe Kennedy
And I think a lot of authors talk about that, you know, that I think you have to realize that you can't recreate the same book and probably not even recreate the same impact.

02:01.42
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, I remember, Elizabeth Gilbert after eat, pray, love somebody, she told this story that somebody came up to her and asked her how it felt to have already reached the pinnacle of her career.

02:15.72
Jeffe Kennedy
And the rest would be this inevitable downhill slide. Uh, and she talks about like, how are you supposed to answer a question like that? But, um, yeah,

02:27.69
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't feel like that's the case for me. And it's definitely ah situation where I'm wanting to continue to push myself. And so it's the life I've chosen, right? The career I've chosen, which is awesome in many ways and difficult in many ways. so And so I want to talk a little bit today about the perils of of the publishing business of how it can be a very difficult business, um, for, emotionally and for self-esteem and for ego and so forth.

03:06.84
Jeffe Kennedy
And the perils of looking for external validation, full stop. Um, I feel like this is probably part of the human struggle is this, um, how do we feel good about ourselves?

03:25.52
Jeffe Kennedy
And the, um, Looking for external validation or gratification to make us feel better is what leads us to all sorts of damaging behaviors, right?

03:37.13
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, you know, like eating sweets or salty things to salve hurt emotions, um, shopping, uh, there's, there've been times when.

03:50.75
Jeffe Kennedy
when I've been feeling insecure and having the, the power of purchasing something made me feel better. Right. But that's problematic, right? Because accumulating a material thing doesn't actually help fill whatever hole is inside of me. Right.

04:10.11
Jeffe Kennedy
And we joke about that. Sometimes we, we make jokes about these psychological theories, but, that we know are true, you know, like that these awful people are doing awful things to try to fill the hole inside. You know, we have all of this political stuff going on in the U S which is also very distracting tomorrow is the big no Kings demonstration.

04:32.39
Jeffe Kennedy
you can't go in person support online, um, You know, i think everything that we can do to resist is really important. That's part of why I talk about it on here, that we must resist this slide into fascism, that we must resist. Do you see how cleverly I embedded this in my message? Sorry if you were only here for ah the publishing talk, but you know,

04:57.55
Jeffe Kennedy
we can't allow the kind of violence that's going on. The rights attempt to, um, to criminalize the, the left, um, you know, to, uh, you know, arrest democratic senators, uh, Alex Padilla, uh,

05:18.45
Jeffe Kennedy
So, you know, how but I do think that however you resist is fine. And one of the most important things we do is is talk about it openly and talk about the fact that this is not acceptable.

05:30.89
Jeffe Kennedy
ah But, you know, that that hole inside, that fear, that's driving a whole lot of what's going on, right? You know, there are people in this country who are feeling afraid and insecure, and that's being capitalized upon by the religious right ah and the fascist right, that they think that getting rid of immigrants will somehow make their lives better, will make them feel better.

06:00.22
Jeffe Kennedy
ah And this is this is something human beings do because it's much easier I'm putting that air quotes now, uh, to look for external solutions to an internal problem, right? The internal problem is dealing with our own thoughts, our own emotions, our own needs.

06:20.08
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, you know, we, we look to other people to love us, which is hugely important. You all know that I talk a lot about my friendships, um, my family,

06:31.60
Jeffe Kennedy
We need those people around us to love us, but they still cannot fill in that ultimate ah need inside that can really only be handled by dealing with our own internal thoughts and feelings.

06:48.94
Jeffe Kennedy
dealing with ourselves. There's a reason why it's such a powerful trope in books where um the protagonist or the villain or what have you has to look in the mirror.

07:02.07
Jeffe Kennedy
That in order to pass through a trial that they must look at themselves in the mirror and it's a special mirror that shows them Honestly right shows them themselves and this is what we all must do metaphorically right we all must face our real selves no matter how much we try to find things to avoid doing that to avoid looking in the mirror.

07:30.07
Jeffe Kennedy
So instead we look at our phones and we look at the TV and we look at movies and we we do these things to avoid being quiet with our own thoughts.

07:42.36
Jeffe Kennedy
And yeah, I mean, that's just, that's just part of being human. But the thing is, is none of those things ultimately solve the problem.

07:54.12
Jeffe Kennedy
And one thing that happens with this external validation, um, And I think it's it it shows up a lot in the writing world because writing is so much a solitary activity where we are alone with our thoughts and our characters and our stories so much that it is that it feels like a natural thing to do

08:23.58
Jeffe Kennedy
to seek out external validation. The problem is is that no amount of external validation, like all forms of external validation, they are never going to assuage that need inside.

08:39.57
Jeffe Kennedy
It will temporarily. that's All of these things are temporary fixes. you know You eat a cupcake and you temporarily feel better, right? Someone says something nice about your book and you temporarily feel better.

08:53.95
Jeffe Kennedy
But then what happens is Soon that glow fades and then you are right back to where you were with this thing that you didn't really address, right? You only put a bandaid on it, but the wound is still there, right?

09:10.66
Jeffe Kennedy
And so the ways that I see this manifest in the writing world is people look for ways to prove that their books are good, that their creation is good and that they are therefore good.

09:25.39
Jeffe Kennedy
And so I'm going to, one thing that I think is super important for, for all creators to do probably, I'm sure it's probably true since we're all human beings theoretically, but is particularly true of writers is to separate yourself from the book, right?

09:43.61
Jeffe Kennedy
You are not your book. And I really work hard at this and I don't always succeed. um I try to say my book won an award. Instead of I won an award.

09:55.23
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, my book is successful instead of I am successful. My book is a flop. Um, versus I am a flop, right? We are not our creations. They come from us, but they are not us.

10:09.68
Jeffe Kennedy
And so I feel like even that simple language can be incredibly useful to remind ourselves that our books, and and I was in my um my author group chat, right? We were talking about this, you know like our worst selling books, know, why are they our worst selling books?

10:28.07
Jeffe Kennedy
And it's very difficult for us to tell. It's just like, for whatever reason, those books just don't hit and never hit. And we were talking about how you deal with them. How do you, ah you know, stop marketing them or whatever, just let them go.

10:44.84
Jeffe Kennedy
um You know, you're your best-selling book and your worst-selling book, is there really a difference between them?

10:54.38
Jeffe Kennedy
So I think that, and this is helping me sort out some of my own thoughts too. So hopefully you're, you're all okay with this ramble. So separating those things, first of all, right?

11:06.09
Jeffe Kennedy
You are, you are not your creation. Um, use the language to remind yourself because words are powerful, right? We're writers. So words are powerful. Um, say my book did this, not I did this.

11:18.39
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, um, my book got a bad review, not I got a bad review, right? They are not reviewing you as a human being, even though like some awful troll type reviewers try to make it seem that way, you know, like saying, Oh, you're an awful person and this kind of thing. It's like, no, no, no, you don't actually know me as a human being.

11:37.53
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, but you can say that, you know, you think my book is awful or my characters are awful and that's your prerogative. But, um, it it doesn't reflect on me as a human being, right?

11:54.58
Jeffe Kennedy
So then the other piece of this is when we talk about not looking at your reviews, it's really good to not look at your positive reviews as well because it all gets in your head, right?

12:07.85
Jeffe Kennedy
Reviews are external validation. Looking at your Amazon ranking is external validations. ah looking at how much money your book is bringing in is external validation right ah and I had a friend a long time ago who as a newbie writer was, and she had problems. I mean, she had a lot of things going on in her life and, and I don't dismiss that. Right. It's, you know, emotional stuff is really hard to deal with. And she was dealing with emotional stuff and with some physical problems, some chronic illness, and it sucked. It was really difficult, but.

12:49.34
Jeffe Kennedy
she had ah you know, was very successful with her first book or moderately successful at the time. It felt very, um and certainly when you're a newbie that like sudden jump can feel like very successful because you have no context.

13:03.84
Jeffe Kennedy
um And a slight aside, one of things we've been talking about is, you know like this whole move the needle conversation that people have, you know, talk about a lot. Well, I did this marketing, but it didn't move the needle.

13:16.70
Jeffe Kennedy
And one of the reasons why this metaphor doesn't work. right, is because it implies that there is some sort of gauge, right? I envision like this success gauge that's kept with all of the other weights and standards, right?

13:35.47
Jeffe Kennedy
And there's a needle and it everybody gets their own needle and you get to see like how far the needle goes. And, you know, maybe there's like, I almost want to draw this right. The red zone, the yellow zone, the green zone, like you're a loser, you're mid list. Okay.

13:54.65
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, you're a fabulous success. And then there's like a little bit of purple way down at the very bottom. That's like, you're a phenomenal, um, Like, can we just stop talking about moving the needle?

14:07.16
Jeffe Kennedy
It's there, there is no gauge. There is no standardized gauge for success or for money or whatever it is. ah You know, if you are engaging by what other people in your profession or your genre are doing, it's still not productive, right? Because they are not you and they are not writing your books.

14:31.46
Jeffe Kennedy
Right. Right. Your books are your books. They're their own thing. You don't want to be looking at what other people are doing because there's a reason that there is this saying comparison is the thief of joy.

14:46.22
Jeffe Kennedy
Right. you You are always going to find someone doing better than you are or that you perceive that they're doing better than you are. Okay, so back to my friends. Sorry, I'm trying not to get off topic.

14:57.99
Jeffe Kennedy
um So because she knew nothing and we knew nothing, her friends, it seemed like she was very successful. Looking back, she was I mean, probably, you know, it was, it was great for her first outing, but it wasn't amazing, but she felt amazing.

15:16.93
Jeffe Kennedy
And she really fed off of that external validation. She was always on social media, looking for mentions of her book and eating up everything that anyone nice said about her.

15:29.20
Jeffe Kennedy
And when that, or, ah or about her book, Kelsey taught myself, when that inevitably trailed off, she began to starve for that external validation, right?

15:41.80
Jeffe Kennedy
She began to starve for the attention and began seeking it out. Um, and there are things that we pin our ideas on that we think those are what, what will make us happy.

15:58.85
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, You know, when we're newbie writers, we think getting an agent is going to solve all of our problems. We think getting that first book published is going to solve all of our problems.

16:09.75
Jeffe Kennedy
We think, I don't know, making a certain amount of money, which lot of times we don't even know what it is. We just have this idea that, oh, when my book's a bestseller, then it's going to solve all of my problems.

16:22.06
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'm going to give you the the tough love spoiler here. None of these things will solve your problems. All they do is create another set of problems because you're a human being. I'm a human being and we get to have problems. That's what life's about. We also get to have joys, but we tend to focus on the problems, right?

16:44.41
Jeffe Kennedy
So

16:47.74
Jeffe Kennedy
we think that certain things will give us a boost. You know, like I hear people saying, you know, I just need a win right now. And, and this thing will feel like a win.

16:59.66
Jeffe Kennedy
So it will make me feel better about these other things in my life that are going wrong. And, and I feel like I could say this to all of you, honestly, that, and you long time listeners know that, you know, my life has been difficult, right?

17:18.68
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm trying not to get weepy about it. But, you know, my husband is slowly dying from Parkinson's disease. And my mom is widowed for the third time and having a hard time. Hi, mom.

17:35.38
Jeffe Kennedy
And, you know, there's there's a fair amount of pressure that I'm dealing with, right? Taking care of the people in my life. And a friend of mine said to me, ah she said, you know, it's so interesting because so much of your life is shit right now, but you're having the best professional career of your life. And it's it's true.

17:57.62
Jeffe Kennedy
And I have thought before, you know, that this is compensation, right? If I was not having such a great professional career you year, that it would be much more difficult for me to deal with these other things that are problems and are struggles.

18:13.13
Jeffe Kennedy
um So there is something to that, but you have to not pin this on specific kinds of external validation, right?

18:24.74
Jeffe Kennedy
um Seeing your book displayed in the window of the bookstore. We get this from movies and TV, right? Because that's always like the culmination of the show at the end. Like they walk by and they see the huge display of 11 billion copies of the book, which when was the last time you really saw that many copies of one book in a bookstore window?

18:47.28
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, I don't know if I've ever seen it. And if it happened, it would be with something that's a huge bestseller, right? This like 0.01% of books published, but we think, you know, like either the protagonist sees their book in the window or uh,

19:06.66
Jeffe Kennedy
the antagonist or the, you know it's like goes by and sees that the person was successful. So we have this image in our minds that like, oh, when my book is in the bookstore window, 11 billion copies of it. So it just fills up the window display.

19:20.85
Jeffe Kennedy
Then I will be happy. um And it's just like all the others, you know, like when I get an agent, then I'll be happy. When I get a book deal, then I'll be happy. But the thing is, is even though those things do bring temporary happiness, like eating the cupcake, nothing wrong with eating the cupcake, right?

19:41.20
Jeffe Kennedy
Go, go eat the cupcake and enjoy it. Now I kind of want a cupcake. Getting the agent, getting the book deal. Those are things to celebrate. They're great, but they are not going to solve all of your problems. You are, they are this moment in time and then time moves on.

19:58.18
Jeffe Kennedy
And now you have to think about the next book deal and you think about the next book and you think about the next phase of your life because time marches on, right?

20:08.88
Jeffe Kennedy
We never get to be in this rest on your laurels kind of bucolic ending where we never again worry about money or um politics or all of these things, right?

20:23.36
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay, so that's my 20 minutes. That's my sermon for the day. of Seek out eternal validation. um Give yourself a look in the mirror. You don't have to do it all at once, but piece by piece, find your own happiness that comes from inside.

20:39.15
Jeffe Kennedy
All right. um I hope you all have a great weekend. I hope that you chime in for No Kings at some point tomorrow, and I will talk to you all on Tuesday.

20:52.62
Jeffe Kennedy
You all take care, okay? Bye-bye.