First Cup of Coffee – May 15, 2026

BLADES, BOOKS, AND THE BANDIT is out in the world! I'm celebrating that and also looking back over the last ten years of being on the self-publishing endless hustle - and what it means to step off of that hamster wheel and let it get a little dusty.

Goodreads Giveaway for AMONG THE THORNS goes May 4-25. Enter here. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/431710-among-the-thorns

Indie Booksellers! You can buy my indie books direct from me at discount!! Submit a Request for an order here

New Releases ~

Love, Lies, and Ley Lines

MAGIC REBORN

Never The Roses

Preorder ~

Among The Thorns

Blades, Books, and the Bandit

Socials ~ @jeffe_kennedy on all platforms :)

Upcoming Events ~

Tuscon Festival of Books is March 14th-15th this year! See you there! https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org

Follow me on Amazon or BookBub

The posture correcting sports bra I love almost more than life itself can be found here

Thank you for listening! You all take care. 

Transcript

00:02.20
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert, author of epic fantasy romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:14.49
Jeffe Kennedy
And a cat. um ah I feel like these things all go together. Coffee, writing, cats, no stepping on the keyboard. excuse us

00:28.50
Jeffe Kennedy
He's just very inconsiderate of the camera. Killian, of course, for those of you not on video. um Yes, so.

00:40.89
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning. yeah ah Today is sit with me. Friday! Woohoo! May 15th.

00:54.13
Jeffe Kennedy
Ooh, the Ides of May. Hi, baby. um Sorry, I got totally distracted by this cat, which was no doubt his intention. Attention on me. ah It's exciting because yesterday, actually, was release day for Blades Books and the Bandit.

01:14.71
Jeffe Kennedy
wo Very exciting stuff. Um, it's kind of funny. I almost forgot to promote it entirely. Fortunately, there are some lovely people out there. um on my excuse us right I'm gonna go let him out. Hang on.

01:34.26
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay, let's try this again without feline distractions. Um, Blades, Books, and the Bandit is out in the world so happy.

01:43.80
Jeffe Kennedy
Almost forgot to promote, which actually feels really good. So i feel like I have been in this place for easily the last 10 years, um maybe a little bit longer than that, ah where I have been hustling, hustling nonstop.

02:05.02
Jeffe Kennedy
And I feel like some of it started when we moved to Santa Fe. Um, I did a blog post. This was in 2009.

02:17.50
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, back when back in the old days when I wrote blogs and people read them. Um, it's my old lady voice. Actually, it's my old man voice. What? I don't know what my old lady voice would sound like. Probably just like this.

02:34.78
Jeffe Kennedy
ah but I know I wrote a blog post entitled, you know, where did I pack my writing career? Because that whole transition of leaving Laramie, moving here, of,

02:54.14
Jeffe Kennedy
getting David retired and into school and all of these things. It was big. It was big transition for us, especially for him. He had never lived outside of Wyoming in his entire life and had um, yeah, not lived in a new place, you know, with unfamiliar customs and so forth.

03:17.30
Jeffe Kennedy
So it it was just a big transition and it took a lot of energy.

03:24.15
Jeffe Kennedy
And also i was at a writing career crossroads at that point in my life, uh, trying to figure out what I was doing. Right. Uh, the nonfiction book had come out in 2004 and my, uh, narrative nonfiction had not garnered any interest.

03:48.02
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, I know I have never written it, And I'm going to sneeze. At least I successfully paused that time and managed to not ah blow out your eardrums. You're welcome. ah So, um yeah, I had written this book in,

04:10.80
Jeffe Kennedy
started shopping it like 2007. It taken ah it taken me a while to write it. Um, and it was my very first fantasy romance and that was the one that was way too cross genre and I really thought you know like when in my essay collection was published in 2004 Wyoming trucks true love and the weather channel that, uh, that my writing career had started in and instead it was just like a little, um, but but but but po

04:44.50
Jeffe Kennedy
and also that was hitting the era of blogging as I say. And so i didn't no longer had my, uh, nonfiction semi-lucrative magazine writing career either.

05:01.62
Jeffe Kennedy
David had retired, was going back to school. We needed monies. We needed the monies. yeah And, um, I was still working the day job, but that was getting more tenuous all the time.

05:16.73
Jeffe Kennedy
Nothing to do with my moving here because I'd worked from home, but, um, Yeah, the the times, the times they were changing and my it was getting more and more difficult for me to be billable within my company, within my particular niche. And I was branching out doing different kinds of things within the company, but it was getting more and more dicey.

05:39.80
Jeffe Kennedy
And I was not writing consistently. I wanted to be able to write more consistently. So all of this is a very long way of saying that I really started putting... metaphor of choice nose to the grindstone I started to get very very serious about producing writing.

06:00.18
Jeffe Kennedy
In fact it was 2012 when I really started tracking my progress counts tracking my um.

06:09.02
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, in greater detail. I had been writing before then and I produced books, but that was when I got really serious about paying attention to my, my process and how fast I actually created.

06:24.18
Jeffe Kennedy
Then in 2015, I was laid off, um, downsized. So that was when I decided to try to make the full-time writing thing happen.

06:36.47
Jeffe Kennedy
And, At first I overdid it and I burned out and I had to recover from that and reassess. I've talked about some of this and I could talk about it more if people are interested, but Uh, you know, getting into like trying to write full time 2016 is when I started writing the sorceress moons books, uh, which was my first serious effort at writing an indie series from the beginning, not just continuing self-published books from my previous trad published series. I didn't make much money on my first trad published books.

07:20.73
Jeffe Kennedy
And, uh, and it was Annie Belay. I remember asking her cause she was talking about her self publishing earnings and i asked her why she was making so much more money than I was. And she said, it's the self publishing. And I do think that was true at the time.

07:37.50
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and I also became very good friends with Grace Draven at that time. And she was making such great money. She radiance had been such a smash hit.

07:49.46
Jeffe Kennedy
So all of these things were happening and I really started getting serious about doing rapid release. So for sorceress moons, I did those first four books with trying to release them, I think every 30 to 60 days.

08:06.14
Jeffe Kennedy
and And I know that there are those of you out there who are still mad at me that it took me so long to do books five and six, but things happen. But that sort of put into this machine. And I've been thinking about this a whole lot. This um the self-publishing machine where you try to release as often as possible. And I've always been.

08:32.98
Jeffe Kennedy
always always been a huge proponent of that the best promotion is to write the next book that if you're going to put effort into marketing and promotion you write the next book and I have written a lot of books and it's been pointed out to me um,

08:52.79
Jeffe Kennedy
That most of these books that I've written in my now rather copious list have been in the last 10 to 15 years. So it's been a lot.

09:07.29
Jeffe Kennedy
And I see other people in the self-publishing world caught up in this thing.

09:16.28
Jeffe Kennedy
where they are feeling like they have to produce all the time, all the time, one book after another. And it's leading to the AI slop.

09:26.77
Jeffe Kennedy
It's leading to the people doing this whole thing with the, um, the minimum acceptable content. That's not the exact phrase. I can't think of what it is now.

09:38.35
Jeffe Kennedy
Craig Martell came up with it in the, um, 20 books to 50 K group, um, minimum viable content. That was it. Minimum viable content. What a terrible way to think of your books. I'm sorry, Craig, I would say this to his face face. I think that's anathema. I think that's a horrible way to look at your books. Minimum viable content, you know, just, um, go work at a bank instead work at the post office. There's always work at the post office.

10:13.10
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, so yeah. And I've seen other people going through this. Um, I have another good friend who actually so started in on doing the rapid release because she saw me doing it. I didn't know this at the time. She told me later that she saw me doing it and thought, well, if Jeffy can do it, I can do it, which was true.

10:33.72
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah. And she actually did it better than I did and made some serious money, but also, just about killed herself. And I was chatting with her yesterday and just talking about giving ourselves a break.

10:48.79
Jeffe Kennedy
And a couple of things have come to my mind lately. Uh, I saw Becca Sime, who I do admire greatly and I've taken her class on the better faster Academy. And I think she has a lot of really good points about finding your personal strengths and using those to improve your ability to write and to run your business. Um,

11:14.94
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, and probably her book is excellent, but I was skimming through, she sent a chapter on like assessing your business. And I realized how much of that is geared towards self-publishing and it's, I don't know if she intended it that way. I don't, maybe I just read it that way. Cause this is absolutely no shade to Becca, because as I said, I think she's great and probably one of the best resources out there, but.

11:42.65
Jeffe Kennedy
I read it as that your author business, if all of her points seem to be pointed towards self-publishing perspective. ah And my author business is hybrid. And I am very, very fortunate, and I am counting my lucky stars, that I've gotten this trad publishing deal, I'm getting another trad publishing deal, and it's enough money now that I can...

12:12.47
Jeffe Kennedy
back the way off of this self-publishing hamster wheel, because that's how it begins to feel after a while. And I see other people doing this, you know, being on the hamster wheel, um that you just feel like you never stop running. And it's releasing book, releasing books, write ah release a book, write the next book, release book, write next book. And it's, um it's grueling. And it's very difficult to live that way, especially if You're feeling like you're keeping the wolf from the door, as a friend of mine said by by doing this right. That you've got to be in there pounding at the keyboard as if the keyboard is somehow creating this invisible wall that will protect your home and keep you from.

13:05.28
Jeffe Kennedy
falling the wolves, right? That's how it feels. And that's not a good way to live. So, um, you know, how, how do you get off of the hamster wheel? it's It's difficult because once you get in it, it's difficult to break the cycle.

13:23.48
Jeffe Kennedy
And I appreciated the well wishes from many of you from my last week's podcast. Um, Um, and all of the, the virtual, I'm sure, you know, the, um, ones that don't quite make it to me, all of the telepathic thoughts of wishing me well, which I greatly appreciate, um, getting that royalty check felt like life changing. And it, you know, it's funny cause it reminds me of a story that Melinda Snodgrass told me, uh, because she has been best friends with George RR

13:58.84
Jeffe Kennedy
for 30 years and she said she remembered when he got his first six figure deal and he had the check for like a hundred thousand dollars and he said this is life changing money and she said no this isn't life changing money you'll know when you get life changing money And Melinda, i you know, used to write for Star Trek Next Generation and she's done very well for herself. She also has family oil and gas money.

14:30.90
Jeffe Kennedy
So that helps a whole lot. um So she has a different perspective. Well, it's, it's funny how different people have different perspectives on like how much money do you need? Right? What's life changing money. But It wasn't just getting that royalty check. It wasn't just the book deal, although those things made a big difference.

14:51.77
Jeffe Kennedy
It was knowing that the money was going to be there now and that I did not have to stay on the hamster wheel. You know, like being on the hamster wheel keeps the little light bulb going. ah is Is that an old...

15:08.22
Jeffe Kennedy
metaphor. You all know what I'm talking about. Like when you are on the ergonomic machine that like generates electricity and lights the light bulb, um, yeah, like you're constantly watching that light bulb and it starts to dim and dim. And this is like people watching their sales. And right now there's a lot of panic over the fact that Amazon sales seem to be dropping tremendously. And it's hard to tell if it's just KU, if it's the times, if Amazon is screwing with people, there's people are getting different messages depending on who they talk to, which is not unusual for Amazon, but yeah,

15:48.60
Jeffe Kennedy
So it goes, but you know, that's one of the things is if your main income is from Amazon, you're beholden to them and there's no, there's no legal framework there, right? Your, your agent can't go argue with Amazon for you. You know Amazon says, Oh, well, we think these are what your sales are. Take or i'll leave it.

16:13.56
Jeffe Kennedy
And what are you going to do? class action lawsuit. I don't know. I'm i'm still thinking it's gonna happen. But, uh, yeah.

16:24.60
Jeffe Kennedy
So i am, I am counting my blessings that I am a little able to step off of the hamster wheel and the light bulb has not gone out. I mean, I guess that's, uh, if we're going to extend that analogy, uh, yeah, the,

16:46.55
Jeffe Kennedy
The light bulb has not gone out and i I can be, it's connected to a different electrical source here. let' We'll just do that to ah extend the analogy. um Light bulb's on and going to stay on.

16:59.80
Jeffe Kennedy
And I've got, I've got a lot of, a lot of battery in there to keep it on. And so, yeah, stepping off that hamster wheel and looking at what that feels like. And one of the things feels that it feels like is I stopped looking at my Amazon numbers.

17:16.95
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, I was looking at them daily. And when I said to a friend of mine that I thought I was going to stop looking at them daily, uh, she was kind of appalled that I had been, but you know, like, Hey, I know people who are looking at them hourly, who are monitoring them all the time. Okay. So like my daily wasn't so bad, but yeah, I last week, um,

17:40.95
Jeffe Kennedy
A week ago today, I i stopped recording in my spreadsheet my daily numbers and income. i was doing i started doing that so that I could budget, so that I would know what my income was going to be a couple of months down the line and try to balance the finances that way. But that's a thing you have to do when you're going month to month, right? And right now i am feeling like...

18:05.66
Jeffe Kennedy
It doesn't really matter how the release went yesterday. I have not looked at my rankings. I've not looked at my sales. And let me tell you, people, let me tell you, it is so goddamn freeing. That's like that, that hamster wheel is, I don't know. It's, it's under the shroud in the corner. I'm like, not even, i don't care if it gets rusty and wow, that amazing.

18:34.01
Jeffe Kennedy
so much better for me. Um, it has been a surprisingly emotional week for me for a couple of different reasons. And one of them is this realizing that the wolf is no longer at the door and which ended up being like almost a moment of grief. I, I couldn't believe I got so emotional about it. Um,

19:02.14
Jeffe Kennedy
some other things happened that i made me have to reevaluate like where my happiness comes from. um, um Yeah, it's it's a it's a funny place to be at my life in my life, but also a good place.

19:19.83
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, those of you who have been listening for a long time probably know that you know, like how tumultuous the last few years have been. But um, yeah, this um, stepping away from the hamster wheel.

19:33.59
Jeffe Kennedy
I know I keep saying that over and over again, but uh, light bulb stayed on no wolves at the door.

19:41.91
Jeffe Kennedy
I'll take a deep breath. Um, yeah, and I will talk to all next week. You all take care. bye.