First Cup of Coffee – June 9, 2026

Some tough love on losing sight of the joy of storytelling and the great privilege of being able to make a living doing this wonderful, creative effort and instead getting lost in a swamp of comparisonitis and striving for status. Especially on why bigger advances aren't necessarily better.

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Transcript

00:01.30
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.

00:16.39
Jeffe Kennedy
Hmm, which is very good. Today is Tuesday, June 9th, 2026. And, um, I have started writing again.

00:30.86
Jeffe Kennedy
yaa I'm very, I'm very something. I'm very something about it. um I'm happy. I think that feels good. I had a bit of trepidation yesterday morning, knowing that I was starting up again. ah Very often when I haven't been writing for a while, I feel it like a pressure.

00:53.98
Jeffe Kennedy
Like I need to... I need to do this thing. Um, it it's like the the water still starts building up behind the wall.

01:05.37
Jeffe Kennedy
And so I'd taken this time off in order to refill the well and I was concerned that not feeling that pressure meant that I hadn't taken enough time to refill the well.

01:19.98
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, but when I went to write, it just flowed out nicely. It, um, Yeah, in almost, dare I say, easy, it just float. And we all love those flow days. One thing that I did, i posted about this to social media, but I thought talk about it here too, as I decided to start looking at some art before I start writing.

01:49.18
Jeffe Kennedy
And so I got it out, actually, let me show you. I got out this gorgeous book that Kelly.

02:00.86
Jeffe Kennedy
but i Why did I blank on your name? Kelly Kelly Robson gave to me. Uh, and it's called visions of beauty by Kinuko Craft. Um, and she used to do a lot of the fantasy covers for Patricia McKillip and Juliette Marillier, um, Tanith Lee among others. I could only wish For a Kinuko Craft cover but um when Vela Roth was here visiting this weekend and we had a great time I guess I haven't talked about that but we we had a really lovely time and we had a great time um

02:41.67
Jeffe Kennedy
I'll talk about all that later. Anyway, I was showing her my various fantasy art thing. She stayed in the casita and she loved some of the fantasy art that I have hanging in the casita for um creative inspiration and I showed her my Stephanie Pui Mun Law art. She wasn't familiar with Stephanie's.

03:02.77
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, I'm tempted to go to world fantasy con in October just to meet her. Um, this is um, over my shoulder over my right shoulder here I'm leaning to the side to show you if you're not on video but ah, this is um, Stephanie Pui Moon Law.

03:20.76
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, it's a a dragonfly flying among ah, red oriental poppies. um Excuse me. So anyway, but we're talking about Kinuko Craft and I decided well you know I've kind of flipped through this book but I haven't looked through it intensely.

03:40.40
Jeffe Kennedy
Sorry and I thought well this would be really fun to do. Um. as a way of kicking into writing for the day. Other things I've done is like reading a poem out loud at the beginning of writing. And that's something that's really useful too. But this is my visual art thing.

04:03.06
Jeffe Kennedy
And so I'm holding it up and showing you, and hitting the wind chimes. Okay.

04:10.65
Jeffe Kennedy
This is such a professional podcast. But anyway, you open it up and there's a beautiful illustration of of an archway a gateway to a beautiful fantasy world with a pagoda and a bridge and a fountain. um I have no idea why I'm sounding choked up.

04:32.51
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, probably for the same reason I'm coughing hold on a moment. I am apparently a little froggy this morning. ah But when you open it up on the right-hand page, it says for all dreamers. And since this is, and there's also lots of roses in the archway.

04:52.76
Jeffe Kennedy
So given that this is for Never the Roses 3, which has obviously roses in it, but it's also about dreaming and oneiromancy, dream sorcery. This seemed especially apropos. So I thought that was cool.

05:11.06
Jeffe Kennedy
So yeah, it feels good to be writing again. And i I, did pretty well yesterday, especially considering that I went out to breakfast with Vela. We went to Clafouti's and I took her to the ARC bookstore in Santa Fe because I thought she would like it. And we both ended up shopping.

05:30.87
Jeffe Kennedy
So that was a thing. And Then she headed home. ah We had a great time on Sunday at Ojo Springs here in Santa Fe. We did the spa day there.

05:44.95
Jeffe Kennedy
um It was interesting because I had an excellent body scrub. And I don't know if I complained about my not at all excellent body scrub at Inverness in Denver. In fact, it was sorely disappointing. It was...

06:02.94
Jeffe Kennedy
Like i I should have just burned that money instead. ah it was so not relaxing and not good and ah didn't accomplish anything I wanted.

06:15.61
Jeffe Kennedy
But this one at Ojo Springs with Alex was great. He scrubbed everything, which is what I needed to have scrubbed. And I felt so relaxed afterwards that I think I might just start doing that, doing the body scrub spa day at Ojo. Because the other thing you can do is a day soak. If you come visit Santa Fe, I recommend it. You can just go at like 10 in the morning.

06:44.89
Jeffe Kennedy
You don't have to go early but the day passes are first come first serve priority is given to the um, overnight guests. There's a hotel there too. Ah, but you pay sixty five dollars on the weekend forty five on weekdays and you can soak until like 10 p.m that night if it possesses you to do so.

07:08.34
Jeffe Kennedy
And there's lots of great places to lie in the sun or in the shade and there's hammocks and fire pits and a couple there's a cafe and then a really great restaurant and.

07:21.08
Jeffe Kennedy
ah it was a delightful relaxing day and I'm thinking that that's what I'm going to do because in some ways getting a massage feels like I want to say work is does that make sense does anyone else feel this way it's like I always come away from the massage feeling kind of.

07:39.77
Jeffe Kennedy
bad that I'm I mean I feel good physically but I always feel bad that um like that I'm not more relaxed you know my massage therapist is like you should do this more often and you're very tense and it's like I'm sorry i know I'm very tense and having my body scrubbed I came away with my skin very soft which I needed you know have the lizard skin from lizard living in the desert exfoliated And I slept so hard that night. It was amazing and delicious. So I'm thinking maybe this is the direction I'm gonna go. I'm also adding a yoga class to my schedule. Um, I'm gonna start doing a Wednesday morning yoga class. I'm gonna take Wednesdays off writing and do business but also do this um, class that's unwindings that's supposed to help um,

08:32.40
Jeffe Kennedy
get to some of that stuff. And I'm going to see if that works better because as those of you know, and Vela and I talked about this a lot, she's a caregiver for her elderly father.

08:46.29
Jeffe Kennedy
um and it, yeah, getting rid of that accumulated tension is an ongoing challenge when you live with someone who is chronically ill and you are their caretaker.

09:01.30
Jeffe Kennedy
So, um, I'm, I'm excited about that idea. And on Saturday we went to the rom-con fest in Albuquerque. Uh, it was kind of an all day thing. There were a couple of panels.

09:16.46
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, Ursula Vernon was there. Cassie Sanchez was there. A few other authors, New Mexico authors I hadn't met yet. Um, I got these great earrings. If you're not on video, they're sort of like a cascade of shimmering butterflies. I'm very excited about them. There was a great little marketplace, um, actually quite extensive. It was like a whole event. I was impressed.

09:41.27
Jeffe Kennedy
And, uh, and then we all went out to lunch afterwards, uh, Vela and me and Ursula and her partner, Kevin and their daughter, Kira. And then, um, Brittany and her husband who Brittany is one of Vela's assistants. So we went to Jinja and had a late lunch, early dinner. And it was, it was a great time hanging out and talking with people.

10:11.22
Jeffe Kennedy
So one of the things. Vela and I talked about over the weekend and I want to spend the rest of the podcast talking about this is competitiveness in author careers and long-time listeners will know that competitiveness is something that I talk about a lot. And, and then I believe very strongly that competition is anathema to creativity. I mean, I take a very strong position that way, I know, but I do think that,

10:44.50
Jeffe Kennedy
There are a lot of aspects to being competitive with other authors not even wanting to do better than another author but this straining to lead reach a certain level of success that is frankly soul killing I think it's soul killing um.

11:04.70
Jeffe Kennedy
And I've been talking lately about trying to get off of the hamster wheel of self-publishing, and it feels really good to do that and to be able to settle into writing. And I fully recognize that I am incredibly privileged at this point to have a very good traditional publishing deal that is bringing in plenty of money for me to be able to do that. But the other thing that's enabling me to do that is that I am not.

11:38.49
Jeffe Kennedy
sweating not having a bigger book deal and there are people out there doing this there are people who like for instance I heard a story about someone who got a very nice book deal with Tor um I assume it was something some kind of six-figure deal or five-figure deal but Apparently a very good deal with Tor and frankly, you know getting a deal with Tor is pretty damn awesome, especially This is like her debut book and she didn't want to tell anyone about it because it wasn't as good as other people's deals because there are people out there who are um You know like going viral with their self-published book and they're getting seven-figure deals and it's all of a sudden

12:27.45
Jeffe Kennedy
the person getting the six figure deal getting a hundred thousand dollars for two books which is what I got for mine and it's what I'm getting for my second deal. So you know full disclosure is there. Um I am not getting seven figures for my next deal. Uh I'm probably getting the exact same amount for the next deal and you know what I am happy. I am happy about that. And I could be in this place that some of these other people are. I could be looking at some um viral newbie who is getting a seven figure deal. And I could be lamenting that I am not getting that. And I could be striving and struggling struggling.

13:13.91
Jeffe Kennedy
wailing and gnashing my teeth in order to get even more. Um, I could be upset that I'm not getting more money for my second deal than for my first deal. And you know what? I'm not, my agent's more upset than I am ah mostly because she's like, they should increase it, but that's her job. Right?

13:34.10
Jeffe Kennedy
An important thing to remember, and I feel like everybody should know this, but apparently some people don't. And it's worth emphasizing. It's worth repeating this over and over again until people get it through their heads. Is that an advance, when you get a book deal, an advance is an advance against royalties, right? It's essentially a loan,

13:59.22
Jeffe Kennedy
That's really how it works because they are paying money in advance. It's like when you start a job, it's as if you started a job where you're expecting to make, let's say you're expecting to make a hundred thousand dollars a year from this job. And they say, well, you might make more with bonuses if you do a great job and we think you're going to do a great job. So we're just going to give you half of that money on your first day of work and that's showing our confidence in you. This is essentially how it works because it's great that way because the publisher is showing confidence in you they're saying we think that you have a good chance of.

14:42.71
Jeffe Kennedy
Earning out this money but and this is also very important to know even if the author does not earn out their advance the publisher still makes money on them.

14:55.54
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay, so the author does not have to earn out that advance for the publisher to make money. So the publisher does this calculation where they figure out we can give this person this much advance money. And a lot of times that comes as a result of knowing that someone else might pay the money, right? They want to get it before another publisher does. There might be an outright auction. It might be an exclusive submission, but they're going to say, okay.

15:27.03
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, and this happened to me with my first Tor book deal, um, that my editor Ali said, is this enough money to take this off the table so that we don't have to go to auction? We don't have to worry about what everyone else is bidding. And the answer was yes.

15:43.22
Jeffe Kennedy
but A thousand times yes. ah Largely because I wanted to work with Tor and, and it's been worth it. I made a very calculated decision that way.

15:54.97
Jeffe Kennedy
But keeping in mind that they figure, okay, we can pay the author this much money because we figure we're going to clear this much profit. Because once you earn out that advance, that's when they start paying you royalties and you get a percentage on each book. So does the publisher.

16:15.64
Jeffe Kennedy
But that's when the author actually starts making royalties. the actual income as opposed to loan. So this is really important to keep in mind when you get a seven figure deal when you get a million dollar deal you have to earn out that million dollars before you start getting more money in and the publisher doesn't necessarily care if you earn out or not because.

16:46.74
Jeffe Kennedy
Say it with me kids. They're still making money on it, right? So it doesn't matter to them. You wouldn't want to know when it does matter when they go to calculate your next deal because they're going to look at the free money they gave you on your first day and Maybe you didn't get all those bonuses. Maybe the book didn't sell a million dollars worth. And it's not the author's fault. And the author can go on social media, and they do, and complain that, oh, the publisher didn't do this, and they didn't market it that way correctly, and the release date was bad, and blah-de-blah-de-blah-de-blah, right? There's always a thousand excuses, and we don't know the reason. We never know why some books sell and some books don't. People always want to look for reasons.

17:35.09
Jeffe Kennedy
We don't know. Some books do well. Other books don't. You know, people have been around a long time can make calculated gambles, but it's, it's true.

17:47.06
Jeffe Kennedy
And even the self publishers, there are those Indies out there who say, here is what I did for my launch. Here's how I reverse engineered this bestseller. Here is how I made this book go viral. And And they could tell you exactly what they did and you could try to do exactly what they did and it won't necessarily work because.

18:13.02
Jeffe Kennedy
People are readers and readers are people and they do what they're going to do. So.

18:24.70
Jeffe Kennedy
The thing is, is that don't envy the people getting the million dollar deals, especially as a debut because you know what if you don't earn out that fairly massive advance, right? if You don't earn that out then when they go to calculate your next deal.

18:46.42
Jeffe Kennedy
then they're going to look at those sales and they're going to say well you know she still owes us five hundred thousand dollars or whatever. Ah and they're going to offer you less next time or maybe they're not going to offer you a deal at all and that's when people go on social media and they say well clearly my publisher already sold out all the slots for this type of book or paranormal romance is dead or vampires are dead. Well, they are dead but you get my meaning.

19:14.57
Jeffe Kennedy
Ah. And they will blame everything on that that that's why they didn't get another contract or didn't get another advance this big.

19:26.17
Jeffe Kennedy
And the thing is, is all this time, all this time that they are worrying about the money and worrying about the status, because that's what it comes down to, right? Is the status. It's the, oh, well, Mandy Jane Newby got a million dollar deal and I only got, only got $500,000 she's better than am. And she's not better than i am and You know what's gotten lost? What I have not mentioned at any point in explaining all of this and talking about this? I'm going give you a moment so you could shout it at me.

20:07.09
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, with the writing, right? The creativity, the storytelling, the reason, now I'm frothing at the mouth, but the reason why we do this in the first place, most of us, I mean, there's, yeah, there's people out there who...

20:23.67
Jeffe Kennedy
are only doing it because they see it as a path to easy money which it's spoiler not.

20:31.70
Jeffe Kennedy
But the people o start out because they want to make a living writing their stories. At what point are you happy?

20:42.55
Jeffe Kennedy
Right? If you've gotten six figure deal You know, if you're good with your money and you earn that out, you might or might not, but you can live on that for a year.

20:55.86
Jeffe Kennedy
You, you know, it's, you might not be able to live in Manhattan. You might not but be able to buy a yacht. If you get a million dollar deal, why do you need more money?

21:09.05
Jeffe Kennedy
Right? Right. So i think it's really good to be aware of what you're doing. I know, i know Authors both, well, all three, indie, trad, and hybrid, who are making a living. They're paying their bills writing, and there's plenty of people who can't do that. And they are really happy. And they are not the ones who crop up when people say, oh, well, she's the new queen of romantasy. It's like, well, whatever that means, um, because this, this moments, I want to say this year's queen, this month's queen, this week's queen, um could be next week's sob story on social media.

21:57.14
Jeffe Kennedy
And if you watch it, I mean, you could probably chart this and you see it happen because it's a cyclical business and, there's no straight line trajectory and people go up and then go down and if you sorry if you get a nice book deal if you get a decent book deal you should be celebrating that please go be happy about that and it is I feel like we should have this all tattooed on our foreheads: Comparison is the thief of joy. Right?

22:34.01
Jeffe Kennedy
Comparison is the thief of joy. So every time you compare yourself to someone else, you are stealing away your joy and,

22:49.16
Jeffe Kennedy
Isn't that the point is to be joyful, right? Isn't that what we want to do is joyfully tell our stories and have the luxury, the inestimable, incredible privilege of being able to write our stories for a living.

23:08.31
Jeffe Kennedy
if If you've lost sight of that, then, well, come and talk to me because because we need to talk. All right. On that note, I am going to go joyfully write my book. I hope you all find joy in what you're doing today.

23:26.46
Jeffe Kennedy
And I will talk to you all on Friday. You all take care. Bye-bye.