Hi, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. Get ready to have your world rocked. As we dive into the wild and sometimes wacky world of self publishing. We are three fabulous bestselling authors. I'm your host, Kimberly Todd with my best friends.

K. C. Luck

and Jamey Moody. 

Join us as we discuss the joys of writing, challenges of self publishing, and anything else that tickles our fancy. 

Hey there, and welcome to episode 19 of the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. I'm Kimberly Todd, and I'm here with my fabulous friends KC Luck and Jamey Moody. Today we're talking about 2025 writing trends. But before we start, how was everyone's week? KC?

My week was good. I am preparing for a road trip. So, uh, that takes a lot more prep than you might think because, we're going to try to save a little money by eating meals on the road. So we're going to take a bunch of camping food and stuff like that. But we're staying in hotels most of the way because we're going to hit a bunch of spots.

Actually, I'll be doing a couple of the episodes from the road, so that will be kind of fun. Yeah. KC Luck traveling the world, but maybe not the whole world. We'll actually be going to Death Valley over to the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Phoenix and Tucson. So it's a long two weeks, but it'll be a lot of fun.

I love road trips and this is the first time my girlfriend and I are really going on one, so. Yeah, I'm excited about that. And the other news is I have not done any writing whatsoever. So,

Wow! Well done, you.

yeah. So, if you're doing this because I'm an author for the podcast, we might have to rethink that.

You're gathering information.

yeah,

there 

you 

You'll see some pretty country

Yeah, there you go. Maybe I'll be inspired to write something based on the road trip. 

Yeah. 

How about you?

Well, this week, something happened in Texas that doesn't happen very often, and it snowed. 

Oh, yeah.

And yeah. It doesn't happen very often. It was beautiful too, because we had big snowflakes. It was really pretty. And I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to go out in the backyard and build a little, I called her a sapphic snow goddess.

Because anybody can build a snowman, you know, but then when I got through with it I was like and I put one of my favorite caps on it I thought what am I gonna use for eyes and a nose and I couldn't find anything, then I realized I had these little twizzler bites twizzlers candy that I like But I don't get the long pieces of it.

I get the little bites and they worked well for eyes and a nose. So if you look on my socials, you'll see the little snow goddess.

Cool. Cool.

yeah, 

it was kind of fun. And then it was probably gone in a day or two, which was great because I don't necessarily love snow, but it's nice every now and then.

Cool.

 My wife and I had a relaxing weekend, and we went to see another movie, The Last Showgirl. With Pamela Anderson and Jamey Lee Curtis, and we loved it. So I just wanted to note that that's the second movie we've gone to in a while that we actually stayed through the entire thing. So, out to them. yeah,

This one I want to see, definitely. I definitely want to see that one. I like those actresses a lot. So, yeah.

I mean they were so good and the way they did it it's my understanding. I might be off, but I'm pretty sure that they filmed it in 18 days and it was done on both, traditional analog film and digital so that you could get like that fuzzy look on the sides a little bit to make it look older or whatever.

 We really liked it. It does pull at your heart strings. You get a little sad at some points, but it was fabulous. We loved it.

Um, yeah. And so moving on KC, did we get any texts this week? 

 We did get a text, from Memphis and the trend that they were saying that they were doing was watching the national championship playoffs. And I'm thinking that's probably football, I guess. Cause

that's what I watched a little

bit of. 

yeah, there were several games. So now it will be Ohio state and Notre Dame.

Oh.

They play, next Monday night.

That's the final.

Yeah. I think it's the day of the inauguration.

yay.

Yeah. 

Okay, we'll leave it at that. Anyway, they would like to volunteer at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee as something they'd like to do over the next year. So,

That sounds kind of cool.

Yeah, how cool is that? So I'd like to see pictures of that one.

 We've gotten a few emails with, questions for our Ask Us Anything Episode. That'll be coming up. Thalita our Brazilian listener was glad that we were back and she sent us several questions. And then I have a long time reader, Jean, that found the podcast and was, catching up and laughed a whole lot at our sex episode. So anyway, so that's great. We've got a new listener.

And then we had on Instagram, Jules wrote us and she added a few things again for our Ask Us Anything episode. But I wanted to give a shout out to Jules and all the people in California because as we're recording this, a ton of people are losing their homes and dealing with fires all over California, mostly in the LA area.

And we just wanted to send good wishes out to all of them. 

Yes, 

 Yes. Jules, we hope you're okay.

Yeah, for sure. What a horrible thing that's happening there.

So our prayers go out to you. And today, again, we are talking about 2025 writing trends. So KC, why don't you start us off?

Yeah, so one big writing trend that I am very interested in finding out more about as far as statistically, cause I know Jae probably has them, is her Sapphic Book Bingo. So I'm pretty sure that every year there's an increase in the number of authors who submit and readers who fill out the bingo card.

Because if you're not familiar with it, it's really very cool. She comes up with these, Rather obscure categories. Sometimes some of them are a little out there for, readers to have to read a book in that, have like twins or whatever. I can't remember what she has this year. I haven't looked at as closely, and then they fill out the bingo card.

They turn it in and you get as part of a giveaway or a raffle. So that's,  I'm sure is growing every year, and it's always a fun trend. And then, of course, I Heart SapphFic also has their reading challenge, and it's very similar. You get, points based on how many books you read, based on categories, and so it's very cool.

And I am participating in both of them with just one book, I believe. I had to fill it out a while ago, and I've slept since, so I don't remember exactly what I put in there, but Anyway, are you in it? Kimberly?

Yeah, actually, I'm in both of them. And I just want to say shout out for today because, Mafia Girl, Maybe is in week two of the IHS reading challenge, which starts today for Opposites Attract. So I'll be sending out my newsletter today to promote and talk about that. But also like you were saying, Jae's Book Bingo, which started as well.

So I'll be sending out links and more information about both of them today.

Yeah, one of my books was in Jae's Book Bingo. It was, Two Tropes in One Book, and it was in there, and then I've got one coming up in I Heart, too. And Jae, what she does is she sends out a newsletter or an email every Thursday and tells you what the category is, and then gives you like 15 books in that category, and if one of your books isn't in there, then all you have to do is just go on social media and say, hey, mine fits this category, and it's just great because it highlights all Sapphic books.

It's so nice for the community, what both of these groups do for the writing world is just amazing because you have so many opportunities to get your book out in front of other people that you might not normally have done before.

Oh, yeah. I know my darkness books have always benefited by being in the dystopian category because there's just not that many and I've actually heard people say that they only tried them because of Jae's Book Bingo and then they really liked the series. So yeah, thank you, Jae. And also thank you, TB and Miranda for helping us all.

Thank you. Thank you.

What, Jae also does in her Facebook group, if you go to, the Media tab and then, click on albums. A lot of authors, including Jamey Moody have put in book cards. And what you do is there's a picture of the book and then next to it, it tells you what categories it fits in.

And the same thing for the I Heart SapphFic, Reading Challenge too. It'll have both, sets of categories on there that the book fits. So it kind of helps you plan your reading. So those are fun things for readers as well as authors that go on throughout the year.

So any of our author listeners who haven't done that, you should definitely look into it.

 And like KC said, it's picking up more and more authors are joining in each year. 

Yeah, saw some bigger names even. It was interesting. So yeah,

And they try to get everybody in there too. That's what's nice about it they try to spread it out. So everybody's included.

Okay, so moving on, what's our next trend?

 We talked about it a little bit actually, last week, using Patreon. I think that's going to continue to grow. I'm still on the fence of if I'm going to do it or not when I retire, but, it would help if I started writing books again, so maybe I'll wait. Isn't there always one person on the podcast who is actually not writing, even though they're talking like an author?

That's why it's a good mix. Fake it till you make it.

But I made it, now I'm faking it down the ladder, I'm going the wrong 

way. it till you don't make it.

Get your priorities straight, KC, 

please. Along the lines of the Patreon, I've also seen that a trend that might get bigger as time goes by is having, a subscription service as you, the author, let's say you have a ton of books or a backlist.

Some people are trying to offer or do offer a, subscription service of their own that they host on their own website, and you can pay so much per month and get all of their books free and some of their backlist. So that'll be interesting to see if 

that grows, but it's very similar to Patreon. 

I had not heard of 

that. That's very 

interesting. 

But 

they run it themselves so they 

don't have to go through Patreon. So I guess, if you had, a reader that was interested, they'd contact you and you'd put them in the... 

 I think, I've seen, authors in other genres do that, not in the sapphic world.

And, yeah, they have like subscription boxes.

And each month there's a different, book and little goodies that go along with it. Or maybe it's a bundle of books each month that they send out. Yeah. And I've seen that.

Yeah. That might be something that would take off.

 As a independent author, that'd be interesting 

Yeah. I think it's another way where if you're looking to, which we'll talk about this, but if you're looking to sell direct, it's just one more thing that you can add to your website so that you're building more channels for you as an author to make income without just putting all your eggs in one bucket, let's say with Amazon Kindle Unlimited or something like that. 

Kindle Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 

and That's, a whole other trend is selling direct for sure. 

Yeah. I think that's, getting bigger and bigger each 

year. For an author in Kindle Unlimited, like the three of us are, it's just kind of hard. you could sell your print books. And you could sell your audio books direct sale. And I think what some authors are trying is they're doing some books in KU and then they're taking them out and selling them on their websites, you know, direct sale.

So they're doing a mixture.

As long as you're not in KU, you can sell your books anywhere anyhow you want including the ebooks.

Right. 

yeah,

But the income is so good from

KU, at least for me right now. 

Yeah,

Me too, yeah. 

I 

can do the print books. but,

 yeah, it's something I've thought about for a while and might look into, you could also do. I know Claire Lydon and, Harper Bliss, do signed copies.

So that's 

Yeah. 

that you could offer in your

Mm hmm

That's what I'd like to do eventually because a lot of people asked for that and it's nice that a lot of readers have written in and said that when they like an author that they would like to buy directly from the author if they could. You know not because they don't like Amazon or anything else, they just appreciate trying to help support our craft, which I think is nice.

So thank you readers out there that are doing that. 

Yeah. 

I think we'd have to check and see though how much it costs to actually, do direct sales, to have that plug in on your website or whatever to see if, you would sell enough to make money off of it. I guess that's what I'm trying to say, or make it profitable.

We're in a business and we want to make money so we can keep doing this. And it also helps you so that you don't depend on just Amazon 

all the time to sell your books. 

so 

For sure. 

We're not trying to be greedy. We're just trying to be able to continue.

 Yeah. Just protect ourselves too. Cause Amazon is very volatile. You hear about people getting their account shut down and stuff like that, which just would be a disaster if you didn't have anything like a newsletter or mailing list. 

So for, new authors out there, you want to make sure if you don't have a newsletter, you get that started because those are people you have, you know, right there if you had a shop, they could buy from you and you don't have to worry about Amazon at all anymore, but you want a relationship with them. 

Yeah. 

I think the hybrid, you know, of just doing your print books at first to get cozy with it and get used to it is good so you don't have to give up your funding from Amazon. 

And your audio books, because audio books are expensive and if you can sell them yourself on your site, you'll get more royalties, but also, you can offer whatever price you want for them. So you can make them cheaper than the subscription models and where everybody else has to listen to them.

And so maybe you'd do better.

Mm hmm. Mm

So another trend that we see is reader engagement with Kickstarters to raise 

funds for authors. I think I might have talked about this last year. I've noticed that a lot of people, I think it's cool some authors are taking some of their, especially for fantasy books, they're taking some of their books and engaging their, existing readers with limited edition, hard copies that have really cool cover wraps and painted edges and foils and swag bundles.

And I've seen three or four authors that do it quite frequently and have been pretty successful with it.

Yeah. 

That's a trend that I've seen 

Mm 

growing.

Mm 

 Yeah. If you're really creative and you don't necessarily want to do Patreon like every single week, you can do just one big blast with a Kickstarter, definitely. Also annotated books. People also are selling some of those, although mostly I've seen those as part of, fundraisers for different, events or needs, I guess.

I don't know what to call that, but like I saw Jen Lyon, who is doing one for the California fire support.

Yeah. So she's, she's got one and she's running it. Basically just literally off Facebook, where if you Venmo her $25, you get to be in the running for this annotated copy of one of her books.

And so yeah, so it's for a great cause and what a cool thing to have in your library. So, yeah. 

Have y'all ever annotated a book?

Not yet thought about what darkness thought about the darkness falls book. It's on the after I'm retired, list of things to try to do.

I don't think I'll do that. I'd like to read someone else's, but I'm not interested in doing that for me.

Yeah, it'd only be that book That's the only book I really really was super involved in personally and just loved the heck out of that book, and could read it again and again to do that with but the other ones 

not so much, you know, they're just...

Don't get me wrong. I think they're cool. I just can't see myself focusing enough to do it.

I know. Really?

 Jamey, you got something that you think of as a trend coming up?

Okay. I'm thinking now don't get upset with me, but I think AI is gonna, become more accepted

Mm.

and so you're going to see it, in our business and I think first it may be with audio books. Because Amazon already has a way to generate, AI audio books. They've got a beta version of it, which kind of breaks your heart a little bit because we have some fantastic narrators out there and that may be where it starts There are books on Amazon now that have been created through AI. And as it becomes more accepted, I think you might see more of that.

 To spring off of that, I've seen a couple of things that was just new to me and I went and checked it out this weekend. I noticed that, some, especially in fantasy and sci fi, I'm sure people know about this, I had no clue. But on YouTube they have tons of free audio, like short stories that you can listen to and you might like a particular author.

And I clicked and listened to like three or four of 'em and they are done with AI voiceover and there's like obviously a screen grab or something that they created through AI to make like a cool picture to look at while you're listening. And It seems like they get, some of them have like 300, 000, a million listens, and they are free, but it does build, interest in the author, which then they can sell books on top of that, if you have the time and you want to do something like that. 

Yeah.

And the other thing that we see more and more people doing, including us, starting a podcast, people.

Yes, for sure. That's a good one. If you want to reach out, but I'm going to go back to AI for a second. So, if you don't know me, very well, my background is computer science. That's my degree. My bachelor's degree is in computer science. And my first job out of college was as a computer programmer.

So how nerdy is that? And so being a nerd, I always follow these trends, especially my brother, who always sends me links to YouTube about trends and AI. I've been following AI since basically it really just exploded onto the market. And there is a lot of tools on AI that are just improving, improving, improving, including those audio books you were talking about, where, I don't know if you've ever listened to one, but when they first came out, and I know a number of, Sapphic authors put their books on there.

I mean, they just could not afford to get a narrator, which is sad because a truly well narrated book by a human cannot be touched by any AI voice. I'm sorry. It'll never have the soul behind it. It just won't you just won't hear it but that's happening. But also it is improving so it's getting better all the time and, the other tools for AI that I don't think people get a little excited about AI generating prose.

And I agree that that will never replace a human writer because again, there's no soul behind it, but there are a lot of tools for you to edit your books and to make them better. And I see no problem with that. I use mine to help edit, but I still pay a professional editor to go through them afterwards, because again, there's nuances that an AI editor cannot find.

But if you want to look for repetitive words or repetitive phrases, then you can use an AI editor and save time, save everybody's time, but yeah, so it's a fine line, it's a gray area. And I agree. It's something that people are struggling with because they don't want to be replaced by a computer.

There are tools you need to look into and, yeah, I think it's a wave of the future. If you don't learn how to use the tools, you'll fall behind. 

Definitely. Do we have anything else about 2025 trends? Because I have something I want to bring up. That's not that.

 I think, you're going to see more romanticy. That's a new genre, that started kind of in the last year or two. And, I've already heard several authors that are giving it a go. 

Crossovers. Crossover 

genres. Yeah, for sure. 

It's big on Goodreads and other things too. More, than just the sapphic world. What would you call it? Wide, I guess is the way to say it. So I think that's something that, might take off.

Well, I have an update for Miss Moody's dating apps.

oh, I see

Oh, OK 

 You didn't mention that

Silent, but deadly.

We didn't even mention 

that. 

She didn't start off with it. I thought we'd forgotten about it.

Yeah.

So listeners out there, I have been looking through several, dating apps to get a feel for what's out there and looking at reviews online, but you know, I'm married and I'm in love, so I don't know which app would be best for Jamey and I don't believe KC or Jamey know either. So we asked you last time, we're going to ask again.

I've narrowed it down to what I can see is, Her, 

 OkCupid, 

 Bumble, eHarmony. And then I just saw, an ad for Our Time, which I don't know anything about it, but I know that it's for people, 50 years old and older. And those are the ones that I have. So if you're out there listening and you have experience or have in the past had experience with a dating app that you love, please, email us, text us, Instagram us, what, you know, so we can start dwindling this down.

Major thumbs down to Her when I first got divorced from my wife at the time. I started using Her and don't. Just horrible waste of time, the people that would chat you, you know, they, you'd like their picture and they chat you later and either it wouldn't really be a person or they would be obviously, probably a guy posing as a female lesbian, and then.

You would get with people who were like way younger. You can put a, put a range in there, I mean, it was just horrible. 

 So I quickly realized that's not how you want to meet people, but I've heard a good things about eHarmony and stuff. 

Yeah. 

And, one other thing I just wanna say that, my wife and I met on a dating app. And I find, I don't know if this is true now, but in my mind, I feel like if you pay for it, you might get more, qualified candidates than you would on the free one. So that might be something we look into too, to make sure we protect our pal.

So go fund me. Go fund me to pay for 

Thank you. 

Jamey's, Jamey's dating app. 

We'll get that set up Venmoing money to pay for that, the paid version of eHarmony or whatever we go with. So,

And you'll get a free book with it.

Just think of all the sapphic novels Oh, 

 Jamey will be writing based on her experiences.

Oh, well y'all are coming along. I'm 

not doing all by myself

That's right. We'll, we'll, we'll all, we'll collab on a book. We'll all three write a book will be 

about, someone finding their true love on a dating app. So, Yeah, 

Yeah, y'all be clabbin on what we're swiping on, too, so.

Yeah, 

exactly. 

doin this all by myself, so. 

What do you think of 

this one? What do you think of this one?

Thumbs down. Thumbs up. 

 We are in this together, team. 

Swipe left, you can do it.

Well, I think that's it for this week. Next week we're going to be talking about burnout and throwing the towel in. KC, do we have a question of the week?

Just a note that we will talk about that together, but I will be in Reno. Nevada. So just to get you 

all excited. That's where I'll be doing my podcast from next week. And my question is, what is your go to strategy for avoiding and fighting burnout? For those people out there, mostly talking about authors, but you know, there's a lot of different jobs where you can burn out.

Uh, teaching, It's a big one. I know my girlfriend is a retired teacher and she would, mention how hard it was at times just to go into the classroom after a really bad week or something. So yeah, there's lots of different roles, different jobs where you can burn out. So if you have a tactic, a bit of self care, whatever it is you do to help you get past those moments, I would love to hear them because I'm not doing much writing and I'm not sure what it's from, but it might be burnout.

Well, before we leave you, let's talk about writing for a moment. Because just because you haven't been

Okay, yeah, what y'all been 

writing? 

Doesn't mean the other two? How is it going for you, Kimberly? Cause I know you're pretty close to finishing a book, aren't you? 

 I'll probably finish this week.

Oh wow Oh my

I think I'm going to be through with this week. 

I'm kicking ass!. 

You guys are awesome. Okay, let's seriously let's collab so I can get my name on a book. Okay

That sounds fun.

Oh, and I also have heard from my editor, so I'll have a book coming out, pretty soon in February. I don't have an actual date yet, but it's coming. 

good 

good 

other people on this podcast are writing,

Yes, and thank you all for being the writers on the podcast. I appreciate

it. 

so welcome.

Well, that's it for this week. Have a good one. Take care.

Thank you everybody. Talk to you later

Thanks for listening. Bye. 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can contact us by email at contact@threelesbiansandapen.com with the number three spelled out or on Instagram, Facebook and X at Three Lesbians and a Pen using the number three. And finally on our website, at threelesbiansandapen.com, we look forward to heari