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 a short episode 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 gonna be talking about what we've been up to this past week, and then we have a short, but new update for everyone. So, do you girls wanna start? 

Sure. I will happily do that because I've had a great week. I've had a great 10 days, actually, since our last recording. I went on a road trip, so since we didn't record, for the Memorial Day weekend, it gave me the extra time to enjoy my trip. Went to Boise. To see my girlfriend's, nephews graduate from high school, which was very exciting.

And then went to an amazing party, which was open bar. Very exciting. So, you can only imagine. There you go. Yeah. So that was good. But also, the camping there and back was great. Went to a hot spring on the way down, Crane Hot Springs for two nights, and I don't know if you guys ever been to a hot spring, but sitting in that pool, that super warm water and watching the stars is about as good as it gets. So that was pretty nice. And then came back and did some camping and hiking. So, it was fabulous. And I had a really great week, and best of all, my book was with the editor the whole time. 

Oh. Thank God.

I know. So, I sent that off right before I left, and my editor's been working on it since I've been gone, and I get it back this weekend and it'll be ready to come out at the end of June. June 27th.

Awesome.

So, you didn't even have to think about your author life at all.

I didn't hardly had contact with social media. it was great. A couple nights I didn't even have cell service, so it was really blissful.

Well, that's cool. Good for you. Yeah. Good for you. Let's see, what did I do over the Memorial Day weekend? You know, I'm a sporty kind of gal, so I've been kind of stuck in, softball. The, team that I wanted, I thought would make the, World Series didn't, but with a wonderful surprise.

The college that I actually graduated from, Texas Tech, did make it. And so, last night it was my sister's birthday and she also graduated from Tech. So, we had a birthday party with some friends, watched the game, and they won. And I'm sorry Cheryl, because Cheryl had reached out. She was, rooting for Ole Miss, which is kind of near where she lives, and that's who we beat. So that was kind of fun. Let's see, the lawnmower debacle from the last episode, everything is wonderful with it now. I have to sometimes turn it down because I run behind it. The self-propelled is so fast, which is kind of fun.

And, then my brother has a pool, so we've been hanging out by the pool a little bit, so, which is, you know, Memorial Day is supposed to be the official start of summer, and spring and summer are my favorite times of year. So I've just been frolicking.

Yeah, and we did the same thing. My wife's family is from Texas, so we were rooting for Tech as well. It was a good game to watch. It was fun. My father actually was in Vietnam, so here in my small town they had a really sweet Memorial Day parade and you know, the were speakers and things like that. So we went to do that and it was really nice. 

And, I'm just excited because I finally have been writing again. You guys are always ripping out those words, but I'm always like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm not writing a lot. So I have been doing a lot of writing. 

And then, I'm very excited because, tomorrow we have our first Pride event here in my town and it's a big event, bigger than the last few years. They're gonna have, a dedication of a flag and there's all vendors with food and live music. And then the next day a music festival at the local Irish pub outside under a tent. So how much is that.

Whoa.

Oh, wow. You gonna have a great weekend.

So, we're looking forward to that. And the reason we said this episode was gonna be short is we have decided that we're going to switch up how we do the podcast moving forward. We're gonna actually, record every two weeks instead of every week so that we can all focus more on our writing and get other things that we need to get done. Done. 

Let me just say, Kimberly is our editor and she works very hard on this podcast because we are not very disciplined, Podcasters, and we talk over each other a lot. And we cough. And we breathe and I sniff a lot and 'cause I have allergies and she makes us sound great and it takes a lot of time. And we were taking her away from her writing.

Yes. So, this, major kudos to Kimberly for all her hard work on the podcast. She really does make us sound amazing. I know I've got cats purring and I moved my chair and so she takes all that crap out and really does a great job. So, thank you so much, Kimberly.

Aw, thank you. 

No, but we, appreciate Kimberly and so in an effort and really for all of us, because we love doing the podcast and we feel like it has value because we hear from listeners and other authors, and so we feel like it has value and we didn't really wanna end it. So, I worked very hard on, trying to figure out a better way along with my pod pals. And so, we're gonna try every other week and we hope y'all like that. 

But along with what Jamey's saying, we also would like even more input from our listeners. So, if you are listening out there, it makes us even more motivated, when you send us more texts and emails, so please. Keep responding and if you haven't responded yet, we'd love to hear from you. Yeah, if there's an issue you would like us to talk about, or something in your writing or, your publishing that you've, got a concern about or don't understand, reach out and we'll try to, help you with it. That's the whole reason we're doing the podcast.

Yeah.

Yep.

So, let's talk issues. Amazon our favorite, distributor.

The Zon.

At least it is our favorite distributor because we're self-publishers and we use Kindle Unlimited. So, Amazon is our, friend that drives us crazy. So right now, this has just happened, I'd say in the last two or three weeks. One way that authors can tell if their book is, I hate to use the word “successful,” but I guess that's the word we should use. Is, “successful” is by the rankings on the different, lists. For example, my books always appear in the “lesbian fiction,” “lesbian romance,” and “lesbian books” categories because we have to put our books in categories. 

So, Amazon has decided to do some tweaks and just literally mess with us. And so the rankings have messed up. For example, when you release a book, which I did yesterday, and I will talk about it in a moment 'cause I'm very excited about it. Yeah. Usually what you do as an author is you look at those lists and you watch your book climb up the rankings because on the day it's released, that's when readers see it.

And, purchase it or get it in their Kindle Unlimited or however they read it, and it climbs up that list. Well, so it doesn't do that anymore. I don't know exactly what Amazon has done to change that. You can see your royalty still come in, which, that's the good part because we know we're doing this because we, need money to at least pay for the costs of publishing.

But the ranking isn't there, so we don't really know if our book's doing any good. And so every time other authors have reached out to Amazon, they're not getting, very good answers on it. So, it's just something we've gotta deal with for right now, is the way that I'm looking at it.

Yeah, it was exciting to come back from vacation to read that, but other than that. 

Wah. Wah.

Yeah. It is a wah-wah. 

With a book coming out at the end of June, especially exciting. I hope they get it figured out before then, if it doesn't get figured out, that means listeners, we need you to do word of mouth even more. So if you do like the book, please post on social media, tell a friend, whatever until this gets panned out.

And I also saw on Facebook that some authors are saying they're still seeing good sales, even though the ranking looks horrible, their sales are still coming in normal. 

And I'd like to say I really think those rankings, I think the authors pay attention to those more than readers do, and so I think, you know, everything will be okay. It's just, like I said, it was a metric for us to gauge how well our book was doing…and speaking of, let me just speak of my new release yesterday, More Than a Wish, which is book number two in the Wishing Star Series.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed writing this book. It's about Hetty and Taryn. Hetty runs the observatory, and Taryn is a grad student that comes in and you can imagine what happens. There's a little bit of forbiddenness in there. But I really enjoyed writing the book and so, when you enjoy it that much, you want everybody else to enjoy it too.

Yeah.

So, I'm just, uh, to our listeners, if you haven't read it, I'm, this is one thing I wanna say since I write series and I also write standalones. I try to write the books in my series 'cause some people don't like to read series and I try to write the books in my series so that, if you don't wanna read from book one and you wanna jump in on book two or book three, you'll still understand what's going on and get a pleasant experience out of it.

There will be maybe side characters that you won't know as well, but you'll still know who they are because I take the time to explain it because I want everyone who picks the book up to have a good experience. And I might add, in this particular series, I thought it was only gonna go three books, but it is going to be a fourth.

Really.

One of those side characters. This happens. Y'all can attest to it. One of those side characters, when I was ending the second book and getting ready to start the third book, spoke up and said, “Oh no,” I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna say exactly what she said because this particular, character is kind of arrogant in the books anyway. And she said, “Oh no, bitch,” you're gonna write mine next. And I went, fuck, what, what? I wasn't planning a book for you.

You see the world we live in people.

Yes, people. So that's what happened. So, I had to stop and write book three about this arrogant professor. But let me tell you the other, because I've had ARC readers ask me, surely, you're gonna do a book for this person? Yes, I am gonna do a fourth book for the other person. I'm telling you, it is kind of a little mental game that these characters play with you. You may create 'em, but you do not control them.

Mm-hmm. 

No. 

Mm-hmm.

They have a mind of their own for sure. 

Mm-hmm. 

But anyway, I'm really excited about it. But for now, go get book two, More than a Wish. 'cause these two people, they're gonna wish it on stars, maybe one thing, but they're gonna need more than a wish to get through this romance…to get to their happily ever after. 

Okay. Well that's it for this week. We just want to let you know about our update that we're gonna be, recording every two weeks. And the next episode that's gonna come out is gonna be on June 13th. That's another thing I wanted to let you know the podcast will be, airing on Fridays now instead of Wednesdays.

Ooh, that's Friday the 13th!

Ohhhhh. 

Anybody else Superstitious? 

Tough shit. Vampire person over here.

I'm not superstitious. 

Don't fucking care. It's gonna be Friday the 13th, people, so... 

Be, it's gonna be good luck.

Alright, so like I was saying, Friday, June 13th will be our next episode and we're gonna be talking about tropes. And a lot of you already sent in emails and Insta and texts about it, and we will address your comments then on the next episode. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening everybody. We'll talk to you in a couple weeks.

Glad we're back and hope you had a nice holiday and 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 hearing from you, see you next week