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 47 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 Ask Us Anything, Part Two. But before we start, how was your week, KC? 

I enjoyed my week very much. The big highlight was helping my girlfriend at a couple of Saturday markets, where people come and buy soap and things like that. But she had actually a business booth 'cause she has started a homeopathy business.

She retired from teaching after 24 years and then got certified as a homeo, a homeopathic practitioner, can we get that out right. The word homo in there always trips me up, but I did help her. She had a booth, people came by, we talked about what remedies are. I tried to sound intelligent whenever she was at the bathroom. I was like, well, I'm not really the person who knows this, but yeah, so we had a good time. It was beautiful weather and so it was fun. And when she was manning in the booth, I could go shopping and I bought, probably my 20th bar of soap because I love soap. I don't know if y'all know that, but I'm a... 

Really? 

Soap hoarder Yes. I love good smelling soap. 

Really? So you don't use body wash then? I'm taking it. 

No. 

You use soap, soap.

Yeah, so I like patchouli and all those different strong smells to put on my body and make me smell good.

Oh, so my turn, what have I been doing? Well, let's see. It all started with my brother's birthday party. We went out to the lake, had a great time with a bunch of friends, celebrated the next day I started to get sick, so somebody at that party made me sick. But here's the most interesting part about it, because I got sick on the way to see a skin doctor because listeners, did I tell y'all that a few weeks ago, I got A Rainbow Star tattoo, and then another tattoo of one of the constellations from the Wishing Star series books. Did I share that with y'all? 

I don't think you did on air.

Okay, well, I'm sharing it with you now. I got a tattoo and, I hate it and I don't hate too many things. And I have several tattoos and there are some that I like more than others, but I'm telling you, I can't live with this one. So I found a skin specialist who does tattoo removal. And so the day that I was feeling so terrible and I had to drive an hour away because again, I live in a small town, was the, first treatment for the, removal of this tattoo. And so we will see how this goes, listeners. I will tell you as I chronicle, this journey, into finding my skin again, because... 

Oh God. 

it's laser treatment. You have to wait between each treatment like a month. So I did the first one and, I was expecting it to hurt more than the tattoo because that's what you hear and everything. But it didn't, I mean, it hurt a little bit. 

That's good. 

Yeah, so that part's good, but of course you can't tell they say you won't be able to tell for the first, you know, couple of treatments, I guess is what they call it. So we'll see.

I would normally say put that in a book. 'cause we should put most of our experiences in a book, but I don't know, for some reason I find that a little on the unappetizing side, so maybe a BDSM book. I don't know, like stabbing each other with needles.

I'm just so upset about it because, you know, you have your idea of how these are gonna turn out and everything, and, I planned it and worked on it, and really, it's not the tattoo artist's fault. It's more mine. It just didn't turn out like we thought it was going to, and I just can't live with it. So now I'm gonna spend a whole bunch of money to see if I can get it taken off. So maybe I do need to put it in a book so folks will buy that book so that I can get it removed. And y'all see what's happening here. It's a domino effect.

Help her out. Everybody please.

Anyway, so yeah, I'll keep you updated on that front. So that's what I've been doing, but I know Kimberly has a much better story. 

I don't know how exciting it is, but I'll tell you what, my wife and I were busy this weekend. We went to Octoberfest on Saturday with a bunch of friends, which was really fun. We had a really nice time. And then the next day we went to a Greek festival, which was also really fun, but we ate way too much and drank too much. And so by the end of Sunday afternoon, we were ready to go to bed and then we were thinking to ourselves, what the hell are we doing in bed? It's only four o'clock.

Wow.

Oh my gosh. But we did watch, The Girlfriend, I don't know if anyone out there has been watching that. We binged the series with Robin Wright, and the only thing I'm gonna say, which is not a spoiler, is that one of the characters is a doctor. So I don't understand the ending, but anyways.

Okay. 

That is just crazy. But my wife won't stop talking about it. 

 You told me about it. I haven't started it yet. I plan to start it. 

Yeah. It's good because you keep trying to guess what's going on, but then at the end you're like, Hmm, very interesting.

 So it's one of those psychologicals you've gotta figure out. 

Yeah, it's fun. 

Okay. So my suggestion is GTS or Google That Shit. 

I never heard that. 

They'll probably, explain the ending. 

 Yeah. GTS.

GTS. 

 Oh my gosh. Well that was it for us this weekend. Any texts this week?

We received a few texts. Most of 'em were questions, but we had one from Jules that was fun. She commented on the snorkeling comment in the last episode, which I honestly did not remember what that was referenced to, but Jamey filled me in. That has something to do with the pool sex, which kind of does turn a light on for me that maybe I did say something like that.

Well, we were talking about pool sex and I think Jules said maybe y'all just started doing it right. And I think somebody said snorkeling. So.

And, to follow up on that, she also, commented, that she went to her first convention and she said one of the most exciting things for her was actually having people come up to her that she never knew and they actually wanted her autograph on the book, and she said it was the most exciting thing to happen. I was like, can I remember that moment? It's just very exciting. I was happy for her. 

And I tell you what's fun too, is because we use pen names and so you have to remember to sign the right name. So she texted me and said, I remembered to sign the right name.

Thank goodness. 'cause you only bring so many books with you to those conventions.

Yeah. 

And then we got another Insta from, Lara, and she said that she just really loved the promotions episode and found it very informative and was very thankful to us. 

Oh, cool. 

Mm-hmm. 

 CeeJay sent us an email that she, subscribes to BookBub. She doesn't only read sapphic novels and BookBub has, you know, all genres. She does also do I Heart Sapphic 'cause we talked about that. And she's on a bunch of Facebook pages. She likes to look at independent authors and see if she might, gain some new knowledge through that.

Smart. 

So, yeah. Cheryl emailed us, but it was questions too, kinda like, KC was talking about. So anyway, that's the, emails we've had.

Okay. 

So this week we're talking about Ask Us Anything, Part Two, and the first question of the day is, What's the biggest mistake you made when you published your first novel as a self-published author? KC, would you like to start?

I would have to say that my biggest mistake as a self-published author was probably not sticking to contemporary romance as a genre. So I'm sure you've all remember many times I've told this story over the years that I started off writing a romance novel. I got bored with it and made it into sci-fi and sci-fi doesn't sell as nearly as well as romance. So if you're gonna do this for the money. Which I don't recommend. That's the only reason to do it. But if you are looking at it from that slant, you need to stick to the right genres. So that was my big mistake. I don't think I've had any others, really. I mean, it's been kind of hit or miss sometimes, but I've been very fortunate that most of the stuff has gone over well.

Mm-hmm. 

Yeah, that was a tough question for me. I've been trying to think about it. I don't really know. We all make mistakes, but I can't really single one out. Because when you first self-publish your first novel, it's not about the mistakes. It's about being brave enough to get it out there and, all of the work that goes into it, not just the writing, but everything else that we talk about on this podcast. The editing, the formatting, and getting to the point that you can press publish. You know? Yeah. There are mistakes along the way, but yeah, at that point you're like, look at this motherfucker. I did it. You know? So... 

Yeah.

So, for me, looking back, I didn't really know either. It's not really a mistake, but I wish I had started building some type of mailing list before I launched my first book. I did not. But that's the only thing I could think of. 

One more thing does come to mind is, and I hate to admit this, but I did not have an editor edit my first book.

Oh.

I know, believe it or not. Yes, yes. When I was first starting out, I was winging it and I thought I could pull this off. I've had it re-edited by my current editor since then and re-released it, as a anniversary, version, and told people that it was polished now and a better read, which probably is another reason why it didn't sell great. I got some poor reviews because I used, “it's” incorrectly a few times. So it's little things like that that really make you look like an amateur. So you do wanna use an editor. So that was definitely on the mistake list.

Huh. 

Interesting. 

Each time you write a book, you learn something new. I think. 

Oh yeah. 

You're always growing as an author. Okay, the next question, how did you get started writing and how long have you been writing?

I have been writing since 2019. That's when I started writing my first book. I published it in April of 2020 and I have not looked back and how I started writing, I had found Sapphic and Lesbian Fiction and Romance on Amazon, and, man, I couldn't get enough of it. And I have Kindle Unlimited and so I was reading, reading, reading and loving the stories and I don't know, it just hit me one day I thought, I could do this, and I decided to give it a try, and that's how it all started.

Mm-hmm.

For me, I started writing so many times on and off from like 1999 all the way up till I published my first book in 2020. But I never did anything, with it was just like the same book here and there, which was V.A.M.P. And it started because believe it or not, at one point in New York City, you had to go to a specific, bookstore for Sapphic books, and a lot of them were like hidden. You would get the books and they'd wrap it in a paper bag and you would take it out and then go home and read. And I think I had got, exposed to some vampire books back then, so that gave me the idea, ooo I'd like to write my own vampire book. But I started writing it again during COVID because there was nothing to do, and I came across it on my laptop. So my first book was published in 2020 and I've been writing ever since.

For me, it's been a little different journey. I started writing as another pen name. So the first novel I ever completed was under KM Fortune, which is not Sapphic I wrote a trilogy which did not sell, and then like Jamey, I came across a book by Georgia Beers, actually. She was my first, I think. I called her my... 

Yeah. 

Yeah. So I was a sapphic virgin until Georgia Beers. But. I love to say that. I'm sure she's loves to hear it.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure that, other people have said the same. So, Georgia Beers is the first author I read and I love the book Blend very much, but I also did think, like, Jamey, that I could probably write something similar. So I started writing my first full length novel under the KM Fortune name in 2016 and 2018 I started Sapphic.

Okay, so let's look here. What's our next question? What are your five favorite queer characters or couples in TV shows and movies?

Okay, I'll start with this one. 'cause I'm excited about it. So, I was like, oh my God, there's so many. What should pick.

Me too. I have several too. 

So my first, which I don't know if people are gonna believe this, but my first is actually the USA version of Queer as Folk. I loved Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor.

Oh my God, me too! 

Oh, to die for.

Love him.. 

And if you have not watched the US version and both versions are good, the British version as well, but I loved Queer as Folk, so those were my first two that came to mind.

I know. And it's a bunch of dudes having sex, but I'm telling you. 

It so sweet, that romance. 

Yeah, the show is great. 

It is. 

I didn't put that one on my list, but you're right, because the L Word goes right along with that, Queer Folk and the L word. But I'm telling you, I, loved Queer as Folk. You're right.

Yeah, and that's what I had the L word. But instead of Bette and Tina, I picked, Shane and Carmen because I thought Carmen was so... 

Oh, Carmen....yes.

beautiful, yeah, and I just like the dynamic between the two of them. You know, Shane is more butch and she's, you know, femme and it was just really sweet.

She a player.

Yeah. And then of course moving on to movies. You have to start, at least I do with Carol. With Kate Blanchet. That was good between the two main characters. I think the other woman was, Rooney Mara. Is that her name? Yeah. Yeah. So that was good.

And then I don't know if you guys watched the movie, I can't Think Straight with Lisa Ray. Oh my god, she's so pretty. Did you ever watch that movie?

I think I have surely, I've watched that. 

Between Talia, and Layla. It was good. 

Mm-hmm.

And then, I liked, Below her Mouth, Jasmine and Dallas in that one. That was a good movie too.

And then my final that I liked was, When Night is Falling with Camille and Petra.

Okay, I went to, TV shows and of course Grey's Anatomy had the doctors back several years ago, but then this, past season, they had two of the interns that, I think one was Bi but of course they had to break them up. They had to put one of them through some kind of trauma, you know, and so she's gonna leave. 

Did she die? 

No, she didn't die, but, you know, they did have to put her through some kind of trauma, which is sad because they're still doing that to gay people. And then the spinoff Station 19, they did a ongoing, couple on there that was really good with a doctor off of Grey's Anatomy and then one of the firefighters, and they even end up adopting a child. It was really, good. And then of course, Winona Earp can't forget that. 

I did forget that. 

I know, have you watched The Fosters? That was a show on a... man that was the best show. It's about two lesbians that, well actually one of them is Bi and, they adopt kids. It's just great. It was several seasons. It was great. 

That could be a Jamey Moody book. You're right. It could, couldn't it. It was good. And it had a couple of spinoffs that I really liked too with the kids in it. And, they always had some kind of, queer representation in the series. And then how about Gentleman Jack? Have y'all watched Gentleman Jack? Oh my God, that's so good.

Oh, yeah. That was good too.

Then, Agatha All Along, which did y'all watch that? It was on Disney. It was really good. And then Hacks. Do y'all watch hacks on HBO?

I've watched two episodes so far.

It has gay characters in it and it's really good. So there's more representation out there and they're not killing them off quite as often, but still, you know.

Okay. I thought of some, I thought some while y'all were talking. None of which you guys were saying. Because I haven't watched much tv. Let's be honest. I don't watch tv. I don't binge episodes. I don't do any of that. And I occasionally watch movies, but not often lately. Maybe in the last five years I've seen like maybe five movies, so I'm not really into that. But I do remember when I was younger, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Had Willow. Yes. Willow, who I had a major crush on, oh my God. Willow was with some blonde chick. I don't remember her at all, but I know that she was a lesbian character and it was a big deal for me to have that representation when I was, you know, a little younger. Yeah. So that was a while ago. 

And then one more. I do remember, again, quite a way back, was Bound. 

Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. 

Jennifer Tilley. I'm a huge Jennifer Tilley fan. I know the voice drives lots of people crazy. I think she's hot as hell. And the funny thing is, I heard a great quote when they were interviewing the women who were in the movie, how much they enjoyed doing a lesbian film because the sex scenes were great because the women always understood when you said, okay, put your hand here to cover this little wrinkle, and the women would be like, oh yeah, of course. I'll help you with that. So, it was totally different than having sex scenes with men.

Cool. Cool. That's great.

Fabulous.

That's great. And then I was gonna add Zena Warrior Princess. You can't forget her. 

Oh yeah. 

Did they ever come out as lesbians in there? Or was it just we all thought they were.

I think we all did a bunch of fan fiction on it. 

I think we just made it in our head that she was, and we didn't care if they told us or not. We just knew it.

Okay. I think we covered quite a few movies there. Listeners you can Email us, text us, Instagram us, let us know the ones we missed so we can add them next time.

Yeah, or we can watch them or read them if we haven't.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly. 

Alright, so the next question on here I have is if one of your books could be turned into a movie, which one would you choose and why? And I'm just gonna jump right in here and obviously it would be Darkness Falls. I would love, oh my God, I would love to see Darkness Falls made into a movie or TV series.

And I've had a lot of different people write to me and say, this would be a great series. I actually pitched it a few times to some agents. And because you have to have an agent to get on Netflix, and I really wanted to get it on Netflix, and of course all the agents just could not see past the lesbian characters, so.

Oh, really.

Yeah, they were just like, this is not a good fit for what we do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah. But, I've even flirted with the idea of adapting it to a screenplay, which I've written screenplays in the past, long, long time ago. And I think if I did that, it might be an easier pitch. But yeah, I would love to see Taylor kicking ass on the big screen.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that would be a good one.

How about you, Jamey? 

I don't know if I had to just pick one of my books. My books are sweet and spicy is what we're calling them. Any of those could be a Hallmark movie. I get reviews from time to time that say that, you know, this would be a great Hallmark movie. Especially my Christmas books, I always get that during Christmas time. Let's see. I don't know I would be pleased if any of them were made into a movie. You know, don't make me pick, if, somebody wants to turn that baby into a movie, that'd be awesome.

For me, both of them I would like to have a movie made of. But V.A.M.P., when I was writing it, I actually thought of it as a movie. Isn't that weird? I was picturing it as a movie, and besides the sexy fashionable billionaire, vampire, the other part of it, the thriller suspense aspect of the pharmaceutical company and the mystery behind Katerina's family. I just could see it being a movie, like all this stuff, you know, mixed together to me seemed like a movie. So that would be the first one that I would pick. But also, I was thinking because Mafia Girl, Maybe? is actually based on a lot of real mafia stuff that happened in real life. And then a lot of the, art heist and things like Switzerland and the, art, storage facility and the art dealers is true too. So I kind of could see that easily becoming a movie as well, like a thriller, suspense type of thing, so...

mm-hmm.

Okay, and the next one is from one of our regular listeners, and they asked when you first published, what was the biggest factor to your success?

I think for me, I was part of a little writing group on social media. We just, encouraged each other, texted each other, messaged each other and things like that. And we were all writing at the same time and we're about to publish at the same time. And so, when I published, they all went on their social media and told their friends and readers about it, and I would do the same for them. And so I think that helped me because I was in that little group.

And for me, when I started writing, I started thinking, how am I gonna market this? And I always bring him up, but I came across Bryan Cohen, and I had taken his Amazon ad class, and at the time they were telling you, if you have just one book and you're a new author, you really shouldn't do a pre-order. But Brian said, no, go for it. So I did. I did a pre-order, and that gave me time to do ads towards the book, way before the published date. And I think that helped because I did really well. I had a few friends that left, reviews, but then it just did fine. Like I don't even know. It was amazing to me. But I think it had to be those two things, the pre-order and doing Amazon ads way ahead of time.

Mm-hmm. And actually mine was around another author, another author, started seeing my posts in some of the Facebook groups, which I totally also attribute to my success is I jumped in the different groups early on. Because I was a Facebook person and started posting about, this is my covers. What do you think? Help me pick the right cover. This is my plot. What do you think of the plot? I mean, they really helped me come forward with what it was. But the reason I even got told about those groups was an author named May Donnie who now does book covers, but she was originally an author and so she took me under her wing and helped me a lot. So, I have to attribute some of my success to her guiding me to those groups and then using the groups and all those readers who helped me out. Those definitely made the difference.

Cool.

One other thing I wanna mention too though would have to be, and I always mention this, but I just feel like it is important and it was a podcast. It was the Lesbians Who Write podcast. Claire Lydon and TB Markinson did that podcast and told us step by step what to do and, you know how to write the book and then once you do, what to do. And it just really made a difference. And I would think I Heart SapphFic was, going on back then too. And that helped you put it in newsletters and, yeah, I have to mention them.

It was I Heart LesFic. Do you remember that?

Right. 

Yeah. Uhuh 

Yeah, I Heart LesFic. That's right. It was a much smaller operation, but it got the word out to our readers so they knew where to find us. 

Yeah. 

Yeah, it was the party of one, just TB by herself doing it. 

Yeah, in the very, very beginning it was and it worked because ourz list of authors was so much smaller. We had such a small group of authors compared to the hundreds more now.

Mm-hmm. 

So what characters have your readers crushed on, and have you crushed on any of your own characters? KC?

Well, I have to say Taylor, lots of people think Taylor is just a really good character. And also they would like to date Taylor. But then on the flip side, some of the butches who write in say they like Jackie. So that would be an interesting combination there. They like one side of the couple or the other side of the couple. Now have I crushed on anybody? Maybe Jackie actually, yeah, I would have to say if I was gonna, well, and also Claire from my Billionaires series, so if I was gonna have a crush on either one of those, those would be the two strong femme women that I would probably wanna take out on a date. So let's put it that way. I would take them on a date. I don't know if I crushed on them necessarily.

Well, I'll just say that I crush on all of my characters, while I'm writing them. I kind of have to really like them, in order to write their story in a way. And so you could think of it, I guess that way as a crush maybe. 

I had a celebrity series that a lot of people liked, the, main character in that, Krista Kyle. I had several write in about her in one of my series, but, I'm trying to think if I've crushed on a few, characters that I've read in books, I guess. Kind of like what KC's talking about. What about you, Kimberly? 

Yeah, my readers really like, Serena and also Brooke in V.A.M.P. 'cause Brooke's very dominating shall we say. Uh, and for me, I don't know, 'cause it's kind of weird. You write it, so you don't really, I don't really crush on my characters, honestly. But if I had to pick one, I guess I would say probably, Stephanie from Mafia Girl, Maybe? Because I'm from an Italian family and I like that hotness, you know, I like that being confident and, taking no shit, basically. And then from V.A.M.P. That's a hard one. I do love Brooke, but I also love Serena. So those two would be who I'd crush on I guess.

I think we just really like the characters, obviously, because we're writing about 'em and we want them to have, this great story, you know, so that's why I said I kind of crush on all of them. I guess I just really wanna make them happy. 

Okay, not to take this in a whole different direction, but when you write sex scenes for your characters, there's a new sex episode. Sorry, I gotta put this in here. So how much do you imagine them in your head, and do you ever get a little, turned on by the image that you've created for your characters. I know I did with my Reggie character in Route 69, Texas. I found that a little titillating at times. I won't lie.

I'm just gonna say absolutely.

And then I'm gonna follow that up with, of course.

Okay. I didn't know. I mean, some people say they write and they write scenes and it makes 'em cry. Okay. So that's a good scene. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

I do that too.

Right, right. Okay. So I wanted to know if you're gonna be honest and say sometimes I write a scene, I have to take a time out. So,

I look for my wife and she's like, get away from me.

So that's not crushing necessarily, but it is definitely, liking your characters a lot.

Yeah. I think if you turn yourself on that, you know that's probably gonna be a good indication of what your readers are gonna think. 

Yeah. If you want it to be realistic, there you go. 

Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

At least we can admit it. Alright. 

Yeah, the three of us have no shame.

At least it's on air, so it'll be here forever.

That's it. Oh gosh. 

But we are honest. That's right. 

That's right. 

Well, I think that's it for this week. Next week we're gonna be talking about Book Pirating and KC, do we have a question of the week?

Yeah, we'll talk about this more in depth in the episode, but some people, think that having your book on a pirated site is actually a form of marketing, so it gets the word out about your book. So I have heard people say that in the different groups that just calm down because it's just free marketing. So as a reader, do you agree? Or as an author even. But what do you think? 

We didn't get to all of the questions, but we will save them for another episode. So we appreciate our listeners always, writing in and asking us questions. 

Okay. Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening.

Hootie Hoo! 

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.