October 7, 2025 • 59 mins
On our tenth episode we had the pleasure of speaking with award-winning author L. Penelope. During our fun and insightful conversation, we learned about how her series, the Earthsinger Chronicles went from being indie published to being picked up for traditional publishing. Plus, we gleaned some wisdom from her ten years of publishing.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hello, welcome to the author spotlight with Kenya Gori Bell and myself, Moni Boyce.
We welcome USA Today bestselling author Leslie Penelope with us today.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, please tell us a little bit about your journey with writing.
Sure, yeah, I mean, I've been writing my whole life.
I really started when I was very little.
(00:24):
I started writing when I was five, my first stories, and I took writing workshops allthrough school.
I was on literary magazines.
I didn't think that I could write a whole book.
You know, I spent most of my life writing short fiction, poems and short things, but oneday I just got an idea.
I think I had been at a writing workshop, like one of those week-long writing workshops.
(00:47):
and I came back home afterwards and was just struck with inspiration and just was writingfuriously.
And so the first draft of my first novel, which was Song of Blood and Stone, I actuallywrote in two days.
It was only 21,000 words, but still it's a lot to write in two days.
And yeah, that was kind of, that's how it started.
And I started my journey indie and now I'm a hybrid author.
(01:12):
That is very exciting.
I remember when I first saw Song of Blood and Stone, it was indie published and it was outin indie and I remember starting and I remember it had this amazing, beautiful cover and I
think, I don't know if you said it on your blog at the time.
(01:35):
or somewhere I found out how you got together with the cover artists and created thatcover, you helped them to create that cover and how beautiful it was.
And when you went TREAD, originally they used that cover.
And so tell us what the process was for you doing it and when you got the call that, hey,we love this book so much, we think it has TREAD potential, which you know.
(02:05):
is kind of elusive for a lot of authors of color.
What was that like for you?
Yeah, so working with the cover designer initially, you know, my goal was to make my bookindistinguishable from traditionally published books.
So I chose to go indie initially.
I didn't try for traditional.
I was like, I had done a lot of DIY projects.
(02:25):
My background was in indie filmmaking, and I just wanted to do it myself.
I'd heard these horror stories.
And so I spent the year that I was editing the book after writing it, also researchingself-publishing.
So researching editors and cover designers.
And I came across a cover designer who is James at Bookfly Design, who I still use for alot of my indie work.
(02:47):
And he had worked in traditional publishing and he's just a fabulous graphic designer.
And so his work was at that level that I was looking for.
And so initially I had given him some kind of like confusing directions, but he made itwork and he made it work really beautifully so that when the call came, they actually did,
they bought the cover from him.
And so yeah, I had put out two books.
(03:09):
in 2015 in that series, a total of four books in two different series, all indie.
And so the next year, I just got an email through my website email form from an editor atSt.
Martin's Press.
And the editor is Monique Patterson, who is a black woman.
And I think that made a big difference too.
So she had been in the industry for a long time.
She worked with people like LA banks and she just is really well known and well respectedin the industry.
(03:34):
And she had seen my self-published books.
And so she loves sci-fi and fantasy and wanted to bring more black fantasy into the world.
And initially what she asked me was to pitch her a new idea because we know it'srelatively rare to have self-published books go traditional.
And so I worked on a pitch.
I didn't even know how to do that.
I hadn't researched any of that.
(03:54):
A couple of months later, I gave her a new pitch but she came back to me and she was like,she really loved those first two books in the Earth's Singer Chronicles series that she
read and she wanted to bring them to a wider audience.
And so what I consider taking them off the market and republishing them with St.
Martin's Press.
Eventually that's what I did.
And, but yeah, that first time when I saw her email just pop in my box for my contactform, I was like, is this real?
(04:18):
Like, this doesn't seem like a real thing happening.
You're like a mime being punked.
Exactly.
Yeah.
There's been a couple of times in my career where that's happened.
It's like, is someone, yeah, is someone fucking me?
It's like, why, why is this happening?
But I think that, you know, we're all trying to get our books out there and get them seen.
And it just, you never know who's going to see it.
You never know which of your marketing efforts is going to be the thing that either, youknow, that makes a difference in terms of readers or, you know, whatever your measures,
(04:45):
measurements of success are.
Like, you never know what that thing is going to be.
Yeah, I'm definitely happy we bought that up because it's truly a testament to yourwriting.
Because like we said, I wouldn't even say even rare is the word.
It's like almost never happens that, you know, a publishing house would pick up a bookthat's already written and say, let's redo this.
(05:07):
I mean, that is totally and utterly amazing that happened.
And I'm so glad it did, because I mean, the books are amazing.
Like you really.
From a world building standpoint, can you talk about how you went about building the worldfor Earthsinger?
Yeah, so Earthly Noon Chronicles takes place in, it's an alternate world, so it's secondworld fantasy in like a 1920s time period.
(05:31):
And so when the initial idea came to me, I just, you know, I saw the characters and I sawthat she had a shotgun in her hand.
And I think that I knew it wasn't, you know, it wasn't traditional medieval, as you know,the shotgun came to me, it was like one of the first images.
And I didn't want it to do modern day.
And I had been really inspired by a book by Maggie Stiefvater, which is The Scorpio Races.
(05:52):
And it takes place in this sort of never defined mid 20th century, maybe the forties,they've got telephones, they've got cars, but like no cell phones, no internet, things
like that.
And I liked that sort of different time period for a fantasy novel.
And I was tired of reading just, you know, medieval Europe analogs as fantasy.
But I'm American, I'm, you know, all my people are American.
(06:14):
So I didn't necessarily wanna set something like in Africa or any other place that wasreal or based on other people's cultures.
or even based on like some element of my own culture.
I wanted to just kind of bring in, make something new and something that I hadn'tnecessarily seen before, but that was still very black.
And so yeah, I created a whole nother country in this like 1920s-esque time period withthat kind of technology.
(06:39):
And the world building kind of just came organically as I started building the story.
So, you know, that first draft was just purely inspired and it had the basics of thestory, the same story that's in there now, but just, you know.
the 20,000 word version of a book that's now 130,000 words.
And I started asking questions.
My world building is usually like, okay, so why, the image I had was this, my maincharacter, Jasmine standing in this isolated valley with the shotgun as these enemy
(07:09):
soldiers came towards her house.
That was it.
And then I saw the image of Jack, who ends up being the love interest, who is a captive.
And so I had these little kernels, these little seeds of the story.
And it was just expanding that and asking why.
Why is she isolated?
Why does she live by herself?
Who is this enemy?
What are they fighting about?
What are these countries?
All those kinds of questions.
(07:31):
And as I started answering them and just answering them in interesting ways that I hadn'tnecessarily seen before that made sense, the world started to unfold.
And I was just kind of making decisions that were something that I wanted to read and thatI hadn't, like I said, I hadn't necessarily read a thousand times before.
So that's how we got into the magic system.
(07:51):
And as the series goes on, the world expands.
And I was always kind of doing the same thing, just on bigger scales and making thisbigger and more inclusive and more diverse and seeing different kinds of people with
different ideas about things and having different religions and then different magicsystems.
And all of that went into it.
And so since when you wrote this, like you said, there is a dearth of like when you seefantasy in anything associated with black people, it is very African centered.
(08:28):
You know, it is not, and I was asking this question a couple of weeks ago on Facebook,where are the books that are black American centered?
And I have, and I honestly, I had read this and it's been a while.
And then somebody was like, Leslie Penelope, I was like, oh yeah, but I read all of those.
Where is so?
And I was like, you know, I wanted really black, black.
(08:50):
I want the, like you have the, and I think you were the first person, I don't know, whereI read like a veil falling.
Not everybody has a veil falling.
And you had the mantle falling.
Like you really.
you really pioneered a lot of theories for me that I now see later that other people areusing every day.
(09:13):
And you really created a fresh tone.
Where do you see black romantic and black fantasy, black American center going forward inthe industry so far?
Yeah, that's a really good point because even when I was publishing Song of Blood andStone, I was asked by marketing and publicity, oh, is this based on African folklore?
(09:40):
Where can we put this?
And I'm like, well, no, I'm American and obviously Black American, but generations, no onewas an immigrant.
So I wanted to do something that represented that.
And there's nothing, I love things that are based in Africa, but I agree, where is theAmerican-based
stories.
And that's like right now I'm doing a lot more fantasy based in American, like blackAmerican folklore and history.
(10:05):
And I really want to see that too.
In terms of like romantic, we're getting so many like elves and fairies.
For a long time, I was like anti fairy because I like fairies have nothing to do with meand my culture.
Right?
I think you can look those black ideas, those African ideas of sort of fairy-esquecreatures, but it's a very European folklore, you know, aesthetic and everything.
(10:26):
And the things that are really popular in terms of romanticies, so much of it is that.
And I would like to see more just like, can we do some black American cultural folkloricromanticie?
I agree.
I think we need more of that too.
Yeah.
I'm very interested, because I know you brought up the books that you're writing now.
And I know that most of those are set in like the 1920s, 40s.
(10:49):
Is it partly to do with like Harlem Renaissance?
Or what is your, I guess you could say, you tend to gravitate towards that period?
Is there something about it that like really interests you?
Or like, what is the reason behind that?
I mean, I love it.
I'm just curious, like why?
For you, a lot of your stories seem to be set during that period.
Yeah, that was almost an accident.
(11:09):
I think so the Monsters We Defy takes place in 1925 in Washington, DC.
And I had done research when I was doing Earthsinger even though it is fantasy, but Iwanted to ground it.
I wanted it to be like as grounded as possible.
And then it was a huge challenge to actually set it in our world, set the Monsters We Defyin our world.
I just wanted to do a fantasy heist in the Harlem Renaissance era.
(11:32):
There's sort of a like romanticism about that era.
I remember when I was writing it,
I was on these co-working sessions with a bunch of other writers.
Most of them were white, I think.
So I was like, I'm writing something in 1925.
Oh, the jazz age.
And I had just been re-switching like lynching and all these like other terrible things.
And I was like, yeah, the jazz age, sure.
I mean, it was that, but there was a lot of other things happening during that timeperiod.
(11:57):
So I didn't intend to, like I hadn't ever necessarily been drawn to that time periodbefore.
It just, that is, I actually-
I chose 1925 specifically after researching and discovering that there had been a KlanMarch in Washington, DC in August of that year.
And it's a tiny little, it's like a paragraph in my book, but I wanted that to be in thatera.
(12:18):
And so the book is not about racism.
It's not about, there's not really any white people in the book.
Just about black people living their lives with the back, with this in the background.
And then the book I have coming out in June is in the 1930s.
So it's about 10 years later.
And the one I'm writing right now, I think it's gonna be in the 90s.
So I wanna do different time periods.
I don't wanna just be stuck in the past, although there's so many black stories that takeplace, I mean, in the past that you could write, you know, infinitely about any of these
(12:44):
stories.
Yes.
(13:05):
Yeah, yeah,
like this kind of all-consuming thing that affects like every aspect of the story.
Yeah, it's a good challenge, but there's lots of opportunities.
Like, you know, the book I'm doing the proposal for now is in the 90s, which is a wholeother set of challenges because it's close enough that, oh, but wait, we didn't have that
(13:29):
then.
Or did we have that then?
When did Amazon start?
You know, when was Google really popular?
Or was Yahoo or was Netscape?
You know, so just kind of going back into the near past is fun also.
It was, wasn't it AOL?
But, and the, oh, and you have to do.
I met on AOL Insta Messenger.
Yes.
(13:51):
Hehehe
the info, what was it?
Info something.
They had little, like you could join these little chats and they had little chats abouteverything.
And it was like, it was crazy.
It was so much fun because it was a brave new world.
But let's go back into like black American folklore.
(14:14):
What types of black American folklore?
or traditions are you using in your books?
Because I'm curious just so I can steal this idea for later.
Go ahead.
Hahaha!
I feel because when you look at you like this is just my side when you look at you And youknow I have said from the very first time I interviewed you are like the top what I
(14:45):
consider top-tier my favorite author and I Writing in this genre and then like NK Jemisonknow the type of people who can create these Huge like you say it's so cavalier Lee.
Oh, I just
I just created this world.
That seems so daunting to me.
So I would like to know what type of research and what are you doing to bring all of this?
(15:09):
Or is this just your imagination and it's just popping up?
Like, how are you creating, building these worlds like this?
And what black American folklore are you using, incorporating in the books?
I do a lot of research, yeah.
So everything that I make up, I try to base it in something.
And you wouldn't necessarily, like I did research on quantum physics for Earthsinger.
(15:32):
Like it doesn't show up in the book, but it just goes into like the blender of my mind.
It comes out completely differently.
So yeah, everything has to be grounded because that's just how my mind makes sense ofthings.
And so like for the monsters we defy, the magic system is totally based on, you know,black folk magic.
So conjure, root work, hoodoo, depending on what you call it, like it's regional andthere's different names for it.
(15:55):
And there's different, you know, slightly different ways that it manifests.
But I did as much research as I could writing the book during the pandemic.
So researching people like Zora Neale Hurston.
So she has a book called Voodoo in America.
And she actually studied with practitioners for years in different traditions in differentstates.
(16:16):
and lists out all different kind of spells or traditions and things that she did andexperiences that she had.
Some of it came from just sort of like stories my grandmother used to tell and things thatshe told us that kind of are just part of the family.
And there's a big tradition in especially black women, fiction, everyone from GloriaNaylor who was one of my favorites, Toni Morrison did it a lot, Tina McEnroy, yeah, I
(16:43):
can't remember her name.
to make our answer.
There's lots and lots of people who have been using these traditions.
It's not necessarily always called fantasy, or usually it's not called fantasy.
But I wanted to take it to the next level and say, okay, we're basing it in this.
A lot of these traditions are about connecting with a spirit or if you look at voodoo andhoodoo, or using nature to do something using natural
(17:12):
things like, you know, you're combining roots and herbs and things like that andresearching actually why, like what's the mechanism of that?
I went into West African religions and the idea that, you know, if you believe that spiritisn't everything and so a plant has a spirit in it and that's why you use these specific
plants for these specific purposes because the idea is that there's a specific spiritwithin that plant that you're calling forth.
(17:37):
And making that a little bit more obvious.
So in the Monsters We Defy, you know, my character Clara, A, she's born with a call, whichmeans that she, in many traditions, like a lot of, you know, black traditions, but I think
all over the world, you can find people who believe that if a baby is born with a call,they have some sort of psychic power.
(17:58):
And so that plus she also has the ability to contact the spirits and to broker thesedeals.
So I think, you know, they say that creativity is just connecting things.
It's really like,
looking at all these things that maybe no one has put together in exactly this way.
And the way that your brain puts it together is going to be different than the way anyoneelse's brain puts it together.
So it becomes, okay, this is the world that I'm building and these are the things that I'mmost interested in.
(18:23):
Like, Kenya, if you take it, like, yeah, please take it, write your book.
I would love to see how your brain takes these concepts.
to say what's fascinating about like hearing you talk about that because I've been goingback and forth to New Orleans because I'm about to segue into writing a mystery novel.
But I was curious to just like understand voodoo because I know obviously Hollywood hasturned it into this thing that it's not.
(18:45):
And so it was interesting talking with some like the voodoo priestesses that I was able tolike interview and talk with them or whatever and learn kind of what it really is versus
what the world thinks that it is.
And you know, because I mean, obviously in my mind, it's like, Oh my God, it's evil.
And it's, you know, like we're, you know, using like the little dolls and everything likethat.
(19:08):
And so it was kind of very interesting to get that it's none of what like I'd seen orheard or believed or, you know, anything like that.
Um, and so I kind of love like hearing all the research that you're doing and kind ofgetting like the real root of what a lot of these things are, because that's just it so
much.
And I don't want to even say just white people have distorted it.
(19:30):
I mean, but obvious a lot of it has been very distorted over time of what.
A lot of, like you said, who do voodoo, a lot of what a lot of those things are.
So it's, I kind of love that, like through your work, even though it's fictional, it couldstill kind of shed light, um, on some things that people don't know about.
(19:52):
Yeah, I actually did a lot of, I was gonna do a Voodoo book and I actually canceled it,but I did a lot of research on Voodoo also, and especially New Orleans, and looking at,
from the beginning, from the 1800s, all those newspaper articles, that's where it startedbeing, you know, they lied a lot, and they just made it really salacious, and this was,
you know, it was a religion, so religion people still practice, and looking at trying toread between the lines because people who practice it in large part didn't write it down.
(20:21):
So we have these newspaper articles and books from largely white observers who didn't knowwhat they were looking at.
And then whatever they were looking at, they just made it sound crazy.
And so it was like, okay, what was the real thing happening there?
And how do we get to some truth from like an ancestral truth and respect the people whobelieved in it and practiced it.
And also just try to reclaim some of that.
(20:44):
Yeah, because in the series that I'm writing, the Blood Legacy series, Hoodoo plays a verysubtle but important part in all the stories that are linked.
Cause all the girls wear this vanilla rose scent.
And it's supposed to like, it's kind of like a love magic thing, right?
(21:04):
Cause I come from a family where they use a lot of like, root work and you know, they...
they put salt around the perimeter of your house.
They come and bless your house when, you know, you could be like the same.
I think a lot of people down here practice who do and don't realize it because they'rejust being told, oh, do care that salt or, and they don't know why they're doing it, but
(21:30):
it's really based in like the protection magic that was created in this country by slaves.
And that's one of the.
most beautiful things about it is like to this day, people don't understand why they haveJohn the Conqueror or they have candles and you see people like really misrepresented
(21:54):
candle magic, but that play that like down south, like in the deep south, it is still verymuch practiced.
Like people go to church regularly, but they still got their back up with the roof.
Right?
Yeah, the back out, right?
Yeah, just in case.
you're doing that and you're right, Toni Morrison and so many of those authors did that inas they created books and I'm so glad to see that you are doing that and incorporating it
(22:22):
and in your stories.
But talk about some of your beautiful character building that you did and continue to dobecause you created and just mended this strong young woman
who was totally isolated and out by herself.
(22:43):
And then eventually, not to be a spoiler, she becomes very powerful over the course of thebooks.
And how did you create that character?
It knew in the beginning, did you already know what the Ascension was gonna be?
And then Jack is her consort.
I just love them two together.
(23:03):
Yeah, I didn't.
I don't think I knew initially.
So when I wrote Song of Blood and Stone, by the time I got to the end, I was like, okay,this is a series.
And at some point, I decided it was going to be four books.
And I don't know how I came up with that.
And I actually regretted that.
But I was like, it's four books and three novellas, and it's gonna be great.
And I was really surprised when I sold it to St.
Martin's.
I was like, it's four books and three novellas.
(23:24):
And they're like, great.
And initially, they were going to do the novellas.
I did them independently, though.
But so once I kind of started
thinking about the series as a whole, and I wanted it to be a different couple in everybook, which it kind of is.
One couple takes up two books because their story just got out of pocket.
(23:44):
But then I stick in another couple.
And some of it is just like, what do I want to see happen?
You know, Jasmine is very close to my heart.
She was my first book that I finished, and it was just.
A lot of it was intuitive and how can we take a character, you know, we all like to seecharacter change.
If you study writing, it's all about how does the character change.
(24:07):
And so we take her from this isolated, orphaned, you know, young woman who...
is hated by everybody.
She goes into town and they're cleaning up after her, which are based on real experiencesthat I had being like the only black person in a school and that had ever been there.
And people just didn't know how to function or how to treat you.
And then taking her to what was the opposite of that?
(24:29):
How can I give her, how can I make her win in a big way and make her deserve it and makeher change and make it really.
part of the theme of the entire series.
And the theme of Earthslinger Chronicles is, you know, these two countries that have beenat war for hundreds of years, can they find peace?
Can they get together?
We have it exemplified in Jack and Jasmine who come from different places or look likethey come from different places.
(24:52):
And how do we show that all the way through and keep telling the story that I think isrelatable.
And so yeah, the character development is really, in each book, and Jasmine just shows up
in every book, just about.
And I guess she's not in book two technically, but like have these touchstones of thischaracter that I loved and make her an integral part of things.
(25:16):
And so yeah, the character development, because my theory about it is just trying to makepeople grow a lot and make, you know, you have to put them through so much, but how do we
take them from the beginning and make them end up in a totally different place, but theplace that they learn that they were always kind of meant to be, you know.
Mm-hmm.
(25:36):
I think that was one of the things I kind of loved about the series, like, besides likethe character development and growth, was that you build this world that actually could,
you know, was very, like, I guess you could say, putting up a mirror to like a lot of whatwas going on in the world in terms of, like you said, what does community look like, you
know, towards like the, you know, later books, obviously we get into these two groups ofpeople trying to kind of come together and live.
(26:04):
like the whole thing of them being refugees and coming into El Cira and that kind ofthing.
And obviously there are many pockets of the world, even here in America with Mexicans andother, you know, people coming across the borders and things like that, that obviously
gets very ugly when you watch the news and how they're treated, you know, in other partsof the world, the same thing.
(26:24):
And so I love that the book kind of dealt with some of that and kind of, you know, towardsthe end, you know, you get this like,
I don't want to say happy ending in a sense that that's like a negative, but I'm like, I'msure even for us now, we wish that could happen.
Like, that's like, okay, we're at the end of the day, we're all people, we all bleedblood.
(26:45):
Like, you know, we all want the same universal things, love to be accepted and those kindsof things.
And it's like, why can't we just find a way to, you know, live together in harmony?
And so that was one of the themes I kind of loved about like reading the series is becauseit did mirror a lot of what
I feel like in that sense, it's gonna be like this timeless classic that 10, 20 years fromnow, you will pick up and be like, this is what we hope that the world is, you know, going
(27:13):
to finally become.
Since I wrote it, the refugees showed up in the first draft.
And the refugee crisis I was writing about back then, there have been like, I don't know,20 different refugee crises since I wrote the book nine years ago.
Or it came out initially in 2015.
So yeah, it's always like a cycle.
It's kind of like there's basically a police shooting in that first book.
(27:35):
It is very much a mirror to our lives.
And in The Monster's We Defy, I'm just actually making this connection now.
But there's a police shooting in 1919
that is very similar to a police shooting that happened in 2020, that I based that entirebook on.
So it's always this cycle of things.
The more things change, the more they say the same.
And it's a mirror throughout the generations of what we're going through.
(28:00):
think you do a great job of all that.
So of marrying those things and also giving us a lot to think about.
But my question right now is as a writer where do you draw from for your strength forknowing and you spoke a little bit about being the only person who looked like you in a
(28:21):
school and where do you draw your strength from as a writer to keep forging ahead in likein this
Some, it can be difficult space.
Publishing is really difficult.
Yeah, that's super true.
I was, a writer friend of mine recently told me, and I don't know if she's announced itpublicly, that she's like quitting writing.
(28:45):
And I was thinking like, oh my gosh, you know, it is hard, regardless of how you publish,it's hard to keep going.
And I think that for me, I've always been a writer.
And even if I don't get another publishing contract or my Indie books, then they don'tsell any copies, I would still write.
because I have to, and I feel like it's part of my purpose.
(29:06):
It's part of why I'm here.
So that keeps me going, knowing that I have something to say.
And every one of my books, I try to make them entertaining as well as being important tome, or me feeling like, yeah, they're fiction, they're fantasy, they're entertaining.
Hopefully you're going on a journey with these characters.
But at the same time, it's connected to values and beliefs that I think are important toshare.
(29:33):
and the idea that reading fiction creates empathy.
I'm hoping that if nothing else, people will say, oh, these characters, they're not real,but they made me think about things in a different way, or they made me look at people
that I don't know and have nothing in common with in a different way.
And those kinds of things.
I think you have to connect it to your core, to your soul, to whatever you feel like youwere put here to do.
(29:57):
And...
It sounds kind of lofty, but we all have different purposes and we all probably havemultiple purposes.
And so this is the way that I could share the things that I believe and hopefully touchpeople and help them think about things a little bit differently.
No, I love that.
I have to say just slipping off into a different tangent for a second.
(30:20):
When I first started on this journey, I went to RWA in 2018 and you were one of theauthors that I met.
You and I kind of have similar backgrounds because I was coming from a film world as well.
I remember walking into this conference where I didn't know anybody.
And my guard was up, like, because in film, it's not always like, let me help you out, canbe very dog-eat-dog and like every man for himself type of thing, even though film is very
(30:49):
collaborative, you don't always get people that want to help you.
So it was very just like jaw dropping, eye opening to have.
And I know, like in the.
in the years since I've kind of joined the romance community, like sometimes you get a lotof arguments and things are getting a bad rap.
But I remember when I first walked into the space, like I had nothing but pure love,acceptance, and people like reaching out their hand, like, how can I help you?
(31:16):
And you are one of those people that truly just like, I mean, because at the time, like, Ididn't know who you were, but then of course, like throughout the conference, and I'm just
like, oh my God, she was so nice to me.
She like took her time and like spoke to me.
I'm-
I want to say we had two different conversations.
One where it was just the two of us, and then another time, I think, a couple days later,it was yourself, me, and two other people.
(31:39):
But each time, you were very gracious and just answering questions I had about being awriter and being in the space, and even just sharing your own experiences.
And that's one of the things over the years is always, besides your writing, just as aperson, I just think that
just speaks volumes about you is that even though I was like literally a nobody because Ihadn't put out like anything like I was totally new you really did like take the time and
(32:08):
just like you know spend time with me and it was very genuine and authentic and like justagain I just want to say thank you for that because I mean again you were one of the
people that didn't make me want to be like okay I don't want to be a part of this ifanything I was really excited to now be like I'm gonna be a romance writer.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to hear that.
And then you went off and published so many books and are doing amazing things.
(32:31):
And yeah, I'm super happy for you.
Yeah, no, so I just wanted to share that because thank you, like you were truly like, soif anybody ever comes in contact, like know that Leslie is one of the coolest people ever.
That is so sweet.
That's like almost got me tearing up.
And you know, it's so scary because I am like a very extra, extra extrovert.
(32:53):
But like when you are walking in a place like that and you know, I'm a shorty and thenyou're the only person that looks like you.
Like if you see the other people that look like you, you're like, please be cool.
Please.
Yeah, no, because like you said, like, I know both you and I are extroverts and even as anextrovert, if you're walking into a new space, it can still be a little bit scary, even
(33:16):
though you're like, I'm gonna talk to the people even if they don't talk back or whatever.
It can still be scary.
So you know, at first I was like, oh my god, I'm like, you know, because most people, it'slike they were coupled up and like new people and, you know, like I said, I didn't know
anybody and people were just very like open and like took me in.
Like shout out to the New York chapter of RWA because they were one of the first chaptersthat kind of like embraced me and just kind of like helped me out.
(33:40):
But like I said, it was definitely some of the interactions with authors one on one, likeI said, with Leslie and other people that was just truly kind of like I was not used to
that as a creator, creative to have other people really wholeheartedly like I want to helpyou and see you succeed.
Yeah.
The romance community is good like that.
I think there's other subsections of writing that aren't as welcoming, but yeah.
(34:04):
And people did that for me, and as an introvert coming in, I just assume everyone else isan introvert.
So I'm like, are you okay?
Do you need someone to talk to?
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Because my thing is don't scare the introverts.
Because I'm just like, ah, that's me.
I'm just 100%.
Some people would be like, take it down.
(34:25):
No, I take it up.
I'm going to take it up.
I'm like, don't scare.
Don't scare the introverts, can ya?
But Leslie, tell us about, because this is an experience Lonnie and I have not had yet, isbeing a hybrid author.
How do you manage?
How do you manage that?
(34:47):
Yeah, it can be difficult, especially.
So being hybrid, I have contracts for books and I'm still trying to put out my indiebooks, but I have to prioritize the ones that I'm contractually obligated for.
And sometimes things come back and you don't know when they're going to come back, like acopy edit or a proofread.
And the deadlines can be a quick turnaround.
(35:10):
But in general, the writing process is very similar.
I choose the project that I think will do well.
with a traditional publisher versus I think that'll do better indie.
And if I get a contract for that, then the writing process is similar.
Editing is largely similar.
I submit it to the editor and get notes back or an edit letter.
And sometimes you can work with them.
(35:30):
It depends on the editor.
But it's really the deadlines and then the turnaround and the harder deadlines that can bestressful too, especially like with Song of Blood and Stone.
So I sold it to St.
Martin's Press.
We did a big edit.
of that.
So the self-published version, the story is the same, but I rewrote probably 50 or 60% ofit or reorganized it.
(35:52):
Yeah.
And then put that out there.
And then a few months, a year later, she, my editor came back and said, we want to do aspecial edition and we want to make it longer.
Cause I think the original version was like 90, 88, 98,000 words.
And I was like, you're going to make it longer?
What does that mean?
So it was a very unusual request to
I ended up adding 40,000 words in the special edition.
(36:15):
So the trade paperback version is like 40,000 words longer, which was an incredible task.
I think I had something like three months to do it.
And I hadn't ever heard of that.
And it was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do because the book was on theshelves.
People were reading it.
I was like, we're doing another version, but everyone might not read it.
To this day, they haven't made the audio book of the special edition.
(36:35):
So if you get the audio book, you're getting the original.
And I want people to be able to go to book two and beyond, understanding everything, whileat the same time, making the extra material feel necessary.
This insane challenge.
But I do think I grew as a writer and I think I pulled it off.
I mean, it's hard to tell because you've either read one or the other.
(36:56):
And if you read both, you've already read one.
But so yeah, things like that, deadlines, things that are out of your control.
The most recent experience that was difficult was the title for the book that's coming outnext year.
I wrote it with a specific title in mind that I really loved.
And my editor was like, ah, a title.
We're not really filling that title.
And so we went back and forth for weeks, maybe a couple of months on this title before sheactually ran it up to the publisher of the imprint who I guess chose the title.
(37:25):
And I was like, all right, at that point, I was like, whatever, fine.
But I think the title works and it's fine, but you know, in the indie world, you just picka title for your book.
That's the end.
No one else has any input on that.
And so I loved the title, and it's kind of difficult to let it go.
But at the same time, I see what they were doing and you hope that you're collaboratingwith people who know what they're doing and have lots of experience.
(37:47):
And, you know, they want to sell books just like you do.
So losing control is difficult.
And every decision doesn't end up great.
You know, there's plenty of people who hate their titles, hate their covers.
I haven't had that experience, thank goodness.
But it's still.
covers.
No, your covers are gorgeous.
And I've been very, very fortunate with the covers.
And I do sometimes have to go back and be like, no, this is not it.
(38:09):
Y'all have to get, I'm sorry, I can't do this.
This cover, I had it completely changed from the original, honestly.
And I really love, so the book that comes out is called Daughter of the Merciful Deep.
And that cover just, the reveal just happened and it's.
That cover is beautiful.
is, I saw it on IG.
Yeah, I love it too.
So that was some work, but we got there and it was, it came out good.
(38:32):
Yeah, I have to say, it sounds like you've definitely had some, like, um, some really goodrelationships and dealings with your publisher.
Like you said, I feel like I always hear the horror stories about, like, people hating thecovers, but there's nothing they can do about it.
Um, and different things like that.
So it's always great to hear some of the traditionally published stories that are comingfrom, like, a positive.
(38:53):
And like you said, it's always difficult.
I mean, I'm sure, as you know, like even from like a filmmaking standpoint, when you'vegot so many people in the mix, it can be hard, but if you're all working,
together for the same goal, then hopefully you're gonna get there.
And it's about like, you know, choosing which battles you want to win, um, versus tryingto win the whole war type of thing.
But I love that it sounds like you've had some really good people that you've worked withalong the way.
(39:17):
Yeah, yeah, and I feel I feel fortunate about that because I know it's not always thecase.
But I mean, you know, you have to speak up and ask for things that you want.
You might not always get them.
But you know, you're you definitely won't get it if you if you don't ask.
So treat people professionally and try to, you know, meet your deadlines whenever you canbe professional yourself so that you're easy to work with.
And then when you come at them, they're like, okay, we'll try, you know.
(39:39):
And I think being Indie having so many things, like as you grow in this business, youbecome, I feel like more taciturn, when it comes to your product and what the expectation
is.
So it would be, like I want to do trade, but at the same time, I am such a contrarian, Ican see myself bumping head.
(40:07):
I want things to look a certain way.
I want the font even to look a certain way.
And once you've done it so many times on your own, then you have a certain expectation.
So let's segue into the thing that you have complete autonomy over, which is the BlissWars books.
(40:29):
How did they come about, talk about, is that those books that...
your indie project there, because those are indie, right?
And that is a, you know, all indie work is a labor of love.
You do it because you love it.
Talk about why should we be getting into the bliss wars?
So the first book of the Bliss Wars trilogy is Savage City.
(40:52):
That's actually the book that I pitched to Monique when she first contacted me.
So initially it was a spin-off of another series that I wrote, Angelborn, which was acontemporary paranormal romance.
And then I changed it up.
I had been working on it off and on for a couple of years because I'd work on it, getstuck, and then I'd have a deadline come in from my publisher.
So I'd have to put it to the side for a while and then come back to it.
(41:15):
So finally, when I finished Earthsinger Chronicles,
I think that's when I came back into doing Savage City.
And it's kind of a strange book.
So it is post-apocalyptic dystopian, but it's also a portal fantasy and it's paranormalromance with shifters and dragons.
It's all the things which made it terrible for traditional publishing.
(41:38):
Not super easy to indie publish either when you have that much going on, but that's one ofthe things.
Like I can do all of my control freakiness in my indie books.
and have all the control and just do whatever crazy thing I want.
So it takes place in an alternate San Francisco where a woman is pulled out of our worldon her deathbed and dropped in the middle of the, this clan of warring shifters.
(41:59):
There's two different types of shifters and in this alternate world.
And so she looks identical to the princess of one clan and has to pretend to be theprincess with no memory in order to survive.
And I really just, I love that concept of doing a different kind of amnesia.
The other thing is that her father,
So she's identical, her father's identical to her father back home.
(42:19):
And she had a really bad relationship with her father, but this father, the King isloving, but he's also this tyrant.
And I wanted that real, that tension between like this tyrannical King who's doing awfulthings, who loves his daughter and she's never had a father's love.
And so they're just all these kinds of concepts I'm playing with.
Right.
And then there's dragons and other shifters and people turning into different animals.
(42:41):
So yeah, it's super fun.
I, the third book is coming out in March.
and yeah, the third book of the trilogy, so it'll be a completed series.
And I'm indie publishing it, I did sell the audiobook rights, and yeah, it's been a lot offun to write.
It's great to be able to come back to something that's all mine after doing atraditionally published book, and just let everything go and try to tell the best story I
(43:03):
can that I've never seen before.
And it's hard to even describe, but I just, I think it's a lot of fun to write.
I think you sold us.
I mean, cause...
I was like when I was hearing dystopian and apocalyptic I was like ooo I want to readthat.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So is it a romance though?
Is there a hero?
Okay, okay, where you got me there?
(43:24):
is a different couple, but it is similar.
So it's like this kind of telling a unified story over the course of the three books, butit's definitely, you know, paranormal romance.
If you have to ask me, that's the category that it's in, even though it's also all theseother things.
Oh, okay.
Is it gonna stay three or do you have plans for a fourth?
There's ideas, it depends on sales at this point.
(43:44):
But yeah, I think it ends, it wraps up nicely at three with a little open window where,you know, we could still continue if the spirit moves me.
Right?
Listen, I got that advice from Nana and from Carrie Ann Ryan.
They was like, you can let the series, you can let it hibernate for a little bit and dosomething else.
(44:08):
But what I realized when I went from writing sweet, filthy, contemporary to dark, to dark,people like your voice no matter what.
Yeah.
You just didn't have the discoverability.
You know what I'm saying?
So they will like your voice, my country twang, all the way from those books.
(44:29):
And they go back and read all the way back to the mogul series.
It's so that, so you might let it go to sleep for a little while, but we're not gonna endit.
Yeah.
And people ask me for sequels to books that I have no intention of writing sequels to.
Maybe one day, who knows?
(44:50):
like, you were the one person.
My first book adored, I think I had like nine sales.
I had nine sales for years since it came out.
Then Bad Guy got number one bestseller.
Then it is slowly creeping up.
(45:11):
It might be at 40 now.
You know what I'm saying?
And I have a, in my background is, I love historical romance.
I wanted to be a historical romance writer and that's why I got into this business.
Am I writing that?
No, I'm not writing that anymore.
Listen, that first book cost me, it was like I still had made my money back.
(45:37):
I think so.
I just like the edits, the edits alone.
And I went big, over 100,000 words.
No, ma'am, it did not sell.
What is wrong?
Up until this year, I think it had nine sales.
And then it started slowly trickling up.
It's so, but made a lot of mistakes.
(45:59):
What are some of the, did I just ask a question first?
Maybe it's not my turn, anyway.
But I'm going with it, mommy.
What mistakes have you learned from?
in this journey.
I was less, I'm sorry.
(46:20):
You know how I get excited.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think mistakes.
It's putting, you know, they say just write the next book and you really do have to marketyour books.
I hate marketing.
It is a thing that I do not enjoy.
So I do, I'd rather just write the next book.
But I think that, you know, when I do put forth more effort into it, you see, you seethings that you have to try different things to find out what actually works for you.
(46:47):
So I think that sort of that advice.
is part of it.
You know, the best way to market your book is to write another book to a point, but youstill have to market the book.
And yeah, that is.
Right?
Yeah.
I'm just finding things.
I'm still working on finding the marketing that I enjoy that's sustainable for me, becauseI can try something for a while, but when I get burnt out at it, then I completely do
(47:12):
nothing.
And yeah, that's also a problem.
Yeah, I think that's very important because I feel like, like you said, even though mostof us don't really enjoy the marketing, it is a necessary part if you want to be
successful.
And if you're trying to make this a career, like you have to market a book.
It's kind of like that.
If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it's like, I think, you know, you get alot of new writers that come in and, you know, they don't kind of do the work to
(47:37):
understand publishing.
And so they're just writing and they're putting stuff out or they're not paying attentionto like what.
covers should look like or different things like that and it's like marketing is anecessary evil.
If you want people to buy your book and you want to compete you have to market your book.
Now whatever that looks like you gotta do it.
(48:00):
And so I always try to tell people I know you know and some people are like I'm gonna putit on social media.
Love it but there are definitely some aspects where you at the end of the day you do haveto pay a little bit for.
that, you know, and I know some people don't want to hear that, but I'm just like, that isthe business.
Like anything, you know, whatever art that is that you're selling, like you have tosometimes pay to market it.
(48:23):
That's true.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, sometimes I've definitely paid too much for things.
And you kind of fill out what, you know, what you want to pay for what you can afford,like, don't spend more than you can afford.
But you do, it's a business and businesses, a lot of business, I mean, most businessestake years to get into the black, you know, so save your coins that you can do this
(48:43):
professionally and invest in it.
Yeah, one of the other things that I know, like we've been talking about books, butconsidering you're like a hybrid author, and I love that we're kind of getting to talk
about some craft and just like, you know, business things when it comes to being anauthor, like you mentioned earlier that you sold the audio rights for Savage City.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
(49:04):
Because I know there's a lot of people that are new out there that don't alwaysunderstand, like, you know, your book can be an audio book and you may have nothing to do
with.
that happening besides like obviously selling or giving away the rights to it.
I've done it once myself because at that point that book was way too long for me to beable to afford to pay that myself.
(49:25):
Audiobooks can be very costly when you're paying yourself.
And so when someone does come along, if it sounds right, then definitely I agree withdoing it.
Yeah, so I had talked to my agent about these books.
I knew I wanted to self-publish them, and she's fine.
Make sure if you want to be hybrid, your agent is cool with the projects that you want toself-publish.
(49:45):
And then she asked, well, do I want her to sell the audiobook rights?
And I'm like, sure, because I didn't know how well they were going to do.
And I wasn't sure if I'd be able to afford to make the audiobook.
So she went out, she pitched them, and I sold the audiobook rights to Orange Sky, which ispart of Find A Way Voices.
I guess it's their traditional arm.
and now they're owned by Spotify.
(50:06):
And so, you know, you do lose control.
I haven't ever had, one time I haven't, let me start over.
You don't really get control over who your narrator is.
Now with the Monsters We Defy, they gave me five choices and I'm like, none of those fivepeople are right.
And I found five other people to audition and they chose from that.
(50:26):
So in that way, I was able to give feedback.
But with Orange Sky, I did not have any kind of control over the narrator.
So you're giving up control in that way and you may or may not be happy with thenarrator's issues.
So you do give up the control, but it was time and money in terms of reviewing theaudiobook files.
I knew I wasn't going to have the time or the energy for that because I was working onmultiple other projects.
(50:49):
And there was a small advance too.
So it's like, instead of me paying money, I get paid and there is an audiobook andhopefully people who love audiobooks will find it okay.
So going forward.
You know, I don't know, like with my other indie projects, I would like to have theexperience of doing it myself, just to have that control, obviously.
There are other audio book partners that do give you more control, so you can kind of dosome research on that and see how you wanna go about it.
(51:16):
But selling, you know, your book, having multiple types of rights, it can be more moneyfor you.
So if you're able to sell foreign rights, there are indies who are doing it themselves andgetting into these different marketplaces,
you can find publishers and there's agents that will, you know, let you indie publish theebook and print and then go out for to sell your foreign rights potentially.
(51:38):
And there's different types of ways that you can make money on your books besides just theways that we always think about.
Have you sold any foreign rights yet for like Earthsinger or anything?
I haven't sold foreign rights.
Monsters We Defy is in England, which is like a separate contract.
But other than that, I haven't sold foreign rights.
That's interesting.
Did you, what have you found to be your best as an author, your best return on investmentas far as things that you have bought?
(52:09):
Like I know you, you know, little gadgets or craft books, classes, anything like that,that you felt like that was worth that $350 or whatever I spent.
I do take a lot of classes, so it's hard to know because I'm high input, high learner, soit's just like, oh, I wanna learn all the things.
(52:33):
Actual equipment, I love my FreeWrite Traveler.
I have, so the FreeWrite Traveler is one of those little writing machines, it's theclamshell one that does, it has like a tiny little screen, so I do my first drafts on it.
And it is connected to the internet in that it backs up your file, but it's a writingmachine.
There's no distractions and you just write and you can't edit.
So.
(52:53):
I do fast first drafts and I just, I adore it.
I've had it for a couple of years now and I had an AlphaSmart before that, which is asimilar idea, just old technology.
So in terms of equipment, that has been amazing.
And then classes, I mean, honestly, the Becca Symes class, which I took about five yearsago, the Write Better Faster, helped me in my mindset so much.
(53:16):
It helped me kind of just accept this is my process and it's okay and my process is gonnabe very different from...
everyone else's process, but I don't have to try to do what other people are doing.
You know, it gives you kind of permission to be like, oh, no, this is how your brain worksand lean into that as opposed to trying to always optimize and get better and faster.
Even though it's called write better faster, it's really about like doing the thing that'sright for you, which might be writing slower.
(53:40):
And for me, it kind of, I had to accept that I'm not going to be as fast as some of myfriends and that's okay because my best work just takes longer than other people's best
work and that's totally fine too.
Right.
(54:04):
I love
Mm-hmm, exactly.
That's the most important thing, yeah, to find your voice and do, and find your process,you know.
And I love hearing about other authors' processes.
(54:25):
And sometimes I'll try to like tweak mine and see, can I get a little bit better?
But you know, you try something, it's like, oh, that's not working, so let me just takethat away.
So are you a pantser?
I forgot, are you a pantser or are you a plotter?
Are you plotting your books out?
I'm definitely a plotter, although I guess technically sort of plots are like in themiddle.
I do a plot, I do a detailed outline, and then I write about 50% and I change everything.
(54:50):
Hahaha!
And that makes sense.
Because like, where did these people come from?
This is a whole new set of people.
I was trying to do this, but I'd gone off the rails.
And so I need a whole new plot now.
And every single time I get to the middle and everything changes and everything I thoughtI was doing was completely wrong.
(55:11):
So that's part of the process.
I just accept it now.
I just know that in the middle, I'm just gonna have to redo all this work, but I have todo the work first and then knowing I'm gonna redo it.
Yeah.
say that strengths for writers class I took that and they she get back a sign she givesyou this assessment and I tell everybody like it and then what's really great about her
(55:32):
class is that you can pay in installments if you need to and listen I'm an installmentgirl I am the Tenmu queen the affirm whatever I can pay a little bit like you should see
my Tenmu card at this point it's like
Hehehehe
(55:52):
I will do it.
But, and it makes it affordable because she lets like the younger, newer writers have anopportunity to learn this earlier.
And it will save you a lot of time.
If you know, for instance, that I'm one communicator, two achiever, you know, threestrategists, and discipline is 36.
(56:16):
Discipline is the last thing.
Thanks for watching!
As you can see in this conversation, I have no discipline.
And so why feed into the discipline, go towards your strengths and do all of those things.
And so I overcome my lack of discipline with strategy.
And so, cause I got a planner, I'm a planner, I do all of that stuff, but I will be like,man, forget that book.
(56:43):
I'm like, I'm not doing it today.
I'm not, I'm not.
I got the cover.
was folded wrong, I'm not doing it today.
So that, so I'm glad that you said the Becca sign classes.
And so, but I don't know, that was all I wanted to say.
Go ahead, Mommy.
(57:04):
Well, now that we are coming to the end, I know that you have, it's Daughters of the Deep.
Thank you.
That's coming out in June.
What are you working on now or what's after that?
So I'm currently working on two different, I'm plotting two different books as proposalsfor my editor and maybe to go out.
(57:28):
And yeah, I'm working on a paranormal thriller that I'm really excited about.
It's another idea that's been in my mind for a long time that I'm finally ready to write.
And I have another idea for another historical fiction, another historical fantasy novelthat is still just a brand new idea.
So I'm working on two things.
(57:48):
And I want to do some more indie shorts.
This year I was part of an anthology last year with fairy tale retellings.
And so I want to do my indie stuff for this year.
I'm planning just to do shorts and maybe just do short fairy tale retellings while I'mseeing if I can sell these other books to a traditional publisher.
Awesome, I can't wait for to hear more about like where all of that leads.
(58:12):
So in order for anybody to keep up with you, where should they work and they find youonline?
My website is lpenelope.com, and I'm most active on Instagram and Facebook.
Instagram is Leslie Penelope, Leslie with a Y-E.
But yeah, if you get on my newsletter, it's about usually monthly, and you can keep upwith all of my shenanigans and all of the new books that are coming up.
(58:33):
And also my podcast, which is My Imaginary Friends, which is, thank you.
And all that's on my website.
And we will make sure all of that is in the description for this so that you have it.
But I definitely wanted to have her give you all of that lovely information so you cankeep track of Leslie.
Because she has some amazing things going on.
(58:54):
We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
It's been awesome talking to y'all.
Thank you so much for doing this.
to you again.
We wish you every success and we just love your work so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes.
Hello, welcome to the author spotlight with Kenya Gori Bell and myself, Moni Boyce.
We welcome USA Today bestselling author Leslie Penelope with us today.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, please tell us a little bit about your journey with writing.
Sure, yeah, I mean, I've been writing my whole life.
I really started when I was very little.
(00:24):
I started writing when I was five, my first stories, and I took writing workshops allthrough school.
I was on literary magazines.
I didn't think that I could write a whole book.
You know, I spent most of my life writing short fiction, poems and short things, but oneday I just got an idea.
I think I had been at a writing workshop, like one of those week-long writing workshops.
(00:47):
and I came back home afterwards and was just struck with inspiration and just was writingfuriously.
And so the first draft of my first novel, which was Song of Blood and Stone, I actuallywrote in two days.
It was only 21,000 words, but still it's a lot to write in two days.
And yeah, that was kind of, that's how it started.
And I started my journey indie and now I'm a hybrid author.
(01:12):
That is very exciting.
I remember when I first saw Song of Blood and Stone, it was indie published and it was outin indie and I remember starting and I remember it had this amazing, beautiful cover and I
think, I don't know if you said it on your blog at the time.
(01:35):
or somewhere I found out how you got together with the cover artists and created thatcover, you helped them to create that cover and how beautiful it was.
And when you went TREAD, originally they used that cover.
And so tell us what the process was for you doing it and when you got the call that, hey,we love this book so much, we think it has TREAD potential, which you know.
(02:05):
is kind of elusive for a lot of authors of color.
What was that like for you?
Yeah, so working with the cover designer initially, you know, my goal was to make my bookindistinguishable from traditionally published books.
So I chose to go indie initially.
I didn't try for traditional.
I was like, I had done a lot of DIY projects.
(02:25):
My background was in indie filmmaking, and I just wanted to do it myself.
I'd heard these horror stories.
And so I spent the year that I was editing the book after writing it, also researchingself-publishing.
So researching editors and cover designers.
And I came across a cover designer who is James at Bookfly Design, who I still use for alot of my indie work.
(02:47):
And he had worked in traditional publishing and he's just a fabulous graphic designer.
And so his work was at that level that I was looking for.
And so initially I had given him some kind of like confusing directions, but he made itwork and he made it work really beautifully so that when the call came, they actually did,
they bought the cover from him.
And so yeah, I had put out two books.
(03:09):
in 2015 in that series, a total of four books in two different series, all indie.
And so the next year, I just got an email through my website email form from an editor atSt.
Martin's Press.
And the editor is Monique Patterson, who is a black woman.
And I think that made a big difference too.
So she had been in the industry for a long time.
She worked with people like LA banks and she just is really well known and well respectedin the industry.
(03:34):
And she had seen my self-published books.
And so she loves sci-fi and fantasy and wanted to bring more black fantasy into the world.
And initially what she asked me was to pitch her a new idea because we know it'srelatively rare to have self-published books go traditional.
And so I worked on a pitch.
I didn't even know how to do that.
I hadn't researched any of that.
(03:54):
A couple of months later, I gave her a new pitch but she came back to me and she was like,she really loved those first two books in the Earth's Singer Chronicles series that she
read and she wanted to bring them to a wider audience.
And so what I consider taking them off the market and republishing them with St.
Martin's Press.
Eventually that's what I did.
And, but yeah, that first time when I saw her email just pop in my box for my contactform, I was like, is this real?
(04:18):
Like, this doesn't seem like a real thing happening.
You're like a mime being punked.
Exactly.
Yeah.
There's been a couple of times in my career where that's happened.
It's like, is someone, yeah, is someone fucking me?
It's like, why, why is this happening?
But I think that, you know, we're all trying to get our books out there and get them seen.
And it just, you never know who's going to see it.
You never know which of your marketing efforts is going to be the thing that either, youknow, that makes a difference in terms of readers or, you know, whatever your measures,
(04:45):
measurements of success are.
Like, you never know what that thing is going to be.
Yeah, I'm definitely happy we bought that up because it's truly a testament to yourwriting.
Because like we said, I wouldn't even say even rare is the word.
It's like almost never happens that, you know, a publishing house would pick up a bookthat's already written and say, let's redo this.
(05:07):
I mean, that is totally and utterly amazing that happened.
And I'm so glad it did, because I mean, the books are amazing.
Like you really.
From a world building standpoint, can you talk about how you went about building the worldfor Earthsinger?
Yeah, so Earthly Noon Chronicles takes place in, it's an alternate world, so it's secondworld fantasy in like a 1920s time period.
(05:31):
And so when the initial idea came to me, I just, you know, I saw the characters and I sawthat she had a shotgun in her hand.
And I think that I knew it wasn't, you know, it wasn't traditional medieval, as you know,the shotgun came to me, it was like one of the first images.
And I didn't want it to do modern day.
And I had been really inspired by a book by Maggie Stiefvater, which is The Scorpio Races.
(05:52):
And it takes place in this sort of never defined mid 20th century, maybe the forties,they've got telephones, they've got cars, but like no cell phones, no internet, things
like that.
And I liked that sort of different time period for a fantasy novel.
And I was tired of reading just, you know, medieval Europe analogs as fantasy.
But I'm American, I'm, you know, all my people are American.
(06:14):
So I didn't necessarily wanna set something like in Africa or any other place that wasreal or based on other people's cultures.
or even based on like some element of my own culture.
I wanted to just kind of bring in, make something new and something that I hadn'tnecessarily seen before, but that was still very black.
And so yeah, I created a whole nother country in this like 1920s-esque time period withthat kind of technology.
(06:39):
And the world building kind of just came organically as I started building the story.
So, you know, that first draft was just purely inspired and it had the basics of thestory, the same story that's in there now, but just, you know.
the 20,000 word version of a book that's now 130,000 words.
And I started asking questions.
My world building is usually like, okay, so why, the image I had was this, my maincharacter, Jasmine standing in this isolated valley with the shotgun as these enemy
(07:09):
soldiers came towards her house.
That was it.
And then I saw the image of Jack, who ends up being the love interest, who is a captive.
And so I had these little kernels, these little seeds of the story.
And it was just expanding that and asking why.
Why is she isolated?
Why does she live by herself?
Who is this enemy?
What are they fighting about?
What are these countries?
All those kinds of questions.
(07:31):
And as I started answering them and just answering them in interesting ways that I hadn'tnecessarily seen before that made sense, the world started to unfold.
And I was just kind of making decisions that were something that I wanted to read and thatI hadn't, like I said, I hadn't necessarily read a thousand times before.
So that's how we got into the magic system.
(07:51):
And as the series goes on, the world expands.
And I was always kind of doing the same thing, just on bigger scales and making thisbigger and more inclusive and more diverse and seeing different kinds of people with
different ideas about things and having different religions and then different magicsystems.
And all of that went into it.
And so since when you wrote this, like you said, there is a dearth of like when you seefantasy in anything associated with black people, it is very African centered.
(08:28):
You know, it is not, and I was asking this question a couple of weeks ago on Facebook,where are the books that are black American centered?
And I have, and I honestly, I had read this and it's been a while.
And then somebody was like, Leslie Penelope, I was like, oh yeah, but I read all of those.
Where is so?
And I was like, you know, I wanted really black, black.
(08:50):
I want the, like you have the, and I think you were the first person, I don't know, whereI read like a veil falling.
Not everybody has a veil falling.
And you had the mantle falling.
Like you really.
you really pioneered a lot of theories for me that I now see later that other people areusing every day.
(09:13):
And you really created a fresh tone.
Where do you see black romantic and black fantasy, black American center going forward inthe industry so far?
Yeah, that's a really good point because even when I was publishing Song of Blood andStone, I was asked by marketing and publicity, oh, is this based on African folklore?
(09:40):
Where can we put this?
And I'm like, well, no, I'm American and obviously Black American, but generations, no onewas an immigrant.
So I wanted to do something that represented that.
And there's nothing, I love things that are based in Africa, but I agree, where is theAmerican-based
stories.
And that's like right now I'm doing a lot more fantasy based in American, like blackAmerican folklore and history.
(10:05):
And I really want to see that too.
In terms of like romantic, we're getting so many like elves and fairies.
For a long time, I was like anti fairy because I like fairies have nothing to do with meand my culture.
Right?
I think you can look those black ideas, those African ideas of sort of fairy-esquecreatures, but it's a very European folklore, you know, aesthetic and everything.
(10:26):
And the things that are really popular in terms of romanticies, so much of it is that.
And I would like to see more just like, can we do some black American cultural folkloricromanticie?
I agree.
I think we need more of that too.
Yeah.
I'm very interested, because I know you brought up the books that you're writing now.
And I know that most of those are set in like the 1920s, 40s.
(10:49):
Is it partly to do with like Harlem Renaissance?
Or what is your, I guess you could say, you tend to gravitate towards that period?
Is there something about it that like really interests you?
Or like, what is the reason behind that?
I mean, I love it.
I'm just curious, like why?
For you, a lot of your stories seem to be set during that period.
Yeah, that was almost an accident.
(11:09):
I think so the Monsters We Defy takes place in 1925 in Washington, DC.
And I had done research when I was doing Earthsinger even though it is fantasy, but Iwanted to ground it.
I wanted it to be like as grounded as possible.
And then it was a huge challenge to actually set it in our world, set the Monsters We Defyin our world.
I just wanted to do a fantasy heist in the Harlem Renaissance era.
(11:32):
There's sort of a like romanticism about that era.
I remember when I was writing it,
I was on these co-working sessions with a bunch of other writers.
Most of them were white, I think.
So I was like, I'm writing something in 1925.
Oh, the jazz age.
And I had just been re-switching like lynching and all these like other terrible things.
And I was like, yeah, the jazz age, sure.
I mean, it was that, but there was a lot of other things happening during that timeperiod.
(11:57):
So I didn't intend to, like I hadn't ever necessarily been drawn to that time periodbefore.
It just, that is, I actually-
I chose 1925 specifically after researching and discovering that there had been a KlanMarch in Washington, DC in August of that year.
And it's a tiny little, it's like a paragraph in my book, but I wanted that to be in thatera.
(12:18):
And so the book is not about racism.
It's not about, there's not really any white people in the book.
Just about black people living their lives with the back, with this in the background.
And then the book I have coming out in June is in the 1930s.
So it's about 10 years later.
And the one I'm writing right now, I think it's gonna be in the 90s.
So I wanna do different time periods.
I don't wanna just be stuck in the past, although there's so many black stories that takeplace, I mean, in the past that you could write, you know, infinitely about any of these
(12:44):
stories.
Yes.
(13:05):
Yeah, yeah,
like this kind of all-consuming thing that affects like every aspect of the story.
Yeah, it's a good challenge, but there's lots of opportunities.
Like, you know, the book I'm doing the proposal for now is in the 90s, which is a wholeother set of challenges because it's close enough that, oh, but wait, we didn't have that
(13:29):
then.
Or did we have that then?
When did Amazon start?
You know, when was Google really popular?
Or was Yahoo or was Netscape?
You know, so just kind of going back into the near past is fun also.
It was, wasn't it AOL?
But, and the, oh, and you have to do.
I met on AOL Insta Messenger.
Yes.
(13:51):
Hehehe
the info, what was it?
Info something.
They had little, like you could join these little chats and they had little chats abouteverything.
And it was like, it was crazy.
It was so much fun because it was a brave new world.
But let's go back into like black American folklore.
(14:14):
What types of black American folklore?
or traditions are you using in your books?
Because I'm curious just so I can steal this idea for later.
Go ahead.
Hahaha!
I feel because when you look at you like this is just my side when you look at you And youknow I have said from the very first time I interviewed you are like the top what I
(14:45):
consider top-tier my favorite author and I Writing in this genre and then like NK Jemisonknow the type of people who can create these Huge like you say it's so cavalier Lee.
Oh, I just
I just created this world.
That seems so daunting to me.
So I would like to know what type of research and what are you doing to bring all of this?
(15:09):
Or is this just your imagination and it's just popping up?
Like, how are you creating, building these worlds like this?
And what black American folklore are you using, incorporating in the books?
I do a lot of research, yeah.
So everything that I make up, I try to base it in something.
And you wouldn't necessarily, like I did research on quantum physics for Earthsinger.
(15:32):
Like it doesn't show up in the book, but it just goes into like the blender of my mind.
It comes out completely differently.
So yeah, everything has to be grounded because that's just how my mind makes sense ofthings.
And so like for the monsters we defy, the magic system is totally based on, you know,black folk magic.
So conjure, root work, hoodoo, depending on what you call it, like it's regional andthere's different names for it.
(15:55):
And there's different, you know, slightly different ways that it manifests.
But I did as much research as I could writing the book during the pandemic.
So researching people like Zora Neale Hurston.
So she has a book called Voodoo in America.
And she actually studied with practitioners for years in different traditions in differentstates.
(16:16):
and lists out all different kind of spells or traditions and things that she did andexperiences that she had.
Some of it came from just sort of like stories my grandmother used to tell and things thatshe told us that kind of are just part of the family.
And there's a big tradition in especially black women, fiction, everyone from GloriaNaylor who was one of my favorites, Toni Morrison did it a lot, Tina McEnroy, yeah, I
(16:43):
can't remember her name.
to make our answer.
There's lots and lots of people who have been using these traditions.
It's not necessarily always called fantasy, or usually it's not called fantasy.
But I wanted to take it to the next level and say, okay, we're basing it in this.
A lot of these traditions are about connecting with a spirit or if you look at voodoo andhoodoo, or using nature to do something using natural
(17:12):
things like, you know, you're combining roots and herbs and things like that andresearching actually why, like what's the mechanism of that?
I went into West African religions and the idea that, you know, if you believe that spiritisn't everything and so a plant has a spirit in it and that's why you use these specific
plants for these specific purposes because the idea is that there's a specific spiritwithin that plant that you're calling forth.
(17:37):
And making that a little bit more obvious.
So in the Monsters We Defy, you know, my character Clara, A, she's born with a call, whichmeans that she, in many traditions, like a lot of, you know, black traditions, but I think
all over the world, you can find people who believe that if a baby is born with a call,they have some sort of psychic power.
(17:58):
And so that plus she also has the ability to contact the spirits and to broker thesedeals.
So I think, you know, they say that creativity is just connecting things.
It's really like,
looking at all these things that maybe no one has put together in exactly this way.
And the way that your brain puts it together is going to be different than the way anyoneelse's brain puts it together.
So it becomes, okay, this is the world that I'm building and these are the things that I'mmost interested in.
(18:23):
Like, Kenya, if you take it, like, yeah, please take it, write your book.
I would love to see how your brain takes these concepts.
to say what's fascinating about like hearing you talk about that because I've been goingback and forth to New Orleans because I'm about to segue into writing a mystery novel.
But I was curious to just like understand voodoo because I know obviously Hollywood hasturned it into this thing that it's not.
(18:45):
And so it was interesting talking with some like the voodoo priestesses that I was able tolike interview and talk with them or whatever and learn kind of what it really is versus
what the world thinks that it is.
And you know, because I mean, obviously in my mind, it's like, Oh my God, it's evil.
And it's, you know, like we're, you know, using like the little dolls and everything likethat.
(19:08):
And so it was kind of very interesting to get that it's none of what like I'd seen orheard or believed or, you know, anything like that.
Um, and so I kind of love like hearing all the research that you're doing and kind ofgetting like the real root of what a lot of these things are, because that's just it so
much.
And I don't want to even say just white people have distorted it.
(19:30):
I mean, but obvious a lot of it has been very distorted over time of what.
A lot of, like you said, who do voodoo, a lot of what a lot of those things are.
So it's, I kind of love that, like through your work, even though it's fictional, it couldstill kind of shed light, um, on some things that people don't know about.
(19:52):
Yeah, I actually did a lot of, I was gonna do a Voodoo book and I actually canceled it,but I did a lot of research on Voodoo also, and especially New Orleans, and looking at,
from the beginning, from the 1800s, all those newspaper articles, that's where it startedbeing, you know, they lied a lot, and they just made it really salacious, and this was,
you know, it was a religion, so religion people still practice, and looking at trying toread between the lines because people who practice it in large part didn't write it down.
(20:21):
So we have these newspaper articles and books from largely white observers who didn't knowwhat they were looking at.
And then whatever they were looking at, they just made it sound crazy.
And so it was like, okay, what was the real thing happening there?
And how do we get to some truth from like an ancestral truth and respect the people whobelieved in it and practiced it.
And also just try to reclaim some of that.
(20:44):
Yeah, because in the series that I'm writing, the Blood Legacy series, Hoodoo plays a verysubtle but important part in all the stories that are linked.
Cause all the girls wear this vanilla rose scent.
And it's supposed to like, it's kind of like a love magic thing, right?
(21:04):
Cause I come from a family where they use a lot of like, root work and you know, they...
they put salt around the perimeter of your house.
They come and bless your house when, you know, you could be like the same.
I think a lot of people down here practice who do and don't realize it because they'rejust being told, oh, do care that salt or, and they don't know why they're doing it, but
(21:30):
it's really based in like the protection magic that was created in this country by slaves.
And that's one of the.
most beautiful things about it is like to this day, people don't understand why they haveJohn the Conqueror or they have candles and you see people like really misrepresented
(21:54):
candle magic, but that play that like down south, like in the deep south, it is still verymuch practiced.
Like people go to church regularly, but they still got their back up with the roof.
Right?
Yeah, the back out, right?
Yeah, just in case.
you're doing that and you're right, Toni Morrison and so many of those authors did that inas they created books and I'm so glad to see that you are doing that and incorporating it
(22:22):
and in your stories.
But talk about some of your beautiful character building that you did and continue to dobecause you created and just mended this strong young woman
who was totally isolated and out by herself.
(22:43):
And then eventually, not to be a spoiler, she becomes very powerful over the course of thebooks.
And how did you create that character?
It knew in the beginning, did you already know what the Ascension was gonna be?
And then Jack is her consort.
I just love them two together.
(23:03):
Yeah, I didn't.
I don't think I knew initially.
So when I wrote Song of Blood and Stone, by the time I got to the end, I was like, okay,this is a series.
And at some point, I decided it was going to be four books.
And I don't know how I came up with that.
And I actually regretted that.
But I was like, it's four books and three novellas, and it's gonna be great.
And I was really surprised when I sold it to St.
Martin's.
I was like, it's four books and three novellas.
(23:24):
And they're like, great.
And initially, they were going to do the novellas.
I did them independently, though.
But so once I kind of started
thinking about the series as a whole, and I wanted it to be a different couple in everybook, which it kind of is.
One couple takes up two books because their story just got out of pocket.
(23:44):
But then I stick in another couple.
And some of it is just like, what do I want to see happen?
You know, Jasmine is very close to my heart.
She was my first book that I finished, and it was just.
A lot of it was intuitive and how can we take a character, you know, we all like to seecharacter change.
If you study writing, it's all about how does the character change.
(24:07):
And so we take her from this isolated, orphaned, you know, young woman who...
is hated by everybody.
She goes into town and they're cleaning up after her, which are based on real experiencesthat I had being like the only black person in a school and that had ever been there.
And people just didn't know how to function or how to treat you.
And then taking her to what was the opposite of that?
(24:29):
How can I give her, how can I make her win in a big way and make her deserve it and makeher change and make it really.
part of the theme of the entire series.
And the theme of Earthslinger Chronicles is, you know, these two countries that have beenat war for hundreds of years, can they find peace?
Can they get together?
We have it exemplified in Jack and Jasmine who come from different places or look likethey come from different places.
(24:52):
And how do we show that all the way through and keep telling the story that I think isrelatable.
And so yeah, the character development is really, in each book, and Jasmine just shows up
in every book, just about.
And I guess she's not in book two technically, but like have these touchstones of thischaracter that I loved and make her an integral part of things.
(25:16):
And so yeah, the character development, because my theory about it is just trying to makepeople grow a lot and make, you know, you have to put them through so much, but how do we
take them from the beginning and make them end up in a totally different place, but theplace that they learn that they were always kind of meant to be, you know.
Mm-hmm.
(25:36):
I think that was one of the things I kind of loved about the series, like, besides likethe character development and growth, was that you build this world that actually could,
you know, was very, like, I guess you could say, putting up a mirror to like a lot of whatwas going on in the world in terms of, like you said, what does community look like, you
know, towards like the, you know, later books, obviously we get into these two groups ofpeople trying to kind of come together and live.
(26:04):
like the whole thing of them being refugees and coming into El Cira and that kind ofthing.
And obviously there are many pockets of the world, even here in America with Mexicans andother, you know, people coming across the borders and things like that, that obviously
gets very ugly when you watch the news and how they're treated, you know, in other partsof the world, the same thing.
(26:24):
And so I love that the book kind of dealt with some of that and kind of, you know, towardsthe end, you know, you get this like,
I don't want to say happy ending in a sense that that's like a negative, but I'm like, I'msure even for us now, we wish that could happen.
Like, that's like, okay, we're at the end of the day, we're all people, we all bleedblood.
(26:45):
Like, you know, we all want the same universal things, love to be accepted and those kindsof things.
And it's like, why can't we just find a way to, you know, live together in harmony?
And so that was one of the themes I kind of loved about like reading the series is becauseit did mirror a lot of what
I feel like in that sense, it's gonna be like this timeless classic that 10, 20 years fromnow, you will pick up and be like, this is what we hope that the world is, you know, going
(27:13):
to finally become.
Since I wrote it, the refugees showed up in the first draft.
And the refugee crisis I was writing about back then, there have been like, I don't know,20 different refugee crises since I wrote the book nine years ago.
Or it came out initially in 2015.
So yeah, it's always like a cycle.
It's kind of like there's basically a police shooting in that first book.
(27:35):
It is very much a mirror to our lives.
And in The Monster's We Defy, I'm just actually making this connection now.
But there's a police shooting in 1919
that is very similar to a police shooting that happened in 2020, that I based that entirebook on.
So it's always this cycle of things.
The more things change, the more they say the same.
And it's a mirror throughout the generations of what we're going through.
(28:00):
think you do a great job of all that.
So of marrying those things and also giving us a lot to think about.
But my question right now is as a writer where do you draw from for your strength forknowing and you spoke a little bit about being the only person who looked like you in a
(28:21):
school and where do you draw your strength from as a writer to keep forging ahead in likein this
Some, it can be difficult space.
Publishing is really difficult.
Yeah, that's super true.
I was, a writer friend of mine recently told me, and I don't know if she's announced itpublicly, that she's like quitting writing.
(28:45):
And I was thinking like, oh my gosh, you know, it is hard, regardless of how you publish,it's hard to keep going.
And I think that for me, I've always been a writer.
And even if I don't get another publishing contract or my Indie books, then they don'tsell any copies, I would still write.
because I have to, and I feel like it's part of my purpose.
(29:06):
It's part of why I'm here.
So that keeps me going, knowing that I have something to say.
And every one of my books, I try to make them entertaining as well as being important tome, or me feeling like, yeah, they're fiction, they're fantasy, they're entertaining.
Hopefully you're going on a journey with these characters.
But at the same time, it's connected to values and beliefs that I think are important toshare.
(29:33):
and the idea that reading fiction creates empathy.
I'm hoping that if nothing else, people will say, oh, these characters, they're not real,but they made me think about things in a different way, or they made me look at people
that I don't know and have nothing in common with in a different way.
And those kinds of things.
I think you have to connect it to your core, to your soul, to whatever you feel like youwere put here to do.
(29:57):
And...
It sounds kind of lofty, but we all have different purposes and we all probably havemultiple purposes.
And so this is the way that I could share the things that I believe and hopefully touchpeople and help them think about things a little bit differently.
No, I love that.
I have to say just slipping off into a different tangent for a second.
(30:20):
When I first started on this journey, I went to RWA in 2018 and you were one of theauthors that I met.
You and I kind of have similar backgrounds because I was coming from a film world as well.
I remember walking into this conference where I didn't know anybody.
And my guard was up, like, because in film, it's not always like, let me help you out, canbe very dog-eat-dog and like every man for himself type of thing, even though film is very
(30:49):
collaborative, you don't always get people that want to help you.
So it was very just like jaw dropping, eye opening to have.
And I know, like in the.
in the years since I've kind of joined the romance community, like sometimes you get a lotof arguments and things are getting a bad rap.
But I remember when I first walked into the space, like I had nothing but pure love,acceptance, and people like reaching out their hand, like, how can I help you?
(31:16):
And you are one of those people that truly just like, I mean, because at the time, like, Ididn't know who you were, but then of course, like throughout the conference, and I'm just
like, oh my God, she was so nice to me.
She like took her time and like spoke to me.
I'm-
I want to say we had two different conversations.
One where it was just the two of us, and then another time, I think, a couple days later,it was yourself, me, and two other people.
(31:39):
But each time, you were very gracious and just answering questions I had about being awriter and being in the space, and even just sharing your own experiences.
And that's one of the things over the years is always, besides your writing, just as aperson, I just think that
just speaks volumes about you is that even though I was like literally a nobody because Ihadn't put out like anything like I was totally new you really did like take the time and
(32:08):
just like you know spend time with me and it was very genuine and authentic and like justagain I just want to say thank you for that because I mean again you were one of the
people that didn't make me want to be like okay I don't want to be a part of this ifanything I was really excited to now be like I'm gonna be a romance writer.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to hear that.
And then you went off and published so many books and are doing amazing things.
(32:31):
And yeah, I'm super happy for you.
Yeah, no, so I just wanted to share that because thank you, like you were truly like, soif anybody ever comes in contact, like know that Leslie is one of the coolest people ever.
That is so sweet.
That's like almost got me tearing up.
And you know, it's so scary because I am like a very extra, extra extrovert.
(32:53):
But like when you are walking in a place like that and you know, I'm a shorty and thenyou're the only person that looks like you.
Like if you see the other people that look like you, you're like, please be cool.
Please.
Yeah, no, because like you said, like, I know both you and I are extroverts and even as anextrovert, if you're walking into a new space, it can still be a little bit scary, even
(33:16):
though you're like, I'm gonna talk to the people even if they don't talk back or whatever.
It can still be scary.
So you know, at first I was like, oh my god, I'm like, you know, because most people, it'slike they were coupled up and like new people and, you know, like I said, I didn't know
anybody and people were just very like open and like took me in.
Like shout out to the New York chapter of RWA because they were one of the first chaptersthat kind of like embraced me and just kind of like helped me out.
(33:40):
But like I said, it was definitely some of the interactions with authors one on one, likeI said, with Leslie and other people that was just truly kind of like I was not used to
that as a creator, creative to have other people really wholeheartedly like I want to helpyou and see you succeed.
Yeah.
The romance community is good like that.
I think there's other subsections of writing that aren't as welcoming, but yeah.
(34:04):
And people did that for me, and as an introvert coming in, I just assume everyone else isan introvert.
So I'm like, are you okay?
Do you need someone to talk to?
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Because my thing is don't scare the introverts.
Because I'm just like, ah, that's me.
I'm just 100%.
Some people would be like, take it down.
(34:25):
No, I take it up.
I'm going to take it up.
I'm like, don't scare.
Don't scare the introverts, can ya?
But Leslie, tell us about, because this is an experience Lonnie and I have not had yet, isbeing a hybrid author.
How do you manage?
How do you manage that?
(34:47):
Yeah, it can be difficult, especially.
So being hybrid, I have contracts for books and I'm still trying to put out my indiebooks, but I have to prioritize the ones that I'm contractually obligated for.
And sometimes things come back and you don't know when they're going to come back, like acopy edit or a proofread.
And the deadlines can be a quick turnaround.
(35:10):
But in general, the writing process is very similar.
I choose the project that I think will do well.
with a traditional publisher versus I think that'll do better indie.
And if I get a contract for that, then the writing process is similar.
Editing is largely similar.
I submit it to the editor and get notes back or an edit letter.
And sometimes you can work with them.
(35:30):
It depends on the editor.
But it's really the deadlines and then the turnaround and the harder deadlines that can bestressful too, especially like with Song of Blood and Stone.
So I sold it to St.
Martin's Press.
We did a big edit.
of that.
So the self-published version, the story is the same, but I rewrote probably 50 or 60% ofit or reorganized it.
(35:52):
Yeah.
And then put that out there.
And then a few months, a year later, she, my editor came back and said, we want to do aspecial edition and we want to make it longer.
Cause I think the original version was like 90, 88, 98,000 words.
And I was like, you're going to make it longer?
What does that mean?
So it was a very unusual request to
I ended up adding 40,000 words in the special edition.
(36:15):
So the trade paperback version is like 40,000 words longer, which was an incredible task.
I think I had something like three months to do it.
And I hadn't ever heard of that.
And it was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do because the book was on theshelves.
People were reading it.
I was like, we're doing another version, but everyone might not read it.
To this day, they haven't made the audio book of the special edition.
(36:35):
So if you get the audio book, you're getting the original.
And I want people to be able to go to book two and beyond, understanding everything, whileat the same time, making the extra material feel necessary.
This insane challenge.
But I do think I grew as a writer and I think I pulled it off.
I mean, it's hard to tell because you've either read one or the other.
(36:56):
And if you read both, you've already read one.
But so yeah, things like that, deadlines, things that are out of your control.
The most recent experience that was difficult was the title for the book that's coming outnext year.
I wrote it with a specific title in mind that I really loved.
And my editor was like, ah, a title.
We're not really filling that title.
And so we went back and forth for weeks, maybe a couple of months on this title before sheactually ran it up to the publisher of the imprint who I guess chose the title.
(37:25):
And I was like, all right, at that point, I was like, whatever, fine.
But I think the title works and it's fine, but you know, in the indie world, you just picka title for your book.
That's the end.
No one else has any input on that.
And so I loved the title, and it's kind of difficult to let it go.
But at the same time, I see what they were doing and you hope that you're collaboratingwith people who know what they're doing and have lots of experience.
(37:47):
And, you know, they want to sell books just like you do.
So losing control is difficult.
And every decision doesn't end up great.
You know, there's plenty of people who hate their titles, hate their covers.
I haven't had that experience, thank goodness.
But it's still.
covers.
No, your covers are gorgeous.
And I've been very, very fortunate with the covers.
And I do sometimes have to go back and be like, no, this is not it.
(38:09):
Y'all have to get, I'm sorry, I can't do this.
This cover, I had it completely changed from the original, honestly.
And I really love, so the book that comes out is called Daughter of the Merciful Deep.
And that cover just, the reveal just happened and it's.
That cover is beautiful.
is, I saw it on IG.
Yeah, I love it too.
So that was some work, but we got there and it was, it came out good.
(38:32):
Yeah, I have to say, it sounds like you've definitely had some, like, um, some really goodrelationships and dealings with your publisher.
Like you said, I feel like I always hear the horror stories about, like, people hating thecovers, but there's nothing they can do about it.
Um, and different things like that.
So it's always great to hear some of the traditionally published stories that are comingfrom, like, a positive.
(38:53):
And like you said, it's always difficult.
I mean, I'm sure, as you know, like even from like a filmmaking standpoint, when you'vegot so many people in the mix, it can be hard, but if you're all working,
together for the same goal, then hopefully you're gonna get there.
And it's about like, you know, choosing which battles you want to win, um, versus tryingto win the whole war type of thing.
But I love that it sounds like you've had some really good people that you've worked withalong the way.
(39:17):
Yeah, yeah, and I feel I feel fortunate about that because I know it's not always thecase.
But I mean, you know, you have to speak up and ask for things that you want.
You might not always get them.
But you know, you're you definitely won't get it if you if you don't ask.
So treat people professionally and try to, you know, meet your deadlines whenever you canbe professional yourself so that you're easy to work with.
And then when you come at them, they're like, okay, we'll try, you know.
(39:39):
And I think being Indie having so many things, like as you grow in this business, youbecome, I feel like more taciturn, when it comes to your product and what the expectation
is.
So it would be, like I want to do trade, but at the same time, I am such a contrarian, Ican see myself bumping head.
(40:07):
I want things to look a certain way.
I want the font even to look a certain way.
And once you've done it so many times on your own, then you have a certain expectation.
So let's segue into the thing that you have complete autonomy over, which is the BlissWars books.
(40:29):
How did they come about, talk about, is that those books that...
your indie project there, because those are indie, right?
And that is a, you know, all indie work is a labor of love.
You do it because you love it.
Talk about why should we be getting into the bliss wars?
So the first book of the Bliss Wars trilogy is Savage City.
(40:52):
That's actually the book that I pitched to Monique when she first contacted me.
So initially it was a spin-off of another series that I wrote, Angelborn, which was acontemporary paranormal romance.
And then I changed it up.
I had been working on it off and on for a couple of years because I'd work on it, getstuck, and then I'd have a deadline come in from my publisher.
So I'd have to put it to the side for a while and then come back to it.
(41:15):
So finally, when I finished Earthsinger Chronicles,
I think that's when I came back into doing Savage City.
And it's kind of a strange book.
So it is post-apocalyptic dystopian, but it's also a portal fantasy and it's paranormalromance with shifters and dragons.
It's all the things which made it terrible for traditional publishing.
(41:38):
Not super easy to indie publish either when you have that much going on, but that's one ofthe things.
Like I can do all of my control freakiness in my indie books.
and have all the control and just do whatever crazy thing I want.
So it takes place in an alternate San Francisco where a woman is pulled out of our worldon her deathbed and dropped in the middle of the, this clan of warring shifters.
(41:59):
There's two different types of shifters and in this alternate world.
And so she looks identical to the princess of one clan and has to pretend to be theprincess with no memory in order to survive.
And I really just, I love that concept of doing a different kind of amnesia.
The other thing is that her father,
So she's identical, her father's identical to her father back home.
(42:19):
And she had a really bad relationship with her father, but this father, the King isloving, but he's also this tyrant.
And I wanted that real, that tension between like this tyrannical King who's doing awfulthings, who loves his daughter and she's never had a father's love.
And so they're just all these kinds of concepts I'm playing with.
Right.
And then there's dragons and other shifters and people turning into different animals.
(42:41):
So yeah, it's super fun.
I, the third book is coming out in March.
and yeah, the third book of the trilogy, so it'll be a completed series.
And I'm indie publishing it, I did sell the audiobook rights, and yeah, it's been a lot offun to write.
It's great to be able to come back to something that's all mine after doing atraditionally published book, and just let everything go and try to tell the best story I
(43:03):
can that I've never seen before.
And it's hard to even describe, but I just, I think it's a lot of fun to write.
I think you sold us.
I mean, cause...
I was like when I was hearing dystopian and apocalyptic I was like ooo I want to readthat.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So is it a romance though?
Is there a hero?
Okay, okay, where you got me there?
(43:24):
is a different couple, but it is similar.
So it's like this kind of telling a unified story over the course of the three books, butit's definitely, you know, paranormal romance.
If you have to ask me, that's the category that it's in, even though it's also all theseother things.
Oh, okay.
Is it gonna stay three or do you have plans for a fourth?
There's ideas, it depends on sales at this point.
(43:44):
But yeah, I think it ends, it wraps up nicely at three with a little open window where,you know, we could still continue if the spirit moves me.
Right?
Listen, I got that advice from Nana and from Carrie Ann Ryan.
They was like, you can let the series, you can let it hibernate for a little bit and dosomething else.
(44:08):
But what I realized when I went from writing sweet, filthy, contemporary to dark, to dark,people like your voice no matter what.
Yeah.
You just didn't have the discoverability.
You know what I'm saying?
So they will like your voice, my country twang, all the way from those books.
(44:29):
And they go back and read all the way back to the mogul series.
It's so that, so you might let it go to sleep for a little while, but we're not gonna endit.
Yeah.
And people ask me for sequels to books that I have no intention of writing sequels to.
Maybe one day, who knows?
(44:50):
like, you were the one person.
My first book adored, I think I had like nine sales.
I had nine sales for years since it came out.
Then Bad Guy got number one bestseller.
Then it is slowly creeping up.
(45:11):
It might be at 40 now.
You know what I'm saying?
And I have a, in my background is, I love historical romance.
I wanted to be a historical romance writer and that's why I got into this business.
Am I writing that?
No, I'm not writing that anymore.
Listen, that first book cost me, it was like I still had made my money back.
(45:37):
I think so.
I just like the edits, the edits alone.
And I went big, over 100,000 words.
No, ma'am, it did not sell.
What is wrong?
Up until this year, I think it had nine sales.
And then it started slowly trickling up.
It's so, but made a lot of mistakes.
(45:59):
What are some of the, did I just ask a question first?
Maybe it's not my turn, anyway.
But I'm going with it, mommy.
What mistakes have you learned from?
in this journey.
I was less, I'm sorry.
(46:20):
You know how I get excited.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think mistakes.
It's putting, you know, they say just write the next book and you really do have to marketyour books.
I hate marketing.
It is a thing that I do not enjoy.
So I do, I'd rather just write the next book.
But I think that, you know, when I do put forth more effort into it, you see, you seethings that you have to try different things to find out what actually works for you.
(46:47):
So I think that sort of that advice.
is part of it.
You know, the best way to market your book is to write another book to a point, but youstill have to market the book.
And yeah, that is.
Right?
Yeah.
I'm just finding things.
I'm still working on finding the marketing that I enjoy that's sustainable for me, becauseI can try something for a while, but when I get burnt out at it, then I completely do
(47:12):
nothing.
And yeah, that's also a problem.
Yeah, I think that's very important because I feel like, like you said, even though mostof us don't really enjoy the marketing, it is a necessary part if you want to be
successful.
And if you're trying to make this a career, like you have to market a book.
It's kind of like that.
If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it's like, I think, you know, you get alot of new writers that come in and, you know, they don't kind of do the work to
(47:37):
understand publishing.
And so they're just writing and they're putting stuff out or they're not paying attentionto like what.
covers should look like or different things like that and it's like marketing is anecessary evil.
If you want people to buy your book and you want to compete you have to market your book.
Now whatever that looks like you gotta do it.
(48:00):
And so I always try to tell people I know you know and some people are like I'm gonna putit on social media.
Love it but there are definitely some aspects where you at the end of the day you do haveto pay a little bit for.
that, you know, and I know some people don't want to hear that, but I'm just like, that isthe business.
Like anything, you know, whatever art that is that you're selling, like you have tosometimes pay to market it.
(48:23):
That's true.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, sometimes I've definitely paid too much for things.
And you kind of fill out what, you know, what you want to pay for what you can afford,like, don't spend more than you can afford.
But you do, it's a business and businesses, a lot of business, I mean, most businessestake years to get into the black, you know, so save your coins that you can do this
(48:43):
professionally and invest in it.
Yeah, one of the other things that I know, like we've been talking about books, butconsidering you're like a hybrid author, and I love that we're kind of getting to talk
about some craft and just like, you know, business things when it comes to being anauthor, like you mentioned earlier that you sold the audio rights for Savage City.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
(49:04):
Because I know there's a lot of people that are new out there that don't alwaysunderstand, like, you know, your book can be an audio book and you may have nothing to do
with.
that happening besides like obviously selling or giving away the rights to it.
I've done it once myself because at that point that book was way too long for me to beable to afford to pay that myself.
(49:25):
Audiobooks can be very costly when you're paying yourself.
And so when someone does come along, if it sounds right, then definitely I agree withdoing it.
Yeah, so I had talked to my agent about these books.
I knew I wanted to self-publish them, and she's fine.
Make sure if you want to be hybrid, your agent is cool with the projects that you want toself-publish.
(49:45):
And then she asked, well, do I want her to sell the audiobook rights?
And I'm like, sure, because I didn't know how well they were going to do.
And I wasn't sure if I'd be able to afford to make the audiobook.
So she went out, she pitched them, and I sold the audiobook rights to Orange Sky, which ispart of Find A Way Voices.
I guess it's their traditional arm.
and now they're owned by Spotify.
(50:06):
And so, you know, you do lose control.
I haven't ever had, one time I haven't, let me start over.
You don't really get control over who your narrator is.
Now with the Monsters We Defy, they gave me five choices and I'm like, none of those fivepeople are right.
And I found five other people to audition and they chose from that.
(50:26):
So in that way, I was able to give feedback.
But with Orange Sky, I did not have any kind of control over the narrator.
So you're giving up control in that way and you may or may not be happy with thenarrator's issues.
So you do give up the control, but it was time and money in terms of reviewing theaudiobook files.
I knew I wasn't going to have the time or the energy for that because I was working onmultiple other projects.
(50:49):
And there was a small advance too.
So it's like, instead of me paying money, I get paid and there is an audiobook andhopefully people who love audiobooks will find it okay.
So going forward.
You know, I don't know, like with my other indie projects, I would like to have theexperience of doing it myself, just to have that control, obviously.
There are other audio book partners that do give you more control, so you can kind of dosome research on that and see how you wanna go about it.
(51:16):
But selling, you know, your book, having multiple types of rights, it can be more moneyfor you.
So if you're able to sell foreign rights, there are indies who are doing it themselves andgetting into these different marketplaces,
you can find publishers and there's agents that will, you know, let you indie publish theebook and print and then go out for to sell your foreign rights potentially.
(51:38):
And there's different types of ways that you can make money on your books besides just theways that we always think about.
Have you sold any foreign rights yet for like Earthsinger or anything?
I haven't sold foreign rights.
Monsters We Defy is in England, which is like a separate contract.
But other than that, I haven't sold foreign rights.
That's interesting.
Did you, what have you found to be your best as an author, your best return on investmentas far as things that you have bought?
(52:09):
Like I know you, you know, little gadgets or craft books, classes, anything like that,that you felt like that was worth that $350 or whatever I spent.
I do take a lot of classes, so it's hard to know because I'm high input, high learner, soit's just like, oh, I wanna learn all the things.
(52:33):
Actual equipment, I love my FreeWrite Traveler.
I have, so the FreeWrite Traveler is one of those little writing machines, it's theclamshell one that does, it has like a tiny little screen, so I do my first drafts on it.
And it is connected to the internet in that it backs up your file, but it's a writingmachine.
There's no distractions and you just write and you can't edit.
So.
(52:53):
I do fast first drafts and I just, I adore it.
I've had it for a couple of years now and I had an AlphaSmart before that, which is asimilar idea, just old technology.
So in terms of equipment, that has been amazing.
And then classes, I mean, honestly, the Becca Symes class, which I took about five yearsago, the Write Better Faster, helped me in my mindset so much.
(53:16):
It helped me kind of just accept this is my process and it's okay and my process is gonnabe very different from...
everyone else's process, but I don't have to try to do what other people are doing.
You know, it gives you kind of permission to be like, oh, no, this is how your brain worksand lean into that as opposed to trying to always optimize and get better and faster.
Even though it's called write better faster, it's really about like doing the thing that'sright for you, which might be writing slower.
(53:40):
And for me, it kind of, I had to accept that I'm not going to be as fast as some of myfriends and that's okay because my best work just takes longer than other people's best
work and that's totally fine too.
Right.
(54:04):
I love
Mm-hmm, exactly.
That's the most important thing, yeah, to find your voice and do, and find your process,you know.
And I love hearing about other authors' processes.
(54:25):
And sometimes I'll try to like tweak mine and see, can I get a little bit better?
But you know, you try something, it's like, oh, that's not working, so let me just takethat away.
So are you a pantser?
I forgot, are you a pantser or are you a plotter?
Are you plotting your books out?
I'm definitely a plotter, although I guess technically sort of plots are like in themiddle.
I do a plot, I do a detailed outline, and then I write about 50% and I change everything.
(54:50):
Hahaha!
And that makes sense.
Because like, where did these people come from?
This is a whole new set of people.
I was trying to do this, but I'd gone off the rails.
And so I need a whole new plot now.
And every single time I get to the middle and everything changes and everything I thoughtI was doing was completely wrong.
(55:11):
So that's part of the process.
I just accept it now.
I just know that in the middle, I'm just gonna have to redo all this work, but I have todo the work first and then knowing I'm gonna redo it.
Yeah.
say that strengths for writers class I took that and they she get back a sign she givesyou this assessment and I tell everybody like it and then what's really great about her
(55:32):
class is that you can pay in installments if you need to and listen I'm an installmentgirl I am the Tenmu queen the affirm whatever I can pay a little bit like you should see
my Tenmu card at this point it's like
Hehehehe
(55:52):
I will do it.
But, and it makes it affordable because she lets like the younger, newer writers have anopportunity to learn this earlier.
And it will save you a lot of time.
If you know, for instance, that I'm one communicator, two achiever, you know, threestrategists, and discipline is 36.
(56:16):
Discipline is the last thing.
Thanks for watching!
As you can see in this conversation, I have no discipline.
And so why feed into the discipline, go towards your strengths and do all of those things.
And so I overcome my lack of discipline with strategy.
And so, cause I got a planner, I'm a planner, I do all of that stuff, but I will be like,man, forget that book.
(56:43):
I'm like, I'm not doing it today.
I'm not, I'm not.
I got the cover.
was folded wrong, I'm not doing it today.
So that, so I'm glad that you said the Becca sign classes.
And so, but I don't know, that was all I wanted to say.
Go ahead, Mommy.
(57:04):
Well, now that we are coming to the end, I know that you have, it's Daughters of the Deep.
Thank you.
That's coming out in June.
What are you working on now or what's after that?
So I'm currently working on two different, I'm plotting two different books as proposalsfor my editor and maybe to go out.
(57:28):
And yeah, I'm working on a paranormal thriller that I'm really excited about.
It's another idea that's been in my mind for a long time that I'm finally ready to write.
And I have another idea for another historical fiction, another historical fantasy novelthat is still just a brand new idea.
So I'm working on two things.
(57:48):
And I want to do some more indie shorts.
This year I was part of an anthology last year with fairy tale retellings.
And so I want to do my indie stuff for this year.
I'm planning just to do shorts and maybe just do short fairy tale retellings while I'mseeing if I can sell these other books to a traditional publisher.
Awesome, I can't wait for to hear more about like where all of that leads.
(58:12):
So in order for anybody to keep up with you, where should they work and they find youonline?
My website is lpenelope.com, and I'm most active on Instagram and Facebook.
Instagram is Leslie Penelope, Leslie with a Y-E.
But yeah, if you get on my newsletter, it's about usually monthly, and you can keep upwith all of my shenanigans and all of the new books that are coming up.
(58:33):
And also my podcast, which is My Imaginary Friends, which is, thank you.
And all that's on my website.
And we will make sure all of that is in the description for this so that you have it.
But I definitely wanted to have her give you all of that lovely information so you cankeep track of Leslie.
Because she has some amazing things going on.
(58:54):
We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
It's been awesome talking to y'all.
Thank you so much for doing this.
to you again.
We wish you every success and we just love your work so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes.
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