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Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Welcome back to Sarah Talks Bookish Stuff. We are here with Ken Babel. Hi, did I pronounce do I pronounce your last name correctly or am I totally off?
Ken Bebelle: No, you did it perfectly. Thank you.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. Sweet. You're welcome. Awesome. Well, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it.
Ken Bebelle: thank you ha thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Awesome. So I just kind of got gonna I'm kind of gonna just dive right into it. I one of my favorite questions to ask people, but I gotta be honest, as someone that's like started to do the writing process, I'm starting to realize like the pitfall and trap of this question. for you, what tell me a little bit about your writing journey. Like have you always been a writer or like why writing? Why this?
Ken Bebelle: well, I think like most writers, you know, I mean I got into this because I was a reader. so I was definitely one of those kids that any time I left the house I needed a book in my pocket or in my bag.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: It didn't matter where my parents were taking me. I made I made sure that I had some something to read in the car. you know, even if I got car sick, and if I knew I was going to be bored out of my mind somewhere, I had to have a book with me. So that that definitely started it. And then yeah, our I think, you know, specifically with me and Julia, our writing journey started when we were in the eighth grade. that's when we met. And
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Whoa.
Ken Bebelle: yeah, that's the first time we wrote anything together. We found a A writing contest in the back of one of our books. you know, back in the days of mass market paperbacks, and they put these ads in the in the back,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: and we tore out the back page and there was this, you know, this contest that said submit a short story. And so we wrote a short story together in the eighth grade. And this is in the time before things like email or anything like that. We collaborated by sharing a a document on a on a floppy disk, and we take it to school
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: my gosh.
Ken Bebelle: and trade it at the locker and say, like, I wrote some last night, here you go right. Some tonight and we'd go back and forth like that and and we ended up winning 50 bucks on that thing. spent it all on comic books and and you know tasteless snacks and it was great.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: so that's where we started. And I think you know for me I all through high school and college continued being a a reader of science fiction and fantasy, but you know, didn't really have the Couldn't really maintain the bug to write. just got busy
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: doing other things. And much later in life, after Julia and I both had families, she kind of contacted me out of the blue one day, said that she had been at a writing retreat and started a story and emailed it to me. you know, she didn't have to send me a floppy disk this time.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha.
Ken Bebelle: emailed it to me and basically, you know, dared me to write the next chapter.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: cool.
Ken Bebelle: And so that started our collaboration. That was like like twenty seventeen or so. it's been going strong ever since. And you know, like I said, we don't have to we don't have to rely on physical media anymore. We can we can do things like, you know, email and collaborate on Google Docs and things like that. And that's it's it's been it's been a journey. It's been very interesting kind of learning the ropes by like actually just diving in and writing something and kind of figuring out all the things you're doing wrong along the way. which is always a lot
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, a lot of that.
Ken Bebelle: of fun. but honestly it's kind of one of the best ways to learn things, you know. You you make the mistakes and then you learn not to do them again.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's awesome. I actually love that. I don't know if you know Maya Karita, she's fantastic, but she's got this thing where she tells us she says everyone should write. It doesn't necessarily mean like published or something, but like everybody should write. And like I
Ken Bebelle: yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: was l explaining to one of my friends, and this is about to get real tragic real fast. they lost their father recently, and I lost mine a couple years ago. And I was like, hey, why
Ken Bebelle: Mm.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: don't you try this book? And I gave them Shark Heart. And I was like, It's just about like being the one left behind and grief. And like the thing about writing and reading through your grief is like it lets you detach yourself and become the observer to your own feelings. And it lets you process things that you otherwise wouldn't have felt. And like it should it lets you like write out these scenarios in which you process them in different ways. And I think like writing is just such an interesting way to unlock those like to unlock facets about yourself and ask yourself questions that you never otherwise would have asked yourself. And I think it's so much fun to like see that come out in people's writing.
Ken Bebelle: I you know, I definitely had that experience. when we started writing the Phoenix Horde series, we we started out just wanting to write something that was really, really fun. And
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: we ended up writing a you know, an Asian American diaspora story that was actually very close to Julia's and I's experience and had a
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Wow.
Ken Bebelle: lot of those had a lot of those instances that you're talking about. especially when I was writing Emiko's interactions with her dad and I started thinking about my interactions with my father, and exactly like you're talking about, just like reworking the, you
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know, the scenes and kind of figuring out like, you know, maybe more like this or less like this and seeing a lot of myself
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah, absolutely. And that's actually that was something that I really loved. I've read the first book. So there was something that I really loved in the first book. Shockingly, I'm not actually normally an urban fantasy person. This is Ebony Gate was my first real diving into urban fantasy, which is crazy, right? yeah, thank you. And
Ken Bebelle: so honored. So honored.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I like I couldn't put it down. I've been telling everybody about it since then. and weirdly enough, the piece that I'm putting out shortly for query, I'm gonna do it. The piece I put together is actually an urban fantasy. And I'm like,
Ken Bebelle: Good luck. Good luck.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: What is how does that work? thank you. Yeah, it's it's super crazy, but like it's the one genre that I'm like, I don't really read the genre, but then I turn around and I write the genre. It's very, very weird. But one thing I really loved about the ebony gate is that you guys captured that feeling of being in two worlds. Really, really well. And I think that that's such a common experience for a lot of immigrants, a lot of people that come to America, because you've got both your shuse Emiko, she starts with this like she knows that it's a ridiculous cultural obligation to keep turning around and helping people, but she also wants to go and be like someone else, and she doesn't want to do that anymore. She wants to also be in the regular real world. But she's like watching her navigate that push and pull of like both worlds was really fascinating. I really loved that. And like I'm
Ken Bebelle: thank you.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I just I thought it came out really, really well. And I loved the blending of all the culture. Like one thing that you also captured, the TV also got like usually people just focus on one nebulous concept of like mythology from like Eastern mythology and like they just it's nebulous, but you guys brought in elements from like specific cultures and specific countries that I just I've never seen anyone do that before and I thought that was awesome. what made you guys want to do that?
Ken Bebelle: Honestly, w so when we started writing Ebony Gate, we we had just come off of finishing a military science fiction series, that we had
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ooh.
Ken Bebelle: indie published and we looked at our our shelves and we said, What are we gonna write next? And we both realized we had we both had a ton of urban fantasy on our shelves.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Hey.
Ken Bebelle: and so we said, Let's do this but you know, most urban fantasy at the time was based around European mythology. So,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: you know, vampires Trolls, ogres, fey, you know, all this type of stuff. And we said, Well, wouldn't it be really cool if we did something where we centered it on you know, East Asian mythology? and we knew that We already had some background in like the stories from East Asian mythology, from the things that our parents had told us, you know, old movies that we've watched, things like that. We said let's this would be really, really fun to do this. Let's just throw out all the the the other things that you typically see in other urban fantasies and let's make one literally like this is the one we want to read, right? This is the one we wanted to see when we
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: were teenagers, right? and we also knew going into it that we wanted to have the world be like encompassing of all of Asia as or as much as we could fit into one book, honestly. because that's kind of how the real world works, right? Like you wouldn't have all these magical people settling only in China or only in Japan, right? we wanted it to to spread out and and it it honestly made the world building a lot more fun, a little bit more complicated, but a lot more interesting 'cause we could pull
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Can imagine.
Ken Bebelle: from so many different different sources. And tha that's what our lives were like, right? Like when we grew up, like we had It wasn't just Chinese kids that we're hanging out with, but Japanese and the Korean kids, my kids, same way, lots of different cultures and everybody's kind of like blending in and you know, deciding like, this is really cool, I wanna try some of that and it wa it was kind of like going to the Asian food court, you know, like I'm gonna have a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love that. And honestly, like the thing I think people forget too is even in those those stories and the fantasy stories that you see that are like they're all European focused, that's not like regional. They're pulling different regional stuff together. Like it's the same thing.
Ken Bebelle: yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And like you don't see that with Asian mythology. So like I guess one of the things that I wanted to ask is like, what's the hardest part of integrating all of that mythology into like an urban, more modern fantasy?
Ken Bebelle: Well honestly, the research the research
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: There are many, I'm sure.
Ken Bebelle: is probably the biggest one. because so much of it is so much of it is just word of mouth, right? You hear like,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: I I I know there's this story. And then it's like tracking down like, okay, well, so where did you hear the story? Where did you hear it from? Where can we track this down to something where it's not just like you know, like third hand word of mouth. so that if we are gonna put it in the book, you know, we're going to we're going to do it, you know we're gonna do it it Do it good service in the book and not misre misrepresent it, right? So that if
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle:
somebody sees this in the book and it's from their particular culture, they can say, like identify with that, and they did it well. and that was the hard part because, you know, for the most part, Julie and I are Chinese Americans. so we have that to lean back on because we can talk to our family. anything outside of that, you know, we were doing lots of research, reaching out to friends and saying, like, hey, you know, how is this Like, you know, does this ring true? Things like that.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. There's and I think it's also kind of tough sometimes, just from my understanding. There are some like there's some mythology from like East Asian religions that are like more nebulous and more like folk style religion. And so like the mythology is not it's kind of inconsistent. Some of it's like kind of secretive. So it's like tough to break into some of that stuff, which is like it's super interesting.
Ken Bebelle: You know, the probably the the biggest example of that is I mean, we have we have Chinese dragons all the way through all three books. You know, th they may they're they're not necessarily on the page, but their influence is is foundational to all of our characters. And just the story itself of Chinese dragons is something that changes throughout history. I I'm I'm gonna give all the props to Julia on this for doing the hard work of all the research in this because the what we found out, what Julia found out is that the the story of Chinese dragons has just basically changed over Time. Every dynasty that comes along would kind of just reshape the story and you know, reshape the myth for what they wanted to promote. And it's you have to go back really far to find like the original stories. And there are there are themes that are consistent through through time, like the fact that they're typically typically benevolent beings, they're typically associated with weather and water, you know, not so much like you know not like fire breathing dragon. dragons like like European myth.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: but beyond those like you know kind of staples, you know, the the the stories of the of the dragons really changed over time.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's interesting. Which kind of like it is a little freeing because you're like, we can kind of just do whatever we want a little.
Ken Bebelle: You know, it it's it it it really speaks to the to the idea that the winners write the history books. and and i I guess we we did it in an interesting
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah.
Ken Bebelle: way in in our book in that we kind of had the dragons write their own history books, you know.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: And then and then we also had the you know the the Jarin, right? Emiko's people,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: they they kind of wrote their own history books when they came here, right? So it's
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I like it.
Ken Bebelle: It's it's just more that
generational trauma that you keep passing down to your kids.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And you just kinda like pat you you know you tweak it a little bit every time it gets to the next person and slowly it gets a little nicer and a little kinder, and then in 30 generations it's not trauma.
Ken Bebelle: Right? Yeah. You hope. You hope.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's fantastic. So with this, with conceptualizing the story, I personally I don't want to say it's necessarily control problem, but I do love being I find myself often in a leadership role. So the idea of like co-writing a story to me is so fascinating. I actually have a couple of friends that are doing it and I'm like, I'm too type A to probably navigate that. So how did you guys realize that you write well together, that you co-write together very well.
Ken Bebelle: well, in in the very first instance when we're when we did it in eighth grade, I think it was in large part due to the fact that we we didn't know that we shouldn't do it and nobody told us otherwise, so we just dove in and did it. what we do now as adults is in large part due to a lot of just implicit trust that we have in each other. That
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: once we know which way the story is going, that we both know that the other person is is only going to do things that are in service to the story and improving it. and I I Totally get what you're talking about, as far as like having the control issues and wanting to, you know, maintain agency over what's going to happen.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: And that's why whenever we're asked this question about how we do co-writing, I I always open up with it's not for everybody. And even
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: if it's even if it's not for everybody, it's it's also not for even if you think it's for you, it's only for you and the right person.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes.
Ken Bebelle: and I I honestly I don't know I don't know many people who co-write the way Julia and I do. Because we're I think the best way to describe it is organic. The
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: the the more accurate way to describe it is messy.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: because we'll we'll just write what we want to write and then we go back and we edit each other's you know, text, sometimes in real time. I I think the the fastest my my text has been redlined has been before I close the document. like she'll she'll be in the Google Doc
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Dang.
Ken Bebelle: at the same time and I'm writing something and she's coming in behind me and and just like redlining all of it. I'm like, okay, all right, I guess we're gonna go a different way.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: You're calling her like get out of the document.
Ken Bebelle: but but you know it's like I I We we both know that we're both trying to push the the narrative in the right direction, you know? And
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: and I think it's great because we we hold each other accountable and we say like, well, you know, this is kinda going off into left field, you know, let's save this, you know, let's put it aside. But I think we need to be more focused on X, Y, or Z. and It's great. It it we end up with a lot of extra material, honestly, that we turn into, you know, side quests and short stories. and it w we like to say that between the two of us it's like we're a little writer room. Right? So we're we're constantly bouncing ideas off of each other when we're in drafting mode. we don't really get stuck. Because if one of us does get stuck, it's like, hey, I got it here, what do you think? And usually the other person's like, I know where to go from there. And it's like, okay, take it and run. You know? And then it's great because you come back the next day and it's like the word fairy has come back has come by and dropped off another thousand words.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's awesome. I got honestly, like, I got stuck at a part where I was like, I have to get them around the corner in this open space without being seen. And I was stuck on it for like a month. And then I was like, just for kicks, I'll just make it something dumb. Like someone throws a rock and it makes a distraction. But then it worked. And I was like, that's
Ken Bebelle: There you go.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: the dumbest thing. But like a month of stagnation. And like to have someone else come in and be like, hey, this is an idea. Let's just do this. That would have saved me so much time and stress. And now I have a stupid story about a rock.
Ken Bebelle: And y you know, that that's not unlike what happens with us. Like s one of us will continue the story and the other person will be like, That's great. How about this? And
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha
Ken Bebelle: and it's it's definitely that the the let's throw a rock at them is like it just kind of nudges the other person enough to say like, Okay, I know what we need to do now And then and then it just kinda keeps the ball rolling.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's awesome. And when you guys were building the story, how did you guys how did you guys tag team like did you plan it out together or was it 'cause I don't I imagine when you're co writing, you can't really be like a pantzer. You have to be more of a plotter because like it's much harder to try and
Ken Bebelle: gosh, no, we're we're we're amazing pants. well
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Really?
Ken Bebelle: no, we're I mean we're everybody I think everybody between pantsing and plotting is I I think it's a spectrum and everybody ends up in the middle.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, you're a little bit of both.
Ken Bebelle: yeah, yeah. we're we're plotters in that we know we know where we want to start.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: and we've learned that we need to know where we're going to end. And We plot in that we know like we
will know like the climax. So we'll know we'll know here, here, and here, right? And so we know that we just need to draw this whole trajectory in, you know, or you know, more like this.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: so that's that's as much as we're plotters usually. few key points, always the beginning and the end. And we just make sure, are we driving towards the end? And are we driving towards that next landmark that we've set for ourselves. And if we n we know if we deviate, then we're like, okay, we gotta pull back. We gotta we gotta go in the other direction.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: Where it comes to like planning what I think we're really I don't I wouldn't say we're good at it, but what we what I think we're thorough about is that we we always we always start with world b world building. I know this is also, you know, kind of one of those things where all writers are on a spectrum. I've had I've I've
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: talked to people who start with themes, st people who start with character. we almost start with the world. we start with like, what if X was this? What if Y was that? And in in the case of the Phoenix Horde, it was what if there was a group of magical people who were descended from Chinese dragons? Right? And we wanted to plot out like what is their world like? You know, these people who have these amazing powers who live among us, they they don't they basically don't have a need for like money. you know, or any of the things that that we have. So how do they interact with each other? How do they how do they trade favors? You know, what's their currency? what are the things they value? And we built this entire society of people. and then and then we we figured out who Emiko was and we just plopped her in the middle of it and we said, let's do this in San Francisco because we knew we wanted to make something in San Francisco. All I mean honestly, all urban fantasy is Chicago, Atlanta or New York.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, pretty much.
Ken Bebelle: Wanted something on the west coast. Yes, exactly.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Finally, come on, give us something.
Ken Bebelle: Exactly.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So why d what made you guys choose San Francisco? Because like I think you have another series, right? That's like Seattle based, which represent
Ken Bebelle: Yes.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: why San Francisco? What was the what was the draw?
Ken Bebelle: So we actually we actually both grew up in the San Francisco area. Julia
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: cool.
Ken Bebelle: actually I I believe she actually lived in San Francisco for a while. I grew up on the peninsula a couple of different places. San Francisco was where once we had cars, the city was where we went. Right. And drive
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah.
Ken Bebelle: up there and just explore and is very near and dear to our hearts because we grew up around it. It's very formative to us, both as children going up there, like being dragged up there to Chinatown by our parents to go shop for groceries, and then going up there as teenagers, completely unsupervised in our cars.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: and we we knew that there's a lot to San Francisco that's inherently very magical. it's just one of those cities where there's lots of little nooks and crannies that you only know about if you are a local. and we just wanted to make that like truly magical, right? with
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: with these people who are, you know, descended from Chinese dragons. We thought it was j we thought it was a perfect fit.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love that. I and I feel like there's the West Coast is underrepresented in urban fantasy. And like I feel exactly the same way about Seattle. I love
Ken Bebelle: This is
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: the city so much. Like there's so many like little secretive spaces and so much stuff that you only know about if you like live here. And it's so hard to explain to people that are like visiting or coming to to be tourists or something like that. Like there's just there's so much to it that's hard to explain. Everyone's like, you got the market and the pier and stuff. I'm like, no, we have so much more. And like each neighborhood,
Ken Bebelle: Okay.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: like is alive and like has its own vibe and its own energy. And like I love each like I keep telling people when they're like, I hated living in Seattle. I'm like, where did you live? The neighborhood matters. And like I'm I grill them.
Ken Bebelle: It definitely.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It's it's really important out grill people to find out. Like, let's figure this out because it's not the city. Yes, I I will change your mind. And I know you live in Chicago now, but I'll change your mind.
Ken Bebelle: We have to bring you back. Yes, yes.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So one of the things that I'm actually fascinated by, especially someone that's like beginning to enter the querying process, which makes me mildly nauseous to think about like literally as of like this morning. I'm like, my God, I'm gonna be done by the end of the weekend. so it's kind of crazy. But when I think about the querying process, how did you guys navigate that as co-writers?
Ken Bebelle: okay. So big caveat here is that our querying experience is not typical. Was
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay.
Ken Bebelle: was not typical. we we I think something to mention is that when we wrote Ebony Gate, our intention was fully to indie publish it. So
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay.
Ken Bebelle: by the time we got to the query stage we had we already sent it out to like fifty beta readers. we
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: had already done a dev edit. we had a cover we were actually within like two to three weeks of publishing it. Julia went to a writer conference ended up sitting at dinner with Jonathan Mayberry and he he asked
everybody at the table what are you working on? and she told him that we were working on, you know, this urban fantasy about people descended from Chinese dragons set in San Francisco. And he said, you should query that. And so she comes home and she calls me and we're like, okay. Well I guess if Jonathan said it, we should try it.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that'd be a sign.
Ken Bebelle: And so yeah, so we we we basically gave ourselves a crash course in writing query letters. for like the next like three or four weeks, which is not long enough to learn how to write a query letter.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: God. I it's fanfiction about your own fiction and then you have to pretend you're not writing it. It's very weird. It's so uncomfortable. I hate it so much.
Ken Bebelle: Right, yeah. Right, right, yeah. It's so easy to tell a story in a hundred and twenty thousand words, but now you have to cram it down to three hundred. Right. Right, right. Yeah, yeah,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes, and it has to be one page. And also you have to include things about yourself and comps. And I'm like, I wanna die.
Ken Bebelle: yeah. Exactly. It's like it's like writing a personal statement to get into college. Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Exactly. It's awful.
Ken Bebelle: So we because we had the indie publishing route in our back pocket,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: we went in with very little expectations and honestly we went in with kind of like this confidence of like if this doesn't work we're just gonna fall back on this. So
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: I think that really helped. We we looked at all the urban fantasy that we read and we just researched all those authors and figured out who their agents were. And we queried all those agents. and I I hate to tell you this story because you're in the midst of query. We queried like twelve agents. Yeah. Yeah. And
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's okay. I know.
Ken Bebelle: and you know, so we got so Lori, our agent, she asked for she asked for a full she read it within like a month of getting it from us, called us back, offered us rep, And you know, we went through another editing round with her and then she sent it out and I think we got we got an offer from Tor in like three weeks.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Wow.
Ken Bebelle: it was so it was it was bonkers, right? It was I I when we talk about this now, we we say that we were definitely lucky and being having taken part in traditional publishing now for like five, six years, fully acknowledge. Luck plays a big part in all of this. If you if you write the wrong story at the wrong time, nothing's gonna help you. But you write the
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: right story at the right time, and man, you it's a rocket ship, right? but at the same time, we also do take credit for the fact that we we were ready to be lucky. Like we had a we had a story that was finished and we'd already polished it somewhat. we had a cover. We had like it was basically ready to go. Right. So it was it was very much like a package where the agent and our editor could take it to the people they need to take it to and say like, look, it's done, right? As opposed to, look, this thing needs a lot of work
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: and you know, maybe in a month it'll be great. so I think what I tell people who are trying to query is, you know, make sure that what you're presenting is the absolute best that you can make it.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: and and you know, the the the great thing about the writer community is we're we're all for the most part, we're all trying to help each other up. Right. So send it out, get reads on it, you know, get get good feedback and then, you know, take that feedback and and, you know, be constructive with it.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep, feedback is your friend. I had
Ken Bebelle: Yes.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I made some decisions in my timeline that I I know that the I've been using the little like shorthand name for my current manuscript, Icarus. So I knew I wrote Icarus second and after a first manuscript. And the first one I defin I was like, this is definitely too niche to like go trad. So I'm gonna self-publish and was fully prepared. And then I talked to a friend of mine who's an agent and he's like, hey, if you do that while you're querying Icarus, it's gonna delay Icarus and like you're gonna be competing with yourself in the market. And I think this might be the stronger debut. So I had to like, I totally retooled everything. And then I was like, what if I actually put this other one in that world too? And I'm like, let's make my life harder. so
Ken Bebelle: Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: that's I like I totally switched everything around, but I'm like, you know what? The the best thing I ever heard someone say is you only get one debut. And like I had to make that hard choice. And
Ken Bebelle: Yes, yes.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: it is it is tough. But the writer community was like right there helping me out, giving me tons of feedback and getting that that feedback from my agent. And he's like, from a market perspective, I'm like, dang, that's a really good point. I'll be fighting me in the market. And I don't want to do that.
Ken Bebelle: Yeah, it's I think it's amazing that we're in an era where when you talk about doing this, I think the the advice you get from people now is so nuanced, right? It's not
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: just like write a good book. It's also like
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: who are you aiming it at? You know, like what's your title gonna be Are you going to the right agents? Are you going to the right publisher? Right? Is
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: is this the right time to do it? You know, like I I think we're all much more aware of you know, looking in the future to see are are we setting
ourselves up for success?
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And there's so much more like we've kind like we used to just have this nebulous concept of fantasy, right? And now we've become
Ken Bebelle: yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: so like there's so much more in it that like, fantasy, what kind? And then you can be like dark fantasy, and then you're like, what kind of dark fantasy? And then you're like, Celtic inspired dark fantasy. okay. What specifically where in the timeline of like mythology? And I'm like, wow, my God, we've really got so niche fied. But it's a good thing. It means we're getting super creative with fantasy and it's popular. That's what I think.
Ken Bebelle: Right, right, exactly.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. So when you guys my gosh, I just lost my question. It vanished from my mind. no. What was I gonna ask? when you guys originally were writing this and planning, what made you decide to go to like out the gate to start with from the presumption that you guys were gonna go self-published or indie?
Ken Bebelle: Well, we we'd already done one indie series. it
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay.
Ken Bebelle: was a it was a duology of military science fiction. And I I think it was just it was it was a a product of that era. We were just thinking like, well, urban fantasy is not something th you know, like urban fantasy is basically like all the names you know.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: Right. And as far as Tradpub goes. but we knew that there's there was then, I I mean there still is now, you know, a a ravenous market for indie urban fantasy. So we said, well, rather than try and compete with all those names that start with B, right? Let's let's just right, yeah, let's
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, that one guy.
Ken Bebelle: just let's just let's just do our own thing and and we're we're not we're not going to not necessarily like reach for the brass ring, but we're just being realistic, right? Let's we know
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: that we can do this and if and it was in part of it it was like, you know, retaining control over the property and understanding like, okay, if we do this we can we can publish this and we we already know what the next story is going to be and we can write that, you know, really fast and we can get these out like bam bam bam. You like you know, like w within a year. And i honestly it wasn't until Jonathan suggested that we query that we even seriously considered like, you know, like maybe this could be a thing. and like I said, when we went into it it was very much like, you know, I'm I'm gonna keep my foot over here in in Indy because, you know, if it all falls apart, you know, I when we were learning how to write queries, I I think I read somebody's report that they sent out like 300 query letters and got two responses. I'm like, my gosh,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah.
Ken Bebelle: you know, like so that that's I I think that was also part of why we sent out so few query letters because we looked at that and and we we we considered how much work we'd spent, you know, crafting the query and then like figuring out who we were going to send it to. And we're like, this is just going to take forever. And we were impatient, because we wanted to get the story out. So we said we're gonna send it out to these twelve. It doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. 'cause like I said, we had one foot out the door and then and then the other door opened, they dragged us through it. Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Kicking and screaming, I'm sure, yes. So when what would what would you say is the hardest part of trad publishing for you guys?
Ken Bebelle: the hardest part. I mean, the people that we've worked with have all been universally like wonderful to work with. Our editors,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: the the editing team, all that. I I think I think the hardest part has been for me, Julia might have a different answer, but for me has been kind of like shifting my expectations.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm.
Ken Bebelle: Right, 'cause I think I think I don't think anybody has or I think most people most people don't have these expectations now, but me in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, I had this expectation that if we go trad like there's there's certain doors and pathways that will be open and I don't
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: think that's necessarily true. I think I think those doors and pathways are available but you won't necessarily get pushed through them or even like invited through them. You you you still you still have to fight for your your path through the industry. And these days I think it's it's very much understood that even if you go trad, you're still gonna be doing a lot of your own marketing.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: I mean that's that's what Julie and I do. We're we're constantly screaming about Ebony Gate. we go
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: to events, you know, we we talk about the book, we sell. I think one of our mantras is that the the the single best person to sell your book is you.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes.
Ken Bebelle: Right, and no one else is going to do it as as well as you will, even if they have a stupid budget to to do it with, right? you're the best seller of the book. and you know, the I the the the realities of modern publishing economics, right, where if you're not getting like, you know, seven figures for your book, you're probably not getting much of a marketing budget.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, probably not.
Ken Bebelle: Yeah. So you know, just just be pre be prepared to work, I think. And I think I I
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes.
Ken Bebelle: I think if I would if I would go back in time to, you know, when we signed the contract, I think I would tell myself, you know, seven years ago, Hey, you know, this this isn't this doesn't mean like things are gonna be easy. This is there's still
a lot of work to be done.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can't take your foot off the gas. And that's the big misunderstanding about Trad I think folks have that I've figured out. Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: No. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean take everything they tell you with a grain of salt, you know. Just just
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Of course.
Ken Bebelle: and and have your plan and stick to your plan. You know, you can always make your plan work with theirs.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: that's that's super easy to do. Just tell Hey, I'm doing this and they'll probably say, Great
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And a lot of people are very receptive. Like most of the time they're like, We trust you. And you're like, you shouldn't.
Ken Bebelle: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So when are both of you full time then? Because I know a lot of authors, fun secret for anyone who's listening, most authors actually have a day job. So I know you shockingly most people aren't in this for the riches. but are you both full time writing now or is this are you do you still split your time?
Ken Bebelle: I'm I'm splitting my time right now. so I have a day job. I was actually on a day job call just before we got on this call. this is a lot more fun. but yes,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Me too. yes.
Ken Bebelle: bills do need to be paid. I gotta
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes.
Ken Bebelle: keep the lights and the heat on, so you know, it's it's what you have to do. Yes, yes, yeah, exactly.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we do have an addiction to paying rent and having a roof. It's really nice. The luxury. Do you guys have so do you have any plans to try and push more, push harder to become a full time author or is the are you great with the balance that you struck?
Ken Bebelle: I think I'm always going to be I think I'm always going to be part time. I d I don't I don't have I don't think I'm going to have enough of a cushion and I I think I wouldn't want to burn the cushion even if I had it
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: to go full time. so I'm just I'm gonna I'm gonna do it like this. You know, I'm gonna write when I can and it's going to be something that will be nice when it hits, if it hits, but you know I'm not gonna rely on it.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: It's yeah, there's the the the the churn of publishing is scary, honestly. It's it's it's
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: it's it's a lot of why I don't go in the ocean, right? Yes.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Reasonable. I am pr I honestly like I've thought about this. People have asked like, do you want to be a full-time writer? And I like the economic stability of a regular government job too much. And like I can't, I just I don't want to. I feel the same way when people are like, Do you want to be a full-time content creator? Less than anything on this entire planet. I
do this for love of the game. Like this, it is that is too
Ken Bebelle: Right. Right.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: unstable for me. Unless I wind up with like this massive windfall. And even then, I'm gonna be so like. scrupulous and it's just it's almost gonna be more stressful.
Ken Bebelle: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And health insurance is the other one I've been told. Is like health insurance is really important. Yes,
Ken Bebelle: Right, right. Health health insurance and food are really good.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I I really genuinely love both of those things. I
Ken Bebelle: Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: prefer to keep them the longer as long as I possibly can.
Ken Bebelle: Yes.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: so I wanted to ask with the with you going into urban fantasy, are you planning to stay in urban fantasy or are there other genres that you want to explore as a writer?
Ken Bebelle: me I have I've thought about writing other like non-fantasy things and it doesn't really go well for me. I
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Really?
Ken Bebelle: I I just really like to write the fantastic elements.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: that that's the catnip that really keeps me going and and working with all that stuff. so you know, I mean whether it be fantasy or science fiction, I think that's that's where I'm going that's where I'm going to stick. I know Julia has a bunch of prod projects in mind that that That she can talk to you about that where she's she's branching out to do other things. I think
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: if I was gonna get out of science fiction and fantasy, I'd probably try branching into horror because
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: that is something I can do. sometimes I'll write stuff I would write stuff in in in our drafts and Julia be I can't even read that. Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: She's like, can delete that.
Ken Bebelle: I'm like, no, I'm gonna save it. Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I'm not deleting it because I don't have to read it.
Ken Bebelle: but yeah, I I really I really like the idea of of blending like my East Asian culture into fantasy and science fiction.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: the thing that I'm trying to figure out right now is a blend of Wuxa and Cyberpunk.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm. all right.
Ken Bebelle: so I've got a I I have a short story that I wrote a little while ago and I'm trying to stretch it out into a into a novel. So that's that's the the thing that I'm working on right now. and then I know Julie and I really want to come back to you know, Phoenix Horde, maybe write a few more things in there and you know, we'll we'll see what happens. we we spent so long in that world that it's it's like, you
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, you put so much work into the world. Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: know, comfortable pair of shoes, easy to get back to.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yes. And the rules are already established. You can just have fun writing the story and 'cause the world is known. And that's kind of nice. Like there I
Ken Bebelle: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I see why people do it. Like Richard Swan has his three different eras and Empire of the Wolf. Yeah, I'd probably do that too. Yeah, the appeal makes total sense
Ken Bebelle: Right, right, exactly.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: to me. so when you guys are when you guys are collaboratively like coming up with these ideas and starting to write your the get the actual plot put out, what inspirations do both of you typically draw from? And are they usually like complimentary or do you guys bring like different experiences that influence you from to the table?
Ken Bebelle: I mean specifically for Phoenix Horde, you know, we we drew on things like like Hong Kong cop movies from the eighties
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: and nineties, Wuxhaw films from whenever they started making Whooshaw films all the way up until
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha.
Ken Bebelle: things like Crouching Tiger and Hero and House of Flying Daggers, like we wanted you know, we we drew on those aesthetics, the tropes, the vibes, I drew a lot from Fondalee's Greenbone saga. the the idea of like these powerful families working in the background, you know, kind of like you know, controlling their family members and then controlling society around them and the frictions that happen when people are trying to break out of those molds. that that's all the stuff that that I think really influenced influenced me when I was writing. Julia grew up, you know, watching a lot of the same movies that I did. we we always talk about how when we started like we wanted we wanted to write something that was like an incredible action movie, right? But in book
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: form. And it was it was all those kinds of things, right? We wanted the the slow motion shots, you know, the the swords, you know, cutting through the rain and you know, neon
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: lights flickering on on wet sidewalks, just all that kind of stuff. and that I mean we we we took the opportunity every time we could to to build all that right into the books.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah, I referred to it in my review as East Asian magical John Wick. Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: Yes, yes, very much so. Very much so.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And that you so you c you did a great job. You guys captured the vibe.
Ken Bebelle: Yeah, the the the the thing, you know, more much more so, you know, like from from a behind the scenes point of view, much more so than than Emiko and her kind of like ethos as far as like the John Wick comparison goes, the thing that we really took from John Wick was the coins. because I
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah.
Ken Bebelle: I actually I actually did this whole thing when we were building world building about how Like the the coins in John Wick are they're they're
good on a surface level, right? You watch it happen in the
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: movie, you're like, wow, that makes so much sense. But if you think about it, it really doesn't make any sense because the the the coins have like there's no there's no set value to them. And like he uses one coin to get into the nightclub, but then he also uses one coin to to dispose of a body and it and then it's also one night at the hotel. So it's like what is it? Like the the value can't be that disparate, right?
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: But we like the idea of this This underground currency that basically if you think about what he's using it for in John Wick, yeah, what they're doing is they're trading in favors. Right. And so in our books, that's the talent. And the talent is this, it's this commitment of like, okay, you're doing me a solid, I'm gonna do you one later. And We wanted it to be more impactful where it's like, you give this to me and I don't have to spend this now. I can spend this later. I can give it to my kid and he can spend it with you. Right. But this it's this thing that you have to fulfill. Like if I call on you to do something and I t and I give you this back, you're honor bound to do it. regardless
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: of what happens. and we have some really interesting backstories with Emiko where like she's called upon to do things in her early years as the blade. and it it sucks. You know, like but it's like,
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: you know, okay, you know, this is this thing that, you know, great great grandpa, you know, handed out and now we gotta make make good on it.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. And I love actually I one of the things that I've harped on a lot in my own personal life is like I think Emiko is such a cool character because like she's she reads like you stereotypically would see a male character exist in this world, but it's like she's just such a badass in her own right. And like seeing women in those positions. I that's awesome. So when you guys were crafting Emiko, what it what went into building her character? I like that for you guys.
Ken Bebelle: well, we knew we wanted somebody who was going to not fit in with
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: her family. and that she would have to navigate this this tension of wanting to belong but being inherently different. and Like I said in the beginning, th this this really d did end up being like a fairly strong diaspora theme that
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: we didn't even understand that we were doing in the beginning. And after we got, you know, most of the way through it, we're like, wow, this is okay. This is us.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha.
Ken Bebelle: you know, this idea of of living in in two worlds, because like I mean, like me as a diaspora kid, I was I was born in the States. And a lot of those, you know, typical Asian diaspora experiences as a kid, right? I you know not wanting to eat Chinese food because it wasn't cool with my friends
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: and, you know, the stinky lunches and being made fun of and all that stuff. But still at the same time, like, you know, wanting to, you know, be respectful to my parents and having to act as a translator and, you know, those kinds of things where you're you're you have to live in both worlds because you you have to You have to learn enough of the new world to moderate the experience for the people who are coming from the old world. Right.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: And so you have to learn to live in both. You have to learn how to code switch. so that you can live in both sides. And I think that's that's ultimately where we wanted Emiko's core to be and and for her it's about being like not magical, right? Instead of
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: instead of Asian American, she's like she's like non magical, magical or something.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: you know, and then that's that's how she's kind of grown up her whole life and and once she ran away she realized like maybe I can live over here but then realizing that her place isn't in one world or the other, it's in it's in both. and you know, the the chaos that ensues as she tries to navigate that. Yes.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And and it does. So if you had to pick between the two of you, which one of you is the most like her?
Ken Bebelle: gosh.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha.
Ken Bebelle: I would say Julia. And now I'm interested to hear what she would say.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Well now I'm gonna have to ask her and I have to wait and I can't like I'll have to like make sure she doesn't get to watch you beforehand.
Ken Bebelle: Right. Yes, yes, yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So when when you think about like some of the books that really inspired you as a reader to then transition into a writer, what would you say are your top three books that inspired you to go from reading to writing?
Ken Bebelle: I read William Gibson's Neuromancer really early on in my reading career and that was really really formative for me. I it it because I read it first, it's very much my idea of what Cyberpunk is.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: and anything that isn't that isn't to me, isn't really cyberpunk.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha.
Ken Bebelle: or it's not well let's let's let's put it this way. It's not cyberpunk enough for me. I think it's probably the better way to
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: put it. more closer to when we started writing would be Fondalee's Greenbone saga. I I still to this day do not remember when I picked up Jade City. I just know that I I read it and I was like, this is this is like the most amazing thing I've ever read. this like multi-generational saga like the Godfather, but with magic and martial
Sarah Does
Bookish Stuff: That's awesome.
Ken Bebelle: arts and just like it it literally just like crammed everything that I love into this one like super dramatic series. and then I I really I'm a big fan of Dresden Files. I've
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah.
Ken Bebelle: read the whole thing. I've read all the short stories. anything I can get my hands on for that series, I read and I I love. And I think that was a big influence in me wanting to take the world of the Phoenix Horde and grow it as broad as Jim
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: did for that series, right? Like you can. you can feel in like the first six books in the series how it starts out as this small story around Chicago's only Wizard Private Eye, right? And it
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Mm-hmm.
Ken Bebelle: just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and and until you see like this this world really covers the entire world, right? And there's so much depth to it. And that's that's what we wanted to or it's what I wanted to do with with Phoenix Horde and just kind of build everything out so that it goes around the world, right? when you get to when you get to Pearl city you'll s you'll see that there's we have stuff that w that hints at like stuff that goes all over the world.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay, awesome. Now I have to I almost dropped my entire TBR after I finished Ebony Gate to start the next one. I was like, but I oblige I obliged myself to like in a month of indies and now I'm like, it's November. I have to it's on my November
Ken Bebelle: Yeah.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: list. I just made promises and then I was like, Do I break the promises? So what can people expect coming up from you or from both of you, from yourself and Julia? So what can people expect to see from you in the near future if there's anything in the works?
Ken Bebelle: we wrote a lot of side material for the
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay.
Ken Bebelle: Phoenix Horde series when we were writing the series. And we're finally collecting all that in one place. And I think the Kickstarter is going to be sometime in January or February. and
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Sweet.
Ken Bebelle: it's gonna be a a a collection of short stories, all set in the in the world of of the Phoenix Horde. some stuff that's like you know, before the story starts, some stuff that's like in the middle. not all the stories are about Emiko, some of them are about other pe other characters. So that's I think that's the very next thing that's that we have planned.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay, awesome. And where on social media can people find you? Or both of you?
Ken Bebelle: I am most often on Threads and Instagram. I'm on there as I think I'm on there as Kendra Bell.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Easy, I like it.
Ken Bebelle: And and you can find you can find all of our books on our website at phoenixhorde dot com.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Fantastic. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and I appreciate you coming on to talk with this stuff to talk with me about this stuff. This is fun.
Ken Bebelle: yeah, this is a this was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.
Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Awesome. And thank you everyone who tuned in to listen. And I will catch you next week and sometime in the future I'll have a better outro. Yay.