Pre-Publishing Strategies – Interview of Bethany Ramos
Pre-Publishing Strategies – Interview of Bethany Ramos
Bethany Ramos is a chick lit author who is passionate about the fun, witty, and clever dynamic that can be found in a good chick lit novel. Her chick lit novel 5 Stages of Grief was published by Black Opal Books in 2011. She has also written a children’s book called Lions Can’t Eat Spaghetti that is under contract to be published through 4RV Publishing in 2015.
Bethany works full time as a freelance ghostwriter through Elance.com, specializing in Internet marketing, social media marketing, and SEO. She also co-owns her own website with her husband at The Coffee Bump.
Your novel 5 Stages of Grief was published just over a month ago, on the 15 of September. Yet, there are already dozens of review of your book available. How did you achieve that result?
My publisher was very helpful in promoting reviews for my book, but I did much of the work myself. I looked specifically for chick lit blogs that posted reviews that might be willing to review my book. I also published a press release about my book, which was more likely to get picked up as a news article.
How long before publishing your book did you begin to build your social media network?
I would say probably three years in advance. I’ve been active on Twitter for about three years to build up a community.
Apart from being a soon famous author J, you work as a ghostwriter for Elance on topics like Internet marketing, social media marketing, and SEO, your domains of expertise. Could you give us a few tips about techniques you used to market your book?
Yes, absolutely. One of the best techniques that I used to market my book was guest blogging. Basically, you offer another blog free content as long as they link back to your book or blog in your author byline. This is a method that I use for my own e-commerce business that I co-own with my husband, and it worked perfectly to promote my book since almost no one will turn down free content! 🙂
With such an extensive knowledge of marketing techniques, why did you choose to publish with a publisher rather than self-publish, and why choosing such a new and yet unproven publisher?
Since I was just breaking into the publishing industry, a smaller publisher was more interested in me and took time to edit my book with me. As far as self-publishing versus regular publishing, the truth is that many self-publishing companies will try to sell you a more expensive marketing package for your book. That’s not the case with all self-publishers, but I found that a lot of self-publishing companies were spamming or trying to sell me something. So, a small publisher worked best for me.
What would you say is the proportion of promotional work is performed by your publisher compared to what you are doing yourself?
Hmm, great question. Right now, I would say 60/40 – I’m doing 60% of the work. My publisher did a great job promoting my book and laying a foundation, but I made sure to take it the extra mile by promoting it on my blog, submitting reviews, and writing a press release.
You are organizing a blog tour for January with Chick Lit +. Could you explain how it works, and what it entails?
A blog tour enables you to promote your book on a series of blogs in a set time frame. Chick Lit Plus has used their connections to hook me up with a network of bloggers to conduct the tour. So, basically I’ll be getting 10 reviews from 10 different blogs to promote my work.
Thank you Bethany, and best of luck with the 5 stages of Grief !