On Podcasting and Promotion: William Ramsey’s Author Strategy

In this episode of Talking Book Publishing, Kathleen Kaiser and Adanna Moriarty chat with William Ramsey — true crime author, documentary filmmaker, and host of the top-ranked podcast William Ramsey Investigates. With over 1,300 episodes and five books to his name, William knows a thing or two about building a platform. He shares how he turned podcast guest spots into a thriving network, built his own show, and used it all to boost book sales and connect with new readers. 

He opens up about what worked (and what didn't), why authors need to be more than just writers, and how embracing new formats like podcasting and video can fuel creativity — not just promotion. Whether you're just starting out or thinking about launching a podcast of your own, this episode is packed with real-world advice, a little tough love, and plenty of inspiration for the hybrid author life.

We’d like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you’d like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.

Transcript

00:00:01 SPEAKER_Kathleen
Hello, and welcome to Talking Book Publishing. I'm your co -host, Kathleen Kaiser, along with Adanna Moriarty. And today we have a really wonderful guest that I've been wanting to talk to for a while, William Ramsey. He has one of the top 5 % of podcasts out there with over 1 ,300 episodes, excuse me, called William Ramsey Investigates. He has out five books. His latest is The Smiley Faces Killers. And he's done five documentaries. So he's kind of into the true crime genre there, if you understand that part of it. But anyway, welcome, William.

00:00:40 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. It's in the top 0 .5. So it's less than 1%. If there's 3 million podcasts out there,

00:00:43 SPEAKER_Kathleen
it's less than 1%. If there's

00:00:44 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
less than 1%. If there's 3 million podcasts out there, top 1 % would be 30 ,000. And then you have that. So I'm in the somewhere around there in the top 0 .5. I have about a quarter million downloads every month. Wow.

00:01:03 SPEAKER_Kathleen
So part of what we wanted to talk to you today about is you've really combined a lot of what you're doing with your books, your podcasts, you're doing documentaries, all of that. But a lot of people are really interested since you are both an author and a podcaster. How do the authors get on podcasts?

00:01:26 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
That's a good question. I started out as an author. So my first book was published in 2010. It's been 15 years. And so I was always looking for people with similar interests. And I wrote about true crime and I wrote about kind of 20th century cultural history. So I looked for podcasts that had similar interests. And so one of the things is to reach out. And I learned very quickly that the hosts are looking for guests. So if you're the right fit, it'll kind of gel. They'll gel together. So what I would do is I had promotional materials that I put together myself for my books. And then I would freely send books too. So I would send PDFs or copies of the books for the host to look over. So I was very active in that form of self -promotion or marketing. So I think that that's kind of what I learned. I wasn't a great public speaker, but I've gotten better doing show after show, kind of riding the bike over and over again. But to find those hosts, It's kind of like was my interest. So I was always interested in parapolitics, politics, alternative history. So I would kind of listen to those hosts. And then when I first wrote my book, I was like, well, I should see if they'd be interested in being on their podcast or YouTube channel. Like back then it was YouTube channel and a lot of different ways to record. It wasn't actually, it's become more sophisticated, believe it or not, in 15 years. Zoom and StreamYard are kind of current now, but back then it was Skype. or some of these other just audio only means of, of communication. But yeah, so it was, it was one by one. But the other thing is, is that like, if I was prepped and ready and ready to kind of help somebody fill an hour for their podcast, a lot of times I would get them to invite me back and then other people would hear that podcast. So in some ways the podcast being a guest on somebody's podcasts is the marketing. So. Sometimes people think you're just going to do one and done. And that's not the case because then other listeners will hear your name. And other people who may have the hybrids or tribrids or whatever you want, where they're doing a lot of stuff or interested in books, podcasts, videos, would reach out to me. So that was another thing. So another thing was to be available on social media or through an email and leave a contact information. So then people out of the blue. And so I've done a lot of different shows. So I've made it a point to, in a means to sell my books or promote myself, go on a lot of different shows. And I think it's worked out because then I've gone through the process of not just writing the book, but also self -promoting and promoting it. And some of the stories that you hear about publishers, bigger, smaller, is that they make promises to promote other people's books or do things. And those are flat promises, empty promises, not to a great extent, but I get feedback from some of my other guests who are authors who feel that their publishers let them down. So that self -promotion element is very important, I think. And I was like a person, so I was out there. They knew I was out there. I wasn't a guy who published during his academic career. and then retired and is not interested in the newer technology. I was the opposite of that. I was interested in the newer technology and was readily available. So I was up to date on figuring out Zoom or some of these other technological things. So that's a long answer. But all those different points, I think, were very important for me to kind of establish my name.

00:05:08 SPEAKER_Kathleen
I've also found that like for our podcast, I found your podcast when I was looking for true crime for a client. That's how I found you. And then it was Ivor Davis with his. Yeah.

00:05:22 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Yeah.

00:05:23 SPEAKER_Kathleen
And. Then he said, you know, he's written five books. And I said, well, no, I didn't know that. So that's when we started communicating. It's like you see people on other places and they also the hosts or whoever is helping them produce their show. They're looking for other guests, too, that can talk and communicate and work well. And I think it's kind of a symbiotic relationship. You get going with one. And if you can really carry a conversation. and be articulate and yet fun, have a bit of a sense of humor, you get picked up more than, and people will try to find you. That's why having a website, having a social media presence is really important so they can find you.

00:06:10 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Absolutely. You'd be surprised how hard it is. Maybe you're not surprised, but sometimes these authors will write a book and just go incognito and you can't track them down. The publisher doesn't help you. Their contact information isn't even on their publishing site. Like Simon & Schuster doesn't even have their email or anything. Like it's unbelievable. I've spent hours trying to track people down. I just gave up. So it is important to just, most of the authors too, they like to have feedback or somebody talk to them or send them nice email. So it's strange that some of these authors aren't as savvy with their social media presence or marketing acumen.

00:06:49 SPEAKER_Adanna
I'm not even sure it's not savvy. It's they don't want to. I mean, I talk to authors all day long. And I mean, that is the number one kind of pushback I get is they don't want to do social media and they don't fully understand why they need a website. And like those two things, if you ever want to be able to do any kind of self -promotion are two of the most important things you can do, I think.

00:07:17 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
I agree. I'm surprised when I hear that too. And it's kind of like one hand washes the other. So you're giving information about your book. The podcasters getting content they can sell advertising on or increase their kind of standing. So it is, and I think there really are pure authors who do not like public speaking or shy or whatever they are, but they're doing themselves a disservice by not taking part of that. And it's another way to kind of, interestingly to to shape your content and understand your content and where it fits and what people think and what they want to see too so that's another important process in the in the interviewer and interviewee dynamic i think it's really important you go oh this guy has an interest in this so maybe when i do the second or third edition and a lot of my books are on the second or third edition like i'll include more information on this or this aspect or something like that so

00:08:15 SPEAKER_Adanna
So could you just like elaborate on what you mean by their content? So just so our listeners have a better idea of, you know, when they're thinking about social media or their websites, like what that actually means.

00:08:31 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Well, it's really you want to be on as many social media platforms as possible. So if it's Facebook, Instagram, it depends on your content. If there's a lot of censorship or has been under Biden, I don't know what's going to happen under Trump. But you really want to just have as much social media presence and contact information on that social media as you can. And I think the website, too, is another element of the contact of people who are going to reach out to you. Most of the authors that I have have a page about their book or books and a contact kind of form on their website where they can be contacted. So I think that that's like a foundation. If you are. a first time it doesn't matter whatever genre you're in fiction non -fiction true crime i think that's really the first step is to actually have that and then post on there so i post on i just posted today book covers and things like that so people know that it's out there because a lot a lot of it is people assume that they may not know the actual default fault is that the public doesn't know they're not aware you're in a very rich data rich environment with a lot of media and a lot of different media outlets. So you really want to just put out your books and all that information as much as possible to there because it's kind of stuff you can do yourself. You don't have to pay anybody. You don't have to lose money. Some of these charges are pretty outrageous, I think, for some of the marketing stuff. People have offered me marketing. I'm like, I'm not paying that amount of money. So it's like that self -promotion. I think it really does play out. So that as far as like the content, I think what the gist of your question is, those are like the foundational things, but also because the other thing is that you can, once you have an episode done, you can re that episode doesn't like lose its value. It's like having a catalog like Seinfeld or something like that. There's somebody else who hasn't seen it yet. So a lot of people think it's like the TV where you just show it once and done. No, it's not. Cause you can re upload that. You can re promote it. You can put it back on your thing. Also, something may happen in the outer world or event. Like today was the day that RFK was killed in 68 when he was assassinated. So some of the shows I've done about RFK are relevant now. So I'll repost those. So that's June 5th.

00:10:59 SPEAKER_Adanna
Well, and you can use it for proving you can talk, right? I mean, if... If you have some interviews and things like that on your website and your social media, and then somebody like you who's looking for a guest can go there and see that they're able to actually speak and speak well and can speak about their subject. Doesn't that help you find guests?

00:11:23 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
100%. Makes it so much easier. I get guests from other podcasts that I listen to. So I'm like, oh, that guy would be a good fit. He's well -spoken. He just had a recent book come out. Like some of these things, I don't know. I don't, you know, like I'm busy. And so some of the correspondence doesn't come to my attention, but that's like a way to get guests. And, you know, a lot of like, it's in my community, there's a little community and there's, you know, I think there's a lot of cooperation, much more than people might think of like people sharing guests, or I had a guy on, somebody recommended, I said, yeah, you're right. He would make a good guest. So those are other networks too. Like that's, I think. has been an advantage for me for selling books is that i kind of did i didn't i wouldn't say i was an active network some people are much more hands -on and go to parties and things i mean it's up to the individual personality they'll travel but i still would communicate with a lot of these people who are hosts and it's really paid off for me it's made life a lot easier and finding those good guests because i have do i have the opposite where i've taken a chance or had somebody on and they may not have done as well. They weren't as prepared. They weren't as savvy technically. And it's a mistake. I mean, most people want to have their books read to the audience or to the people they're writing it for. And I think being out there and being well -spoken is something that helps promote that. It's really, and it's free too, like these things. It's not like you have to pay out of pocket. It's really just accrues value to the author, I think.

00:13:00 SPEAKER_Kathleen
Yeah, there are some services out there. Because I'm on so many email lists that I do because of being president of the Writers and Publishers Network. I get so much information. And there's a lot of people now starting to say, oh, for this amount of money, we'll get you on 10 podcasts and stuff like that. I follow them to see what their game is. And a lot of them say, oh, what is your subject matter? And they've got stuff that doesn't make sense for authors. It's like they're just wanting the money. And who knows? And of course, they're small print. We can never guarantee the number of podcasts we'll get you on. It's like, you know, I get upset when people try scamming authors, especially Self -published people because they don't have the sophistication or also have a support unit that they can check on who the scams are and what's going on out there. And, you know, trying to scam people to get them on podcasts seems to be one that's sort of growing. I'm getting more and more.

00:14:10 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
That's interesting. I was not aware of that. I'm not surprised. Getting rid of that middleman is better if people can do it. Like I said, just reach out. Like I said, if you are an author, a first -time author, self -published author, start looking around and see where is a good fit for your work. There's so many, like the podcast community is so variegated. There's so many different facets. Some of the things I'm not aware of, but if you go out and just kind of look around on Facebook and some of these groups, those are places where you can find other people who are interested. in promoting your work and go on there also to practice like you may be shooting for the stars like i'm only holding out for joe rogan that may not be the optimal thing you want to maybe even get a smaller one where you could this person's learning and you're learning too so these are both things where you can test it out in the real world so don't and also you don't know like you don't know how these podcasts bounce around and things like i bet some of the people were on my show five years ago I had Ivor on like four years ago. He probably never knew that I was going to recirculate his interviews. So he's still getting benefit. He's still getting new listeners. Like my show, when I, when he was on, my show probably had 1500 downloads per episode. Now I'm at 10 or 15 ,000. So when he did that show, he's accruing value to himself because it's still around, you know, and I'm not, some people give up on podcasting. Some people. leave or they get dissuaded or discouraged, or they may not, you know, have as much, but for him or for any of those authors who just went with a small fry, like me or minnow at that time, and I'm not saying I'm Joe Rogan, but it paid off and accrued. So, and he's a friend of mine, like we can contact, I've talked to him in other circumstances, try to give him good advice. And it's all been a, been a real benefit. Getting rid of that middleman, I guess, is really questionable. And some of those promises, like why can't you do it yourself? If they're going to get you on 10 podcasts, why don't you just look around for podcasts that are 10 podcasts? There's probably 10 podcasts for whatever your subject matter is, whether it's knitting, science fiction, anything.

00:16:29 SPEAKER_Kathleen
That's the thing when you can just Google. I want the top 100 true crime podcasts. you know, start with it. And then you can, you can reach out to them. You can get the contact information on them, send an email, send along your one sheet, you know, offer, you know, like I have that they can download the ebook for free to see what it's like, you know, just, you know, and that's on a hidden page on your website. And there they go. That's how I've gotten most of the people that I've booked is just email them out, you know, here. That's how I found you for Ivor.

00:17:08 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
It was great. These are winning things. Like I said, it's one hand washes the other. So don't be afraid. And now you can actually use AI if you have a good AI. Find out smaller, popular, type into AI, smaller, popular, true crime or fiction or science fiction, whatever it is, that are looking for guests or something. just give you a list. So there are, there are interesting ways you can go about doing it. And I think that's one of them. Just Googling is easy.

00:17:43 SPEAKER_Adanna
I want to ask, I mean, when did you start your podcast? What, how you went from going on podcasts to starting your own podcast. And I'd like to talk about that switch because I think that, you know, querying and going out there and getting on podcasts is great, but for the tech savvy author, Like if they're willing to start their own podcast and go that route too, that's an important thing to discuss.

00:18:11 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
It's a lot easier than you might think. Why started as a host? I mean, as a guest. And then I would start accruing those. I would say, I want to hold on to that interview. Can I repost it on my YouTube channel? So it wasn't now. And now YouTube is really one of the bigger means whereby people get listens and everything like that. So it's not a pure, I would call it kind of a hybrid video podcast overlap. But then I started putting those on. And then I was heavily censored 2020 and found a host. So the host that I use was Spreaker. There's so many podcast hosts out there with different things. You can go to Acast. Spotify, you have to have a certain amount. They don't take smaller podcasts anymore. But there's a lot. Red Dot, I think, is one that's called. There's so many popping up. But you can start uploading all of your things. They make it very easy. So you can kind of just take your file wherever you did your thing on Zoom or some other streaming service and upload it. So what I did after I got censored is I started uploading that stuff. And I noticed I was getting more and more listens. People were interested in kind of my catalog as mostly a guest. But that hybrid started taking off. I worked for another. That's another thing you can do is find somebody. who's looking for a producer. And if you're willing to put five to five hours a week, the payoff is good. That's what I did. So I worked as a producer for the Ed Opperman report and really saw the kind of back, you know, where the sausage is made, so to speak, the back end of the podcasting industry, getting guests, wrangling people, uploading stuff, handling correspondence. So that was kind of like a hybrid. So it just kind of morphed. And then I realized I was getting a lot of listens. And then, you know, once COVID. was happening and I was home that was kind of where it took off like I don't you know this is something I can make a living at so it was a slow morph and but my recommendation to people who have books and don't have a podcast is you can google that again like where are the best podcast hosts for free they what they usually do is let you get on there for free for like the first 40 episodes or something like that then they'll start asking for money so that's how they kind of wrangle you in. But there's a lot. I mean, I can't think of some of the other names offhand, but there's a lot of opportunity. One of the ways that you make that money, it's an extra source of income too, which is a side income, help pay the groceries these days, is that these interviews, they have something called programmatic ads. So you don't have to do any work. All you have to do is put your podcast up and often they'll do this insertion and you'll get paid. For every thousand ads that gets paid, that gets put out on your podcast. Usually it's different parts. They call it PPM. It's parts per mil, M -I -L -L -E. But usually there's a split that takes place 60, 40, 50, 50 with the host. And it can become a side income, a side gig. And for a lot of people, it's a real career. So that's another kind of thing, much like YouTube sends you money for the ad revenue and things like that. But you, that's another, like Spreaker will just automatically, I think, put ads in and they'll do, like I said, they're automatically generated at certain spots, intro, middle, outro. And so that's a nice, so you can offset any monies you have to pay for them for monthly hosting. If you pay, if you find one that requires monthly hosting, but. To kind of answer your question, that's how I kind of got in is like I took all those things where I was a guest and put them up. And then I became a hybrid and I was like, oh, I should talk to this person. And then I went off from there.

00:22:03 SPEAKER_Adanna
We use Buzzsprout. That's our podcast hosting just for our listeners. And it's so easy. It automatically sends it out wide. I mean, once I hit publish, it sends it out to every podcast listening place. iTunes,

00:22:21 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Spotify, all those things.

00:22:23 SPEAKER_Adanna
things. I mean, it's like 100. I don't even know. It just sends it out everywhere. So anywhere that anyone listens to podcasts, it's there when I hit publish. That was one of the reasons I picked that one, because not all of them do that. Some of them, you have to do it manually.

00:22:44 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
No, it's easier. People shouldn't be intimidated. They make it easy for a reason.

00:22:52 SPEAKER_Adanna
And I mean, to go back to public speaking and being shy, I am inherently shy. And I think that, I mean, us doing the podcast has really helped me. get over that. I mean, I don't know about if I had to stand in front of people how that would go, but I'm much better on the computer than when we started, huh, Kathleen?

00:23:12 SPEAKER_Kathleen
Very, very good. Big improvement.

00:23:16 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
It's true. It's actually more efficient. I mean, if you think about it, this is so much more efficient than traveling for meetings or doing stuff like that. Like, it's just made things so much easier to have Zoom or... stream yard or something like that and like you said then it's not like super in person it's not as much pressure or anything and and like i said it's like riding a bike the more you do it the better you get the less you know you'll say ums and those type of things but it's a good i mean then maybe that's authors when people get into authors because they're inherently shy like i know guys who are like that but if you can kind of you know, break through the firewall and, and talk more. And a lot of things you can turn off the camera. Like the other thing is like some of my guys that we do interviews just like this, you know, so it's really up to you whether depending on the day. So maybe that's a good start. Isn't even to do a video call, just do audio. So as a host, that's what I asked my guest. Would you like to do it live? We don't have to, we can record it. Would you like to do audio and video or audio? And some people are like audio. And I'm like, oh, great. That's fine with me too. I don't mind. So if you're that kind of, if you have, you know, social anxiety to any degree, that's another option.

00:24:36 SPEAKER_Kathleen
I also think doing this helps overcome the social anxiety in a way because they are, you are seeing it like we have three faces up here. But you're able to interact with them more on a personal level, and it gets past that. I'm standing in front of a crowd, you know?

00:24:52 SPEAKER_Adanna
Yeah. How many podcasts do you do a month?

00:24:56 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Well, that's a good question. I think I'm on a podcast or hosting a podcast probably 15, 20 times a month. So it's about 15 to 20 hours is how much I record. When we're done, I'll have two more after I'm done today. It became a lot. And that's kind of, I mean, in some ways, that's kind of the interesting thing. It makes it kind of unique, maybe fresh, is that I'm inverting as a guest and then as a host. So I'll be a guest twice this morning, and then I'm hosting somebody at 2 o 'clock. So,

00:25:30 SPEAKER_Adanna
I mean, you've written books, you've done documentaries, and you do the podcast. We've focused on the podcast a lot, but I feel like you're a unique person for us to have on the podcast because, Our podcast dives so much into the business side of writing. So you were an author first. Can you talk about the journey from author to doing the documentaries? I mean, do they tie into your books? I mean, what is that whole process for you? How did that come about?

00:26:03 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
It's a great question. I was an author researcher. I was really a researcher before an author. So I was researching historical figures. or events or true crime and during that research i would accrue a lot of written work but also visual visual things so pictures video movies etc and i was never i was i'm not a person who has that artist don't come from an artistic background i didn't go to art school but i saw that there's different mediums that i could put present my information in a book in a hard cover paperback or kindle And then also this movie. So I started off making little small five -minute, maybe four -minute movies. But that could be a hybrid, very rudimentary editing on iMovie of all places. So whatever came free with a Mac. So I would start that. And then I would accrue enough information writing a book where I could go, well, I could just put this into a short film or documentary. And I'd already written all the words. to to make that next step to put something on my documentaries are micro budgeted they're not they're all for me there's not i don't have a any other person working i have sometimes i had friends do some of the some of the art stuff and things like that but i did it all myself but i think that they're more kind of a visual study so that's kind of that was kind of a branch off and then i started i actually did two indiegogo campaigns which is another way to raise money for a book or a video. My first documentary was, I think, 2017. Well, the first Indiegogo was 2017. And I raised a couple thousand. Not that much, I mean, comparatively, but that helped kind of make the project easier to conclude. And so that was just another way also to kind of keep my mind nimble and something else than...

00:27:56 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
that was just another way also to kind of keep my mind nimble and something else than... Having writer's block or creative blocks, I could make a documentary. And so that was kind of how the documentary came about. And I graduated. If you're self -publishing, you're learning these kind of different. I don't know if you've heard of Bellum, but I downloaded kind of this book editing software that I never used before. But in prior things, I would use iBooks or things like that. But it kind of led me to experimenting with newer software, which I would never have used. in my life and it was called final cut so that's the editing software that comes with a mac or apple and just tinkered around with that and so i just took a lot all those those those documentaries really are documentaries are data dumps from my book research and so you know i added some very rudimentary music in the background and people still like them i mean nobody said that i'm like the next kubrick or anything like that but they find when they're they get a lot of good information. Like that's what I'm trying to, you know, trying to convey is kind of just the solid, kind of solid historical evidentiary information. So that's kind of what it was. And so then those, I put those up on Amazon and there's a lot of things that self, much like, I think it was very easy to transfer over because I learned from Kindle KDP or what was called CreateSpace, believe it or not, it's gone. But it was easy to kind of go, okay, so you can upload it here. Well, I can just do that, something similar to that on Amazon with my documentaries. And so that's a nice way to get passive income too. So it's like those crew value.

00:29:43 SPEAKER_Adanna
And do they tie into the books or are they their own thing?

00:29:47 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
They're the same title. So I wrote Profit of Evil. Okay, so they do tie into it. Yeah, yeah. So my first book is Profit of Evil. Documentary is Profit of Evil. I have one, Children of the Beast. So my documentary is Children of the Beast. And then my book, Smiley Face Killers, which is this phenomenon of young men disappearing at night later to be found at water,

00:29:48 SPEAKER_Adanna
wrote Profit of Evil. Okay, so they do tie into it. Yeah,

00:30:03 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
young men disappearing at night later to be found at water, passed away or dead in water. That was actually the inverse. So I did two documentaries on the Smiley Face Killers, and then I took all that information and put it into a 400 -page book about the Smiley Face Killers, which was published in 2023.

00:30:23 SPEAKER_Kathleen
Who were the Smiley Face Killers?

00:30:25 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Well, that's a good question. It's kind of a mysterious thing because some people have been arrested for maybe one or two murders, but not for the spate. There's been over 400 of these types of deaths in the U .S. or in Europe worldwide. So what it is, is the phenomenon is defined as a young man going out at night, going to a bar, separated from his friends, later to be found in water, sometimes much later than. to be expected, sometimes 40 days, 30 days, two weeks, three weeks. And it's happening all over the world. And it got its designation from two of the original researchers into this phenomenon, which is fairly new. It's really only took off since the 1990s, the advent of the internet, strangely. But the two original investigators were a guy by the name of Gilbertson, who was a criminology professor. I believe in Minnesota and Gannon, who was a New York PD detective. And they saw the same phenomenon happening in different geographical areas. And they came together. They wrote a book called case studies in forensic drownings. And they named this, the smiley face killings, because in some of the cases there where they think the bodies were put in water, there was a smiley face spray painted. So it got this kind of designation. And it stuck. And so it's just morphed. And I mean, it's still happening today. They actually published something in the Daily Mail in the UK talking about the 38 bodies who've been found in Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. So there's a spate, like people are talking, Joe Rogan was talking about it, that he thinks there's a serial killer in Austin and they're dumping bodies in the lake or near the lake. And so. that's really it so the smiley face killers is kind of like a vague phenomenon like some of these people are never caught they're close to being caught they caught one guy doing this kind of phenomenon killing in oxford uk his name well he was a transsexual his name was not divulged but his transsexual name was scarlet blake and he found this is a very one of the strangest things about this event is it's not like a crime of passion, a personal crime. These usually are like random people. Scarlett Blake went out late at night and found a drunk young man named Jose Carreño and lured him out of the CCTV cameras in downtown Oxford and took him to a pond and either ritually drowned him or killed him. And he got away with it. And he wouldn't have been caught had not one of his either lovers or... Friends within the transsexual community told the police that he had confessed to committing that crime. So the public was thinking this young man, Carreño, just went over and drowned accidentally. The family thought that that was what the public thought. And then they found out that actually he was killed by Scarlett Blake, either hit in the head with a vodka bottle or drowned. So these, so, and then, then what happened is, is then he just got convicted. I think this year he, the police never asked him if he ever did it again, or if he had committed the same crime in the past, but he got convicted for that crime. He was also kind of similar to a guy by the name of Luca McNati, who was also a cat killer and ended up killing humans because Scarlett Blake did the same thing. He was a cat killer. and advanced to killing humans and luca magnata magnata wasn't his real name either he kind of went through this transformation into kind of either some kind of model or something like that but he literally murdered butchered somebody and filmed it too so anyway the smiley face killings is a strange phenomenon there's been very popular well -known cases chicago austin like i mentioned there was one

00:34:18 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
kind of either some kind of model or something like that but he literally murdered butchered somebody and filmed it too so anyway the smiley face killings is a strange phenomenon there's been very popular well -known cases chicago austin like i mentioned there was one Last year, a guy by the name of Riley Strain in Nashville. So it's happening in all these kind of urban areas, really all over the world. There's these huge spates in Texas, of all places, which this phenomenon wasn't seen before. Right now, they found in Portland, as of today, June 5th, they've had a spate of like five or six bodies found. in the river there. I think it's the Willamette river. So people are like something very dark is happening. And that's how that's named. It's like the guys who first investigated it. I don't think that they would have anticipated that it would become kind of this huge phenomenon. That's like captivated people's minds. Now. I think it's, there's tons of videos on YouTube about this phenomenon with millions and millions of views.

00:35:31 SPEAKER_Adanna
Fascinating. Well, we're almost at a time. So,

00:35:35 SPEAKER_Adanna
I mean, what would be your one piece of advice for, you know,

00:35:40 SPEAKER_Adanna
of advice for, you know, the author starting out and, you know, going for self -promotion to, you know, to be successful or to hope to be successful?

00:35:52 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Start a network, start a podcast and think of yourself as more of a hybrid than just a pure author. It's good to be an author. The other thing, it's like a cure for writer's block too. If you have writer's block become a podcast host, because that may actually give you more inspiration to write another book. So I would say resilience is actually, maybe it may not even be the most like talented writer out there, but the fact that you're resilient and kind of keep going. And if you love to do it, then you're in the right place. So I don't have like one answer, but just keep going. And I would say. Think of yourself more in a hybrid, tribrid, if that's even a word, kind of person where you try to do it all. And I think it pays off. And I've built up a network, including Kathleen, of other people and keep a Rolodex to a certain extent, whatever it is, of all your contacts. Because the contacts that I've accrued and people I've met have paid. I just picked up another interview on the Smelly Face Killers for Tuesday for somebody I met three years ago. So being open and available and self -promoting your thing, I think is really important and not being proactive and not passive, like waiting for it to happen to you. If you see somebody who's in the same genre you are, whatever it is, cooking or whatever, reach out to them and say, hey, I've got some different recipes or whatever. A lot of these collaborations take place. without a lot of formal stuff. Like, Hey, I'm interested in that too. Let me check this out. So a lot of these like connections and the link link things just happen because people are open and available. I have contact information. So I've to distill it down into one thing, just keep at it, have good contact information and make those connections yourself. Like, like I said, those guests, like I'm always looking for guests, not all. Books or things are all perfect fits for me, but sometimes they come across my desk and it's like, this is exactly what I need for my show. So hopefully that's the same thing for whatever genre you're writing in now too. And you don't have, you know, you don't have a lot of these genres are artificial. I put my show on true crime, but I've covered all kinds of stories like memoirs and history and adventure tales and things like that. Don't be dissuaded just because somebody's not in your exact genre. They may not have a choice but to pick that genre. Anyway, that's a long rambling answer.

00:38:30 SPEAKER_Adanna
No, I like that. I mean, you know, that's what we're here for is information. And I like tri -bread. If it's not a word, we should make it a word because I feel like as an author, that's what we are. I mean, you know, it's the many hats. It's not just getting to sit in a room and write. It's, you know, it's marketing. It's self -promotion and it's, you know, collaborating on cover design and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, there are lots of pieces and parts that go into getting a book out. Where can everybody find you if they wanted to get in touch with you?

00:39:04 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
My website, williamramseyinvestigates .com. There's contact information. There's information about my books. There's other articles section on there. There's a blog. There's a link to my podcast as well. So it's pretty much all there. If you are an author and you think you're a good fit for William Ramsey Investigates, I usually do all true crime. So true crime is easy. If you're writing a true crime book, reach out to me. I'd love to have you on.

00:39:29 SPEAKER_Kathleen
Yeah. And also your podcast is William Ramsey Investigates, too. Correct. That's correct. You've sort of branded that. That's really good.

00:39:37 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
I had earlier branding. I rechanged my branding. When I first wrote my book, it was a cult investigation. So I kind of like was because I was interested in kind of. Aleister Crowley, who's an occultist. But then it morphed into just investigating everything and anything. Don't be afraid to rebrand, too.

00:39:59 SPEAKER_Kathleen
You might think the first thing, what you think it is, it isn't it. You've got to go with what people come to, what they are attracted to. Okay, well, thank you very much, William. We're going to put your contact information. Adanna, let's put up a couple of those like buzz sprouts and stuff like that on the page so that people, if they're interested in following William's advice, they go there. Okay. And can find out about how to start their own podcast because I think it's really great. Adanna, I've had a great time doing this now. We're going on almost six years.

00:40:36 SPEAKER_Adanna
Yeah. We're like mid season five. So congrats. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, we've had a lot of fun doing it and. I mean, I feel like we learn stuff and we get to talk to really cool, interesting people like William, who, you know, I mean, I never would have got to talk to most of our guests if we didn't have a podcast. Pick their brains and, you know, it's fun.

00:40:59 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
It works both ways, too. So it's cross fertilization, too. So it's.

00:41:04 SPEAKER_Kathleen
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much, William, and for joining us and being our guest on Talking Book Publishing.

00:41:14 SPEAKER_William Ramsey
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.