We were lucky to catch up with Bethany Rosa recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Bethany, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
My work ethic stems from growing up at a very young age. I moved out at fifteen years old and needed a job to afford necessities such as clothes and food. It was never an option not to have a good work ethic. Then, as I grew older, my goal to succeed in life and make something of myself drove me to work hard in everything I did.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
After waking up from a dream in early 2023, I decided to turn that dream into my first romance novel. I’d been reading romance for years and knew one day it was something I wanted to do myself. It was perfect timing, with three out of four kids leaving the nest and a lot more time on my hands. One year later, my first book, Pursuit of Innocence, was published in February of 2024. I chose to self-publish because of my type A personality and knowing I wanted to be in control of the entire process.
Since then, I’ve written Dangerous Pursuit, the second book in what has now become The Pursuit Series. Book number two will be released on October 20th, 2024. I also have a Christmas novella related to the series coming out in December and another two books to be published in 2025 to complete the five-book series. Then I’ll take a break. Maybe…
In the meantime, I’m traveling to multiple conferences, signings, and book clubs to promote the series.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The main thing that helped was being so well-read in the genre I was writing. The year before writing my own, I had read 260 romance novels. I knew what I liked, what sold well, and what was popular.
Not taking shortcuts is a huge factor when deciding to self-publish the right way. Using the same professional services that a large publishing company would use, from cover design and editing to formatting the book, is all necessary. Basically, a commitment to excellence is imperative when undertaking this type of project.
Lastly, staying on track and not giving up is a must. Tenacity is crucial. It’s not just about writing a book and uploading it to Amazon. It takes a lot more than that to get it into the hands of readers.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Book in a Month by Victoria Lynn Schmidt was the book I turned to when I got serious about making this a reality. The funny thing is, I’d owned the book for years, sitting on my shelf gathering dust. I already had roughly two chapters written from the dream that started the whole idea but no story to go with it. So I read that book from start to finish, used the worksheets to learn how to outline the story and develop my characters, and by the time I followed all the instructions, I had a novel to write. Four months later, I had a finished manuscript of 115,000 words.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bethanyrosa.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/bethanyrosa.author/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554238752741
- Other: https://tiktok.com/@authorbethanyrosa
Image Credits
Andrew Jefferis Photography
Graphic design by Jolene Morice
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