Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Gina Ramsey. Gina is a multifaceted individual with a passion for making a difference in the world through humor, inspiration, and connection. Based in Superior, Wisconsin, she wears many hats as an author, humorist, entrepreneur, podcast host, and bucket list guru. Gina's an expert in finding the funny in life's ongoing crazy mishaps and blunders. These are highlighted in her books, Burnt Glove Boxes, Embracing Life When It Goes up in Flames, volumes one and two. Gina, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:00]:
Thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
Gina Ramsey [00:01:04]:
Thank you for having me, Susan. I appreciate it.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:07]:
I've got to ask you about this bucket list guru. What is that all about?
Gina Ramsey [00:01:12]:
It's funny because it really feeds into my book number of years ago. It was probably about 2004, I did a journaling class and one of the activities was to write our bucket list. And we had like a minute or two minutes that she gave us to write as fast as we could. And so I wrote all of these things. If you've heard of the law of attraction, I was actually doing that, the law of attractions, manifesting things that I really wanted to do in my life. And one of those things was writing my book, which is the Burnt Globe Boxes book series. So all these years, I've been telling people that I'm going to do this. I've been writing it, writing story titles, and through all of setting goals and setting my intentions and taking the steps to reach those goals.
Gina Ramsey [00:02:05]:
I aspire to encourage others to fulfill their bucket list, or whatever you call it. Some people, they call it their dream thing list. Some people don't like it referred to as bucket list. But don't go out of this world with regrets, and we're not guaranteed tomorrow. So start writing those things that you really want to do in your life, including if you want to set a legacy, change the world, give your gifts to the world, which is what my books are all about, is bringing joy and happiness to our world one laugh at a time. Yeah, I encourage people to live out their dreams.
Susan Friedmann [00:02:44]:
Wonderful. I love it. Yes. You talk about uplifting people with humor. Did you always have a good sense of humor or was it something that grew out of experience?
Gina Ramsey [00:02:56]:
My dad was really funny and he would always do funny things. I remember as a kid with my best friend, we would laugh at everything to where you're eating dinner and you blow milk out your nose. You're laughing at just the dumb stuff in life. Right. I think that he really set the example. And then I watched a lot of funny shows. Like I really just gravitated to things that made me giggle and made me feel good.
Susan Friedmann [00:03:21]:
I love that it's so funny when you said the milk coming out of your nose. My son in law has this habit of cracking a joke just when I've got some tea or something in my mouth water. And the same thing happens. And then it's. Everybody is hysterical, of course. So yes, if authors want to use humor, how can they do that without sounding fake?
Gina Ramsey [00:03:47]:
The biggest thing with it is not going overboard with it. There's something in the humor writing techniques and it's using the element of surprise. If you look at funny movies, one of the funny movies you know, you think about is maybe A Christmas Story where Ralphie's trying to get his Red Rider BB gun. The humorous parts that come as a surprise, the tension leads you to this funny thing that happens. And I think that if a writer tries to be too funny and adds too much in there, the reader can get bored. You don't want the reader putting the book down. You want to keep them reading. I think it's really important to really know the importance of good story structure and then incorporating humor within that story.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:41]:
So do you think it's easier to be funny in your writing or in speaking?
Gina Ramsey [00:04:47]:
That's a great question for me personally, because I'm just breaking into the public speaking on stage. I'm learning that craft. For me, with writing, I have that opportunity to think through what I want to write, or if something doesn't seem as funny, maybe I'll take that out or add a little something here or there. So I think writing funny allows me that space to think through it. And I know we had had a previous conversation about you can try to be funny, but if the audience doesn't think that what you're saying is funny, that can be tough. But yeah, just talking with a friend or whatever, I do great with being funny.
Susan Friedmann [00:05:28]:
It changes when you get up in front of hundreds of people on a stage. Yes. Do you test out what you've written? Let's say you've written something that's meant to be humorous. Do you test that out with friends, family, even your clients?
Gina Ramsey [00:05:44]:
Maybe I actually do. There's a lot of writers who, they write their stories, they edit, they send it to the publisher or the editor. And they don't read it to their family. They don't read it to anybody. But my family is my biggest support and especially my husband's. I'll write a story and I'll read it to him. The thing is, with my two books, these are stories that have actually happened to us that are hilarious. It's Murphy's Law scenarios, life's mishaps.
Gina Ramsey [00:06:14]:
Like you mentioned in the beginning, they're already naturally funny, so I don't have to go overboard and try to be funnier with them because what's unfolding is already kind of comical.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:25]:
I love the fact that you're thinking of something. We don't know what it is, but it's obviously funny because you're laughing about it.
Gina Ramsey [00:06:33]:
Yeah, my whole life is funny.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:37]:
Well, how do you actually spot those funny parts of mishaps, as you say? I mean, things are happening every day. I mean, if I think back on my day to day, I'm sure there is something that I could pull out that would be funny. But I don't think like that. How can you teach me to think like that, baby?
Gina Ramsey [00:07:00]:
One of those steps. And I have taken several writing classes with humor writers. I was already doing a lot of stuff that they suggest because I didn't train in this stuff. So I don't know how I knew to do these things. But just keeping a list, keeping a little booklet next to you or doing a. Like a notes in your phone. And when you see something that you're curious about or that you feel like maybe this could have a humorous spin to it, put it in your notes in your little notebook or in your notes on your phone. You may or may not use it later on, but it's something to reflect back on.
Gina Ramsey [00:07:39]:
And then also as you're watching TV or watching movies, watch funny shows, and if you hear quotes that kind of stand out to you, write those things down. As writers, we're always writers. And that counts as writing because you're doing the homework. Right. And then just always observing and looking for the humor. You have to just kind of train yourself to do that. And not everything's funny either.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:05]:
Yeah. As much as you'd like to add that spin, that spin to it. Yeah. There are times when it's not appropriate to be humorous, but some people do despite that.
Gina Ramsey [00:08:19]:
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I have a really good friend. Her name is Julie, and she had a bout with breast cancer and I believe colon cancer. She had two different cancers going at the same time. Her insurance dropped her. Her book is called My Health Care is Killing Me. And it's not a humor book. But she incorporates humor.
Gina Ramsey [00:08:43]:
She incorporates snarkiness and the way she puts spins and it's again, it's not overdone. Her little snarky comments come as a surprise. You know, if it's a receptionist that was rude to her, she'll put a humorous spin on that. Which I think is helpful too, because you don't want to be mean spirited towards people. You want to write from a place of compassion or at least just not being mean the way she does it is really, really well done. I think you can find ways to do it. But it's like you said, being cautious to not overstep bounds and being mean.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:22]:
Well, and what's funny to us here in the US May not be funny to somebody in Europe or in another country. In an Asian country. Their sense of humor may be completely different. Not maybe it is very different. Having spent time in different countries, what happens when you talk to an international audience? How do you balance that? Because if you talk in American terms, it just goes over their head because they don't understand it.
Gina Ramsey [00:09:55]:
Yes, and that's a great point. I know that. Again, just learning the whole, like, piece of that with public speaking. But I did go to the association for Applied Therapeutic Humor Conference, which is an international conference. They held it in North Carolina, but there were a lot of international people, people from all over the world who attended it. And one of the Asian ladies, and I can't remember which country she was from, but this one keynote speaker was being funny and he was making references to movies and different things that she had no clue about. She said, I struggled with a lot of his presentation because I didn't know what he was referencing. And everybody's laughing, right.
Gina Ramsey [00:10:39]:
But she's not understanding what people are laughing about. So I think it's, especially in this public speaking realm, I think it's really important to know your audience and to be able to tailor your craft to each audience that you're speaking to. And it could still fall short. So, you know, but doing your best to try to accommodate.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:59]:
So that leads me to the question, what happens if you use humor and it does fall flat? What do you do?
Gina Ramsey [00:11:07]:
Yeah, for me personally, if a statement I make that I think is kind of funny and it falls short, I just keep going. I don't try to get in my head about it because like you had mentioned just a little bit ago, humor is very subjective. So what's funny to one person. I mean, you even look at TV shows. Some people love Seinfeld, some people hate Seinfeld. Right. I don't take it personally. I just keep going with my presentation.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:36]:
Yeah. And just being aware. When you're doing public speaking, you're reading the audience.
Gina Ramsey [00:11:41]:
Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:42]:
I mean a good speaker is. Is reading that audience. They can see, are they smiling, are they laughing, are they crying? How are they reacting to you is really important because obviously, and I was telling you I had this experience many, many years ago in Duluth, Minnesota, where I was doing a full day presentation. I believe it was on time management and nobody laughed. They're deadpan faces the whole day. I mean, I could have stood on my head, I could have spit quarters, I could have juggled. I could have done crazy things. It was if this blank look and people had been sent to this presentation and it was a public workshop.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:34]:
People had been sent there. There was this begrudging having to sit listening to this woman who they didn't want to listen to. Yeah. They certainly let me know that.
Gina Ramsey [00:12:45]:
I think that's a huge piece too. Is you look at if it's a workforce, right. And the employer's trying to check off that box of self care or trying to create a more cohesive work environment. Well, these people have work tasks they got to do. And now they're being made to go to this presentation or this day long conference when they have other stuff that they got to do and they know that it's piling up. Right. I've worked for years in kind of that setting and it's tough. So it depends on your audience.
Gina Ramsey [00:13:19]:
There's one phrase that I was taught by a lady that we both know, Judy Kane. And I came up with the phrase, but it was kind of like working through my issues with stuff like that. And I did my best and my best is good enough. And it's an easy way to. If you come up with this mantra of being able to let go.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:41]:
Right.
Gina Ramsey [00:13:42]:
And in that moment you probably felt horrible. But at some point you got to just let it go and move on. And I bet the next presentation you did was good and you had a good reception.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:55]:
Yeah. And that actually happened because I was spending a week traveling from one city to the other in Minnesota and I was like, this first one was so awful. And I thought, oh my goodness, if I'm going to have a week of this, any event, the next stop was Sinclair. And that was great. And then I went on to Minneapolis and. Is it Bloomington? Bloomingdale? Yes, it Worked out and it was a fabulous week. It just started off negatively and I just went to my hotel room. I just wept.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:32]:
But I wish I'd known that phrase, you know, you did your best, you.
Gina Ramsey [00:14:37]:
Can use it and your listeners can use it too.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:39]:
Yes, it's a great phrase. What about mistakes? I mean, this is just wide open humor for people making mistakes of trying to be funny. What are some of those common mistakes that you've seen or you've heard about?
Gina Ramsey [00:15:00]:
The one thing I had mentioned is not overdoing it, using that element of surprise where your reader's not expecting it, the little comment that comes out. The other thing, common phrase in the humor world is you punch up, you don't punch down. So you don't make fun of certain populations. It's just not appropriate. You punch out bad celebrities or politicians. I personally don't like punching at all. I just, I'm not a mean spirited person. And really one of the writing classes that I take weekly with my writing coach, Leslie Leland Fields, she teaches memoir.
Gina Ramsey [00:15:38]:
So she doesn't teach humor, but she teaches about how to come from a place of understanding, stepping in the other person's shoes. What could they be going through when they dragged you through the mud and kept you hostage, talking to you for hours and you can't get away, what is it that they might be going through? So coming from a place of that and the other thing that sometimes people tend to do is they'll use cliches and really it's phrases that have been used before. A good example is airplane food. A lot of humorists, a lot of comedians have talked about the horrible airplane food, Right. So we all know that the airplane has bad food. When you use a lot of cliches, people have already heard it and then again the writing becomes boring. They heard it before, they don't want to keep reading. So on your goal as a writer and as an author is to keep them reading.
Gina Ramsey [00:16:33]:
How can you rephrase that? How can you put a different spin on it? So it's not the same old same old that people have heard before. So those are three of the big ones that can help your humor writing.
Susan Friedmann [00:16:46]:
And I've heard self deprecating humor, if you're going to make fun of somebody, do it about yourself.
Gina Ramsey [00:16:52]:
Absolutely.
Susan Friedmann [00:16:53]:
And if somebody wants to laugh at that and they suddenly say, oh yeah, that happened to me, or I feel the same way about that.
Gina Ramsey [00:17:00]:
Yes, yeah, exactly. And I use some of that. And you gotta be careful too though. We have to be careful of how we talk about ourselves and what we're putting out there about ourselves. Right. Because if you don't have a good self esteem or even like, saying mean things about yourself can impact your life in so many ways. Oh, it just puts a negative spin. Being careful with that.
Gina Ramsey [00:17:26]:
Don't do too much of putting yourself down. We want you to have a good self esteem.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:31]:
Absolutely. But if you're going to make fun of somebody, make it about yourself.
Gina Ramsey [00:17:35]:
Yes, absolutely.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:36]:
Before you, as you say, punch up to somebody else. Rather, the punch down is more make fun of yourself and what you do and the mistakes that you make. Because we all make mistakes.
Gina Ramsey [00:17:48]:
Yes.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:48]:
And some of them are funnier than others. Or at the time, they weren't funny. But in hindsight, looking back, it was like, yes, that was hilarious. I just didn't think it was funny at the time.
Gina Ramsey [00:17:59]:
Yeah. And that's what makes your humor writing relatable. Because people have experienced some of these things. Right. Maybe in different ways. I talk about our golden retriever, Rusty. He was crazy. Constantly getting into things and running the neighborhood.
Gina Ramsey [00:18:15]:
People really related with those stories about him because they've had a dog or a cat. That's been crazy. Yeah. You want to be relatable to your audience, for sure.
Susan Friedmann [00:18:24]:
Yeah. And as we said, being sensitive to them, being sensitive to the environment that you're in, and especially obviously, if you've got a multinational audience that you respect that as well. And if you're going to use humor, then it's something that everybody as a person can potentially relate to. Would you agree with that?
Gina Ramsey [00:18:50]:
Absolutely. And there's different types of editors, and I can't think of right off the top of my head, but I know that there's editors that can screen your writing for cultural insensitivity. Even if you're going to self publish, make sure you're getting editors with their eyes on your stuff. Because it's amazing the things that you might not see that the editor is going to say, you know what? I would leave this out because this is not going to fall well on your readers. I think that's so important to make sure you have eyes on your material.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:25]:
What would you say to someone who thinks they're not funny?
Gina Ramsey [00:19:29]:
Laughter is one of our primary things that we do as from a baby. Right. And we've laughed like hundreds and hundreds of times as a child. And then we turn into adults and somehow the world is no longer funny or we don't laugh as much. I think everybody has an innate sense of humor, thinks certain things are funny. And I think it's just really honing in on that again, watching movies that you think are funny or shows, really start writing, start writing things that you think are funny. And then the other thing is reading about writing funny. There's a gentleman, Scott Dickers, and he has three books.
Gina Ramsey [00:20:17]:
The first one is how to Write Funny. The second one's how to Write Funnier and the funniest, they kind of follow along. But he used to write for what's called the Onion, which was a newspaper out of Madison. And it was just ridiculous stuff that they wrote, just funny stuff. But he has a lot of great tips in there. So I'd say read books on writing funny, read humor books, see what you like, see what you don't care for and then start writing and meet with writing groups or have a writing partner that can review your things and go from there.
Susan Friedmann [00:20:55]:
Yeah, just the thought of adding humor is. It's a little scary for someone who. I might use humor in my speech, but I hadn't thought about it from a writing standpoint other than the fact that I might, as I said, use it. Maybe some self deprecating humor if I wrote something. But yeah, it's a little scary, the whole idea of writing funny.
Gina Ramsey [00:21:23]:
Yeah. I've sat through several of Scott's classes and he talks about write all the funny stuff that you think go overboard with it because you can always take out. Now that's a great technique. I didn't do it that way. I just wrote my stories as I remembered them. Kind of tweaked the funny as I went along. I think that there's different ways of doing it, but really immerse yourself in funny stuff if you want to write funny. Because writing humor, it can be difficult because of all the reasons we just talked about.
Gina Ramsey [00:21:56]:
You want people to read your book. Just really having a good feeling for that. And then again, I can't stress it enough, but knowing the formula, the structure of good writing, having the outer story, bringing your reader in with you, showing them like they're standing next to you during this, versus telling them, I did this and I did that, and really digging for the inner story, which that's where the golden nuggets are, that's the meaning to you, what you took away from this experience, what you hope that your reader might take away from it, really doing that story structure correctly and then interjecting funny throughout your story is going to be the most effective because it's going to keep your reader reading.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:46]:
And that's a beautiful segue into how our listeners can find out more about you. And you're funny.
Gina Ramsey [00:22:54]:
You can find me at my website is www.ginaramsayauthor.com. and then I'm also on Facebook and Instagram and all the things, all the social media. I'm more engaged on Instagram and Facebook. If you want a free bookmark and a. A book plate, A book plate is where I would sign it for your book. If you choose to purchase my book, you can just reach out to me on my website and pick which color, best bookmark you'd like, and I'll get that in the mail to you.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:26]:
How generous. That's so nice. And it's not if it's when you buy my book.
Gina Ramsey [00:23:32]:
That's right.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:34]:
And listeners, it's a great book. Well, books, because Tina's written two burnt glove boxes. So yes. Embracing life when it goes up in flames. I love that you mentioned golden nuggets. And as you know, we always have our guests leave our listeners with a golden nugget. What's yours, Gina?
Gina Ramsey [00:23:59]:
I think it's so important to have a positive impact on our world and sharing our gifts and finding those gifts. And I found my gifts by starting the writing process, but apparently I found those gifts years ago when I wrote down those dreams of writing my books. I just encourage every single person on here, whether it's writing or travel or whatever it is that you aspire to do, set those goals in and do that. I think it's so important to yourself to treat yourself to your dreams and your goals that you have in life.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. No regrets.
Gina Ramsey [00:24:39]:
No regrets.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:39]:
You just don't want any regrets. There's nothing worse than not doing the things that you wanted to do because you decided for one reason or another, you didn't have the money, you didn't have the time. There were other things that were more important at the time.
Gina Ramsey [00:24:58]:
Yeah, anything's possible.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:00]:
Yes. Gina, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. There were some really fun things that I know that our listeners can take away and use in their writing or their speaking or even just how to go about adding the funny to their work. And listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales. Because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. Go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Here's how to connect with Gina:
Go to Gina's Website to request a free bookmark and a signed bookplate.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginaramsey
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/ginaramsey429
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@ginaramsey429
Gina's books: Burnt Gloveboxes II: Embracing Life When It Goes Up in Flames
