We share the interview that Roberto Ponce conducted with us for Proceso Magazine number 2417.
The narrator Paulina de la Vega, 34, chose to adapt to the times and created her company focused on the new world of digital content. There, this entrepreneur published her first book of five stories: Espelustrófico, which she will present on the last Tuesday of February, also inviting new writers on her adventure of publishing their own books in print or digital format with her. Independently and without intermediaries, for representing her company Letras Laetas “a great alternative”, whose history, intention and content she exposes in dialogue with Proceso.
Roberto Ponce
Graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UNAM and with a master’s degree in marketing and advertising, the writer Paulina de la Vega got tired of looking for publishers for her stories and decided to publish them through her company Letras Laetas, where she launched her first book: Espelustrófico.
Receive Proceso with a smiling invitation in a warm office in Colonia Florida (visit https://www.letraslaetas.com/). He points out that Letras Laetas means “happy letters” (from the Latin laetitia, “joy” and laetus, “happy”):
“To all the writers who knock on doors, who have as their great dream to see their names in a magazine or in a book, keep trying, don’t get discouraged. The important thing is to write, not just publish and publish. But for those who wish to make themselves known independently, I assure you that this medium is a great alternative and if you dare, we at Letras Laetas would be delighted to help you.”
What is the philosophy of Paulina de la Vega?
“To be happy. I’m doing well. I dedicate myself to my passion, which is letters, even now that we are in the field of marketing and my agency is dedicated to content marketing, I feel that it is the natural evolution of the publisher. In the past, the editor had to review the texts, verify that the pages of the magazine were well assembled, that the books were well done; but now a lot of the content that is being published does not even reach print formats anymore”
“Obviously the book trade is currently very different from how it was before, now there are digital platforms such as Amazon, Apple Books, the same Google that has its book section where they allow a person to publish their content without the need for intermediaries.”
Paulina explains about her company Letras Laetas:
“We are a digital content agency focused on the writing of specialized texts, graphic design and search engine optimization. We edit, translate, write and create new content considering the trends and particular needs of each client. Everything starts with an idea, with a couple of drafts from our creative team, and ends until we get the desired results. We offer marketing content services through a platform where professionals from various areas can sign up to write specialized content for their brand or project. We also give workshops on written communication, search engine positioning and content marketing to companies and the general public.”
Letras Laetas generates relevant texts, abounds:
“Having specialized content on your social media and on your website gives your company authority and credibility, factors that search engines consider to give you their first positions. As we are a digital content agency focused on writing and creating specialized content, this means that in addition to studying the potential audience, we consider the path to purchases. We are rigorous with the editorial care of the contents, and our information sources are reliable: academic articles, specialized magazines, among others, which provides greater credibility of Internet users towards your brand.”
His company’s site is summed up by the phrase: Traditional marketing speaks to people; content marketing talks to people. The well-built Letras Laetas blog explains step-by-step the options for editorial services for electronic books (e-books) with graphic design, writing, translation, and proofreading, because “to people who want to publish their books on platforms like Amazon or Apple Books, our e-book design and publishing services are the perfect solution.”
What are the benefits of publishing a book, either print or digital, of your own authorship with Letras Laetas?
“You have the freedom to choose your cover, choose the typography of your book, publish the things that you were born to write without necessarily attending to a specific commercial objective. And I feel that it is a safer bet because literary art should not have a commercial objective, it must arise as from something internal that you want to communicate.”
“In my case, I had gone to some publishers with my stories, for example, Random House never answered me… I think there is a lot of offer, a lot of people who have stories and talent, are very good writers; but maybe they don’t have a fan base wide enough for a publishing house to bet on them.”
Mention benefits for the publication of a new digital book:
“Once the author has a first manuscript, we make sure the spelling and grammar are correct. If my company detects errors or semantic ambiguity, it notifies the writer through a commented file. Once the text has been polished, the next step is to dress your e-book with images, colors and fonts, we can even generate interactive content such as videos, interchange format with gif images, etc., until you are 100% satisfied with the book design and its front page.”
As for the publication on platforms, Paulina points out:
“We advise you to upload the work on platforms such as Amazon Direct Publishing or Apple Books. We help you understand how royalties work in them and to enter your bank details to receive payments directly to your account without third party intervention. In the case of writers of Mexican nationality, we carry out all the registrations of the work in the National Institute of Copyright (Indautor) and the ISBN process of your book.”
“With this we contribute to protect copyrights, control and promote that you are part of the nation’s cultural heritage. Lastly, we make sure your e-book reaches the people who may be interested in buying it, through the use of your personal social media and search engine ad campaigns.”
“For proper promotion, we will provide you with personal advice and the option of taking professional photo studios that you can use in your book and on your social media.”
Direct royalties
Paulina de la Vega was born on June 29, 1988 and recognizes that the five stories in the 121 pages of Espelustrófico: Cuando lo que no buscamos nos encuentra…, contain passages from her life (https://paudelavega.com):
“The title does not refer to it being a horror book, but rather to some of the horrifying situations that specifically women can face. I talk about issues that I brought up in my youth. I began to write the first drafts that I continued working on later and I sent many of them to contests, I also applied for various scholarships, for example, the Foundation for Mexican Letters, for Fonca, and yet it never happened that I won any of these awards.
But he continued polishing texts, took various workshops, and he names one in particular: creative writing at the Sor Juana Cloister, with Felipe Soto Viterbo (Conspiracy of the things, Verloso), a communication specialist and editor of Chilango and Time Out.
The prologue to Espelustrófico was written by the journalist and singer-songwriter Hugo García Michel, founder of the rock magazine La Mosca (1994-2008), for whom Paulina edited the compilation El rockcito y yo: Todo lo que quería saber sobre el rock hecho en México and the novel La suerte de los feos: Historia de un secuestro en clave de rock on paper and digital formats (e-book). Paulina has sung and recorded some of her songs. García Michel writes:
“With Espelustrófico Paulina de la Vega has achieved a book capable of absorbing whoever reads it and of moving them away and even alienating them from that real reality from which it is often convenient to distance themselves, to plunge into that unique and fascinating world that is good literature.”
Precisely on Tuesday, February 28, they will present Espelustrófico both with the writer Ulises Granados and the journalist Anabel Oviedo, two of Paulina’s former classmates in the Hispanic Literature course at the UNAM, at 7 pm at the Frëims restaurant, 62 B Amsterdam street in the Hipódromo Condesa.
Among his strongest literary influences, he cites Julio Cortázar, Edgar Allan Poe and, above all, the Italian Elena Ferrante (Nápoles, 1943), “mainly her saga Dos amigas, an initiation novel that was decisive for my last story ‘Love and Life ‘”.. The reporter tells him that he was able to read Espelustrófico very well due to the outstanding size of the printed letters, praising the solid binding and the quality paper in the careful edition. She elaborates on the benefits of self-publishing:
“If you think about the situation as it is now for a new writer to publish, I think that a very good alternative is self-publishing because you get royalties directly from digital sales platforms, without intermediaries, and you can guarantee that the book will go to distribute. It seems to me that sometimes literary contests are won and then in the end nothing is published, and since you transferred the rights you can no longer publish it on your own. I think self-publishing empowers content creators. And at the same time, it gives them a very big responsibility, which is to document yourself well and take care of the style.”
Letras Laetas announces on its website: “We are aware of the importance of the word: it is the basis of communication; our commitment is that your project is carried out taking care of each letter and all the details that will make it one of our success stories.”
Paulina’s blog contains articles of interest such as “The best-selling e-books in Mexico”, where the themes of biography, romantic and erotic novels, administration and business, children, society and culture stand out, winning the statistics self-help and contemporary fiction.
Weaving dreams
How was Letras Laetas born?
“It arose one morning in 2011 – Paulina replies, laughing openly –, while I was doing the style correction of some manuals commissioned by a company. At that time I was renting a room in a guest house and studying at UNAM.”
“I remember that I was super surprised that for my work of a couple of hours that it took me to make the corrections, I was paid enough to pay a month’s rent. So I said: Sure, this is what I’m good at, I’ve always been good at reading, with the correction and grammar that’s very easy for me, I want to start a company that offers these services!”
He created his Facebook and Twitter pages, began to publish literature content and proofreading; then he made his website and added marketing services.
What do I do if I want to publish my journalistic or literary stories now?
The first step is for you to deliver the original manuscript, we at Letras Laetas evaluate how many pages there are. Once you accept the proposal, we do the style correction, then comes the layout of the book, which is already having it the way you want it to appear in print.
How much would it cost?
“I would say that around 15,000 MXN and up, but – he immediately corrects – it depends a lot on the number of pages and the complexity of the content that is required. We make quotes based on the number of pages and characters of the document , because if I change the point of the letter to five, or ten or fifteen, it comes out differently…”
How many points does the size of the letter in Espelustrófico?
“It’s twelve, to make it easier to read. People begin to have trouble reading because they spend so much time looking at the screen of computers and cell phones. The idea of making a large font is that it’s not a pocket edition, but just to make it more comfortable to read.”
The services offered by Letras Laetas Communication strategies for digital media, content marketing, writing and editing texts, translations, logo design, web development, e-books, SEO and SEM (organic and paid positioning in search engines ), in addition to “other courses related to those same services”. The move to entrepreneurial independence in the area of print was a dream come true for Paulina de la Vega, who continues:
“Little by little I have been growing and we have been gaining a reputation and a place with our clients. We are a young company, but we want to grow. This independence is part of the philosophy of my generation, entrepreneurship, self-employment, self-publishing and growing apart from other consortiums… And look, I tried to get closer to conventional media, believe me! I applied several times for newspapers, for magazines; but in the end, my whole professional life has been focused on content marketing”.
Who make up your company?
“Three people in this office and external collaborators: translators into English, into French… Here are Alan, marketing assistant; Ismael, our designer; me… And I have another associate as well, Daniel Doctor“
The “great challenge” of Letras Laetas, concludes Paulina with a smile, is:
“Getting clients, we don’t always manage to keep contracts for one year, two years, or long enough to see a satisfactory result. However, of the clients that we do have and have stayed with us for a reasonable period of time, we have very good referrals. That makes us want to keep going and it’s very encouraging.”
