Goddess Fish Promotions

 I recently did a twenty-day blog tour though the auspices of Goddess Fish Promotions. Having (tried to) put together blog tours myself in the past, I was not looking forward to the process. A good friend pointed me in Goddess Fish’s direction and the process turned into not only being easy, but a lot of fun.

 

Indie writers are always looking for ways to promote their books that won’t break either their banks or their backs. Below is my conversation with the two woman who run Goddess Fish for your information, should you be so inclined. For even more information, check out their website.

 

One Bite at a Time: Let’s start with the obvious question and work from there: Where did the name Goddess Fish come from?

 

Judy: I’m the extrovert and B-type personality (well… we actually say I’m type Z, because I’m SO laid back) … and very much a “yes” person (as in, Marianne says, “I have an idea … let’s do this thing.” and I say, “Okay, yes. We can do that thing.”).  All of those associated with the sites started saying that I would wave my wand and get it done … and my nickname became “The Goddess”. 

 

Marianne: I, on the other hand, am more Type A, driven, more introverted and less a people person (despite somehow always ended up in customer service for work).  I’m always polite, but it takes a while for me to be authentically friendly.  And one of the folks who works on the site said she was reminded of Abe Vigoda’s character on Barney Miller (yes, we are dating ourselves here), “Fish”.  And the nickname stuck.  Don't know who he is?  Here’s is a tidbit: https://youtu.be/I0OznXFBt8s?si=HjYojhDKCBrePfYm

 

Both:  When the time came to create Goddess Fish Promotions, we combined the two.  And Marianne (“Fish”) said to Judy (“Goddess”), “Can we make the logo a fish with big pink lips, a wand and a crown?” and Judy said (of course), “Yes.” and she made it so.  Because that’s what a goddess does.

 

We love the fish …

 

OBAAT: Now that folks can concentrate on why you’re really here, what does Goddess Fish do?

Judy: We started out just doing virtual book tours.  At the time we started, there was only one company doing them and they were breathtakingly expensive.

 

Marianne: I’d just published my first novel, and wanted to promote it, but I couldn’t afford the price of that company, so I organized my own virtual tour.  I hated every minute of it, lol.  It was an incredibly difficult task and took hours and hours to book it, to promote it and to follow up with hosts. I understood why that company was charging so much. However, I realized then there were likely other small press authors like me who couldn’t afford the only other company in town, so we decided to dip our toe into the virtual tour business.  That was fifteen years ago. As far as I am aware, we are the second ever virtual book tour company in existence and we’ve expanded since then.

 

Judy: When we started the company, we were both editors for a publisher.  We ended up having to leave that as the business got busier, but we decided a few years back to offer editing as another service we provide, and we’ve had well over a hundred satisfied editing clients since (most repeat with us, which is the highest compliment.)

 

OBAAT: I know there’s a Marianne and a Judy. What are your backgrounds and how did you get together to form Goddess Fish?

Judy:  My background, as it pertains to the work we do is that I have published a novel, worked as an editor for a new defunct online eZine as well as the publisher we mentioned before, and I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English.

 

Marianne:  My background isn’t quite as illustrious as Judy’s.  But I am multi-published, worked as an editor and have been a grammar nerd since birth. 

 

Judy: A funny story is that we only met IRL a few years ago (2021) even though we’ve been business partners for nearly 20 years—and how is that possible?  We “met” virtually in 1999, when we were in an online writer’s group together at Writer’s Village University and magic was born!  

 

Marianne: We actually started out in business by creating an online review site (Long and Short Reviews) that focused on small press stories and books because, at the time, it was difficult to get anyone to review them.  Once we started Goddess Fish Promotions, we really handed over the day-to-day running of LASR to our volunteers there, and they do an amazing job with it.

 

OBAAT: What’s the division of labor and how do you coordinate?

Judy: Every morning, we made a to do list with each item on a piece of paper and throw them in the air.  Whoever’s desk they land on does the job.

 

Marianne: *I* was going to say that I get all the best clients and since you worked primarily with me, clearly you are an all right person.  LOL…

 

Okay, in truth, mostly Judy handles initial requests and processes the tours when they first come in.  Marianne makes the banners, and posts the tours on the blog, as well as creating the sign-up form. Then Judy makes the media kits for each tour. At that point, we split them up by tour type and fill them up. 

 

Every week day we’re up at the crack of dawn checking every scheduled tour stop and promoting them on social media. That’s a job we share.  Otherwise, we try to make sure all business is conducted via email (instead of phone or zoom, etc) so there’s a record of everything for every tour in case something happens where one of us needs to take over. We’ve had family emergencies, illnesses, etc. that have kept us from working now and then… though we try to work through it all.  Judy brought her laptop into her husband’s hospital room and worked after he’d had a stroke.  She wouldn’t leave his side, but she did what work she could.  Our clients depend on us, so we don’t like to use any excuse. If we CAN work, we DO work.

 

And we are very good at helping the other whenever necessary.  We’re more than business partners.  We’re also BFFS. 

 

OBAAT: You recently organized a twenty-stop blog tour for me. I once put together a tour of five blogs and can honestly say it was a pain in the ass. How do you pull it off so seamlessly?

Judy: Well…. I waved my wand… seriously, we are a lot like that duck who appears to be swimming effortlessly on the lake. But, below the surface (and behind the scenes) there's an awful lot of pedaling going on!

 

Marianne: Also, keep in mind we have a pretty good process set up after all these years, as well as a strong rapport with our tour hosts, who we adore and couldn’t do what we do without. 

 

OBAAT: Are there genres you work with more easily than others?

Judy: As far as us working with them, not really.  We have a great group of hosts, most of whom work with a wide range of genres. Romance, Young Adult, and mystery/thrillers are among the genres that are most popular with the hosts.

 

Marianne: To be fair, we work largely with the top three genres: romance, mystery and Sci-Fi/Fantasy.  Not because we choose to, but because it’s what’s most popular and numerous.

 

OBAAT: Full disclosure: When I got my list of eighteen blogs to respond to – two were review only, no input needed from me – and saw what I had on my plate, I was a little intimidated. Once I got into the process, I had a lot more fun than I anticipated. What advice do you have for authors who are considering a blog tour, especially along the lines of what to expect and what attitude to bring with them?

GF: It CAN be fun. Writers write, so enjoy the process when you are doing guest blogs and interviews… don't think of it as a chore. Part of the reason for the interviews and guest blogs, in addition to getting to know you as a person, is to give the readers a look at the writing style. We have both bought books that we've toured simply because the guest blogs were so entertaining--- if you can interest a reader that way, the chances are good they will enjoy your writing. And, conversely, unfortunately, the opposite is also true. 

 

We send out pretty comprehensive instructions when you start a tour with us, and one line says this: “Please make sure that each post is unique, verbose and entertaining.”

 

We don’t say that to make it harder for you. We say it because engaging potential readers is really important and short one-line (or one word, ugh) responses are worse than useless.

 

Thank you so much for having us! This was fun J

 

The Cost of Promotion

 Self-promotion is my least favorite aspect of writing. Not that I don’t enjoy live or virtual appearances; I love them. Setting them up is painful. Bookstore slots have been harder to get for indie writers such as myself for quite a while, so I know to meet them halfway. I’m working to set up a panel for a local bookseller that has been good to me in the past so they can have four or five of us there, broadening the potential draw as well as the number of books that might be sold. I’m all in on that.

 

What brought me up short last week was a response I received from another store:  “We require a $100 deposit prior to the event. We will return this deposit if we sell $100 worth of books.”

 

My initial thought was, “huh?” Then, “I don’t think so.” After which it occurred to me to ask my author friends on Facebook these three questions:

 

Am I being unreasonable?

Am I missing something?

Is this now the way of the world?

 

I received 36 responses, of which 32 ranged in tone between “No” and “Fuck no.” (My favorite was a suggestion to send then 100 virtual dollars.) Two described similar situations they have encountered, though neither was a straight-up “pay to play” deal. Two others provided reasons why it was okay for the bookstore to do this.

 

As one might presume from the breakout of responses, I consider my initial thoughts confirmed. The folks who pointed out things I had not thought of did so in a (mostly) respectful manner, so I feel I should address them here. (By “mostly respectful” I mean there was one comment that strongly implied I was too big for my britches, which is not the case. At least not here.)

 

Their key point was that promotional efforts aren’t free. I get that. All business have overhead. It’s called “the cost of doing business.” The vast preponderance of the store’s promotional costs are things they’d do whether I made a virtual appearance or not. Web site. E-mail lists. I have to assume they place ads in local media as a matter of course; listing this month’s events is part of the ad copy.

 

The cost of bandwidth and order fulfillment came up. For bandwidth, see above; it’s a sunk cost, and they’re not adding to it for me. As for the costs of order fulfillment…really? If they don’t sell any books, order fulfillment is free.

 

One commenter went on to say, “In other words, why don't all authors just set up a Zoom call and tell people on Facebook to drop by? Because the bookstore has a cachet. It has vetted you.”

 

First of all, setting up Zoom calls and telling people on Facebook is exactly what some authors are doing; I’m considering it myself. That would cut the bookstore out of the deal altogether. Cachet is nice, but while this is a mystery bookseller with an excellent reputation, it’s not like I’m asking for a spot at Powell’s or The Strand. As for vetting, not to blow my own horn, but this is my seventh professionally published book and I have two national award nominations. Another hundred bucks doesn’t add anything to my seriousness of intent.

 

 One commenter asked the person who raise the above points “in what other form of entertainment and sales does the headliner have to pay to show up and entertain?”

Only one comes to mind: Strip clubs. I might be willing to risk $100 for an event at the Bada Bing.

I Suck at Marketing

Remember the great deal I promised you last week on Kindle versions of my self-published books? Well, I should have set the deals up before I started running my mouth. Thanks to the vagaries of Amazon countdown promotions and their relationship with KDP, not only are not all of the books available at the times I promised, the number of price increments is not the same.

I’m not blaming Amazon for any of this. It’s my fault for not performing even a modicum of due diligence before letting my mouth write checks my ass couldn’t cash. That said, here is the updated promotion schedule:

BOOK	DATES	PRICE
The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of	November 29 & 30 December 1 & 2 December 3 and beyond	$0.99 $1.99 $2.99 (regular price)
The Man in the Window	December 5 & 6 December 7 & 8 December 9 and beyond	$0.99 $1.99 $2.99 (regular price)
A Dangerous Lesson	December 12 & 13 December 14 & 15 December 16 and beyond	$0.99 $1.99 $2.99 (regular price)

A Small Sacrifice and Wild Bill will still be available for cheap(er), but the dates are TBD. I expect A Small Sacrifice to sneak in the week before Christmas and Wild Bill will meet its original Hanukkah/after Christmas window, but I won’t know for sure until I see how the KDP renew dates shake out.

My ego is not such that I expect this to be a major obstacle in your holiday plans, but I still hate to say anything that turns out not to be true. Mea culpa.

An Overwhelming Success

Well, that was fun.

Last week’s free e-book promotion resulted in 12,824 downloads, about half of which were for A Small Sacrifice. This is way more than the 300 – 500 I’d been hoping for. For a brief moment Grind Joint was the #1 hard-boiled free download, #3 in Police Procedurals. A Small Sacrifice cracked the Top 100 overall at #75, and was the #2 Mystery.

The lion’s share of the credit goes to those friends and friends once (or more) removed, who accepted my request to help with the promotion and ran with it beyond my wildest expectations. My reaction moved from happy through flattered to humbled as more people tagged me in Facebook posts and folks I’d never heard of posted comments and Likes and indicated they’d downloaded at least one book. The only occurrence on my writing career that exceeds it is the launch of Grind Joint last November, and that had cake, so the comparison isn’t really fair. I mean, you know, there was cake.

Several stepped up to offer guest posts on their blogs, even though they may already have given me a push there: Paul Brazill, Ben Sobieck—who also alerted me to the rankings on his own initiative—Laura Roberts, Gerard Brennan, and Patti Abbott; my visits to Holly West’s and Jay Stringer’s spaces are upcoming, as is an interview and blog post for Lance Wright on OmniMystery Magazine. Laura is also providing an interview opportunity.

I know I didn’t catch everyone who extended themselves on my behalf, as random comments came in that made me wonder, “How the hell did this person find out?” No matter how; I’m grateful.

It’s no news to anyone that writing is a solitary endeavor, but no one, with the possible exception of J.D. Salinger, wants to write in a vacuum. Some level of public presence has to be obtained, and maintained, not the easiest of tasks for a profession tailor-made for introverts. I began writing crime because that’s what I read, having no idea what kinds of people I would eventually come into contact with. This is no news to anyone who’s been around, but crime fiction writers are, by an overwhelming majority, the most benevolent and generous group of people I have ever come in contact with. To all of you, I am profoundly grateful. Don’t be bashful about making sure I know of anything you’re promoting; I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get to return the favor.

Breaking News: Patti Abbott has had a story chosen for the 2014 Bouchercon anthology. Congratulations to Patti, and to everyone who had stories selected. Hopefully, she’ll be at the conference so The Beloved Spouse and I can congratulate her in person.

A Writer's Life

Once again, The Onion knows more about what we do than most of us are willing to admit.