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| Murder Must Advertise |
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Having a Successful Book Blog Tour
A book blog tour is easier than a regular book tour in that you do get to stay home while you’re on it. However, if it’s going to be successful it takes a lot of work on the part of the author before and during the tour.
You can set up a blog tour yourself, or you can hire one of the many blog tour companies who are willing to do it for you. To be honest, that’s what I’ve always done because it takes a lot of time to set up your own tour. One thing I do, however, is suggest blogs for them to fit into the schedule.
If you plan to set up your own tour you need to begin long before you book is going to be available. Find the blogs that you like the best who also host authors. Approach each one and tell them a bit about your book and yourself and ask if they would be willing to host you on your tour. If the blog owner says yes, then settle on a date. It’s important that you keep good track of these dates. Find out what they’d like you to do for their blog—try to do something different on each one. Some may want to do an interview and if you have a lot of those, it’s a good idea that if after the basics, you add some new information about yourself.
Some other ideas for a blog are: an interview of your main character—or the villain; 10 things none knows about you; what gave you the idea for this particular book; what you are going to do to promote the book besides the blog tour; the setting for the story; your best writing tips; describe the place where you write; any writing rituals; and of course and excerpt or a first chapter of you book.
With every blog you should add a short bio, a book blog, and send an attachment of the book cover and a photo of yourself. (You could send a different photo to some of the blogs just for variety.)
As a means to get people to visit a blog, you might have a contest of some sort. Some authors give away a copy of the book they are promoting, but since you’re having the tour to get people to buy the book, it’s better if you give a way a different book or something else all together. For my latest tour, I’m giving away the opportunity to be a character in one of my mysteries. The winner will be the person who leaves a comment on the most blogs.
Your work is not done once you’ve got the tour set up. Every day of your tour you must promote the blog you’ll be visiting on. Send announcements to your friends, the lists that you’re on and to all your social sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace etc.
Once you’ve done that, you should visit the blog yourself and leave a thank you. A couple of times during the day, check the blog and see who has left a comment and thank each one for visiting. If someone asks a question be sure and answer it. This is important. This will make the difference if you ever want to return to do another guest spot on this blog.
I’m sure your biggest question is, does a blog tour work? If you mean does it result in sales, it’s kind of hard to determine, but I do know whenever I’ve been on a tour, my numbers on Amazon have dropped—which is a good thing.
One last remark about blog tours, I think they are fun. To me, it’s a challenge to come up with new topics to write about for each blog. I also love going back to see who has come and visited. And remember, for all those who left comments, there are many, many more who merely read the blog and didn’t write anything.
Blog tours are another way to get your name and information about your book in front of the public. And isn’t that what we are all trying to do?
****** Marilyn Meredith, author of Dispel the Mist, Deputy Tempe Crabtree series, An Axe to Grind, Rocky Bluff P.D. series, and Lingering Spirit, a romance with a supernatural touch. http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com
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Jeffrey Marks. |
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