The more blogs that highlight your book, the better. Think about it. All blogs have a following. It may be a small following, but it consists of people you would not ordinarily reach. Whenever your book appears on a blog, that reach increases.
Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned after participating on several tours.
Tip #1: Check out the touring company before you commit. I used three different tour companies. The first one was very reliable. When they notified me that my book would appear on a blog, it did. They were very conscientious about notifications. The only problem was the bloggers had limited audiences. My Rafflecopter (I’ll talk about that in a moment), barely made it up to 1000 participants by the end of the tour. The second tour company I used was not so conscientious. The blog in question sometimes didn’t have my book. After I went to all the trouble tweeting my appearance, the post wouldn’t go live. It was frustrating. But the third company was the best. Bloggers ran their posts on time and as scheduled and by the end of the tour I had almost 9,000 sign ups on the giveaway. That tour created the most exposure. My tip, then is to check them out. Look at previous tours. Talk to authors. Do your due diligence.
Tip #2: Select a blog tour company that has blogs in your genre. Most of the blogs cater to a different audiences. You want bloggers whose audience reflect your book. If you write a romance, then romance-driven blogs. I wrote a mystery. I wanted to be on blogs catering to mystery readers.
Tip #3: Give something away. People love a giveaway with a tour. I gave away an Amazon gift card for the lucky winner. That’s where the Rafflecopter came in. More people will participate if there’s something they could win. Don’t expect people to read the post, get all excited about your book, click on it and your website if there’s nothing in it for them. They won’t.
Tip #4: If you submit excerpts from your book, submit at least 15 or 20. The same goes with guest posts. That way the blogger can choose, and they have a lot to choose from. With my first tour, I didn’t submit enough excerpts and the same excerpt was published with nearly every post. Even I got tired of reading it. Imagine the people following the blog!
Tip #5: When setting up the Rafflecopter, ask the people to follow you on Twitter. By doing so, your Twitter following will increase by 50 to 100 during the tour period. Not everyone will want to sign-up for your e-newsletter, but they don’t mind hitting the Follow button on Twitter.
Tip #6: Respond during the tour. When your post is live, go to the blog and thank the blogger. Encourage their readers to ask you questions. If there is a conversation going on about your book, join that conversation. Be present throughout the blog tour.
Tip #7: Choose all the options for your blog tour. If the touring company only offers a promotion on the blog, do not select that company. What you want is a variety of posts: promotions, excerpts, interviews with the author, reviews and guest posts. A good company will offer all of these things. Usually the first days of the tour are strictly promotions. Then, guest posts follow and some author interviews. Finally the tour ends with 4-6 blogger reviews.
Tip #8: If your book is not yet released but buyers can pre-order the book, it’s okay to do the tour. The book has to be up on Amazon to make it worthwhile. It’s great to get people excited about your book and pre-ordering it before it even releases.
There are my eight tips for participating in a blog tour. What are your suggestions? What have your experiences been?
BTW, if you have a book trailer, share that with the bloggers. They love to include those on tours. Here’s the one we created for e-Murderer.
[…] Begin examining Blog Tour sites. It’s helpful to get your book out on as many blogs as possible. Many Virtual blog tours include a promo and reviews. You’ll want to explore those sites and find one that fits your needs and your genre. I’ve done several blog tours and recommend them as a way to promote your book. Check out my previous blog on this topic. […]