Last month I had a blog tour with a difference (more on that in a moment) to celebrate the release of Toppling. This week my writer friend http://www.catrionahoy.com.au/embarks on her first ever blog tour, to promote her new picture book Puggle (she’ll be calling in here in a few days’ time).

So, with all this blog touring happening, I thought it might be timely to talk a little about what a blog tour is, and why they are a great way of promoting a book.

A blog tour is, simply, a virtual form of a book tour. So, in a ‘real’ book tour a writer might travel from town to town, state to state, or even overseas to promote a new book – talking to the media, speaking at conferences and holding signings in book stores. A blog tour (also known simply as a virtual tour) takes place online, so the author stays at home, instead touring from blog to blog.

Here’s an example. When I had a blog tour for my verse novel Pearl Verses the World last year, I toured for ten days:

Day 1 – Spinning Pearls, where I guest blogged about the process of writing Pearl.

Day 2 – The Writing Life, where I was interviewed by Brenton Cullen.

Day 3 – Tips for Young Writers, where I was interviewed by Dee White.

Day 4 – Persnickety Snark, where I was interviewed by Adele.

Day 5 – Let’s Have Words, where I discussed promotion with Claire Saxby.

Day 6 – Just Listen Book Reviews, where Allie reviewed Pearl.

Day 7 – Look at That Book, where it was Lisa’s turn to review the book.

Day 8 – Write and Read With Dale, with yet another wonderful review.

Day 9 – Tales I Tell, where Mabel cleverly interviewed me in verse.

Day 10 – Robyn Opie’s Writing for Children Blog where I shared some hints for getting published.

You can see that I visited ten blogs, and my visits ranged from me being interviewed by the blogger to guest blogging, with some blog hosts choosing simply to review the book. Catriona’s tour this week will be similar.

My tour in March this year, to celebrate Toppling was a little bit different, and perhaps not strictly a tour, because instead of me going blog to blog, I invited other bloggers to visit me, on an in-bound blog tour. I also had a tour in November in December last year to celebrate the release of Snowy’s Christmas where I visited other blogs, but instead of visiting every day for a week or ten days, this time I toured on Sundays from the release of the book up till Christmas. I chose to do something different with each of these tours simply to avoid the three tours being repetitive.

Generally, though, a blog tour involves visiting other people’s blogs to talk about your book. While a tour usually coincides with the release of a book, there is no reason a tour couldn’t also be used to build new interest in a book which has been out for a while.

Have you got a book in print? Have you ever been on a book tour? Why not think about getting one organised?

Tomorrow I’ll talk a little about the benefits of a blog tour.