On the fourth day of my Christmas blog tour, my friend Claire gave to me… (Come on, sing with me. At the very least you’ll drown me out, which would be a great service to humanity).
Okay, silliness aside, today is day four in my rerun blog tour, where I revisit last year’s blog tour for Snowy’s Christmas, to celebrate its rerelease in paperback. Today, we revisit Claire Saxby’s blog, where she interviewed me about writing a Christmas story. Enjoy – and pop back tomorrow for episode five.
Ho ho ho! Merry almost-Christmas. I’m so glad you’ve dropped in for some Christmas fare – and day 3 of my rerun blog tour. If you’ve not been round lately, you may not know that I’m celebrating the paperback release of Snowy’s Christmas by revisiting the blog tour I had last year when I celebrated the hardcover release.
So, today, I take you back to week three of last year’s tour where David and I visited the Soupblog and shared ten things you may not know about Snowy’s Christmas. This was (and still is) a fun topic for a blog visit. (Unfortunately, the contest mentioned in the post has long since closed, but the book is widely available in good bookstores and online.
See you tomorrow for episode four.
Welcome back. If you weren’t here yesterday, then you may not know that, in the tradition of all good end of year programming, I’m running some reruns. Specifically, for eleven days, I am rerunning my blog tour for Snowy’s Christmas. Yesterday, I took you back to week one of last year’s tour. Today, then, we revisit week two – and head over to Dale Harcombe’s review of Snowy’s Christmas.
Enjoy – and hop back tomorrow for episode 3.
This time last year I was hopping around the word wide web having fun on a big blog tour to celebrate the launch of Snowy’s Christmas. I had so much fun on that tour, that, with the book having just been released in a new paperback format, I thought I might try something new – and rerun my blog tour.
So, in the tradition of all good reruns, I bring you, day by day, my first ever blog tour rerun. Each day, for the next 11 days, I invite you to drop by and revisit a stop on last year’s tour.
To kick off this rerun, I take you back to stop one of the tour where I shared my Christmas secrets at Dee Scribe’s blog. Enjoy – and pop back tomorrow for day two.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you – you still have plenty of time to do your shopping, make your lists, check it twice – even to be naughty and/or nice – but today marks the beginning of my Christmas festivities because today marks the release of the paperback edition of Snowy’s Christmas.
I’m amazed to think it’s been 13 months since the release of the hardcover version, but delighted that the paerback version is now available.
If you have a moment hop on over to he Aussie Christmas Blog to join the celebration.
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.