By Sally Murphy
Congratulations – your book has been published. Now it’s time to get serious with promotion. Just one way of building some buzz about your new offering is through a blog tour.
Just as a book tour involves touring bookstores, festivals and the like in different cities, towns or countries, a blog tour involves a virtual tour from blog to blog. Blog tourists can visit the blogs of other authors, or of book reviewers, or even of bloggers who have similar interests – for example, if you’ve written a book about frogs, then you might visit a frog blog unrelated to books.
Purpose
The purpose of a blog tour is to build awareness of your book – to ‘build the buzz’. You may notice an increase in sales of your book, but, conversely you may not. Ultimately, though, the more people who know about you and your book(s), the more potential buyers of your book.
What happens?
Blog tours can take different forms, and you may do different things at different blogs. Often, a visit to a blog might involve a virtual interview, where the blog owner asks you a series of questions which you write answers to. The questions and answers are then posted on the blog on your allotted day.
However, some bloggers might like to vary things a little, For example, a book review blog might host you by posting a review of your blog, or a special interest blog (such as the frog blog mentioned above) might ask to post an extract from your book. You could also visit a blog by posting an article you’ve written.
Whatever form your tour takes, it is important that you decide what it is you hope to achieve from your tour, and how you are going to achieve it. You’ll also need to be sure to include details of your book – publication details, purchase links and so on – as well as links to your own blog and/or website so that readers can follow up.
Planning Your Tour
Because your aim is to build buzz, it is best if your tour takes place on consecutive days, although some tours do span extended periods with less frequent posts (for example once per week for a month). To build a feeling of a tour, consider setting up a tour which lasts at least five days, visiting one blog each day.
Set dates for your tour which fit your schedule – considering the release date of your book, when copies will be available, what other commitments you have and so on.
Once you’ve worked out your tour dates, you’ll need to line up some blogs to visit. Approach blog owners who you already have some connection with – through newsgroups or other online communities, for example. Set a schedule for each visit, and discuss with the blog owner what form your visit to their blog will take.
Promote Your Tour
Now that your tour is planned, be sure to promote it. Don’t just rely on people stumbling across one of the posts. Create a list of the blogs and dates of your tour, and post it on your own blog. Also share news of your tour with lists and message boards you belong to – but be careful to do this within the posting rules of these groups. You can also use more traditional means of promoting your tour – press released, for example.
It is also important to ask the people who host you to promote your visit and to include in your post a list of all the blogs you are visiting.
Lastly
Enjoy your blog tour. As well as being a promotional tool, it is also your chance to bask in the spotlight, and get some feedback from readers. When it’s finished, think about what worked and what didn’t. Did you have more visitors to your blog? Did you sell more books? And, importantly, when will you start another tour?