Blog Tours for Authors – Do They Work?

Many authors do virtual book tours, making scheduled appearances on blogs to promote their book. But do these tours really work? In today's guest post, children's book author Fiona Ingram shares her experience based on her own tour.

Do blog tours work? In my experience the answer is a resounding yes. My tour literally propelled my author profile into the stratosphere and I still get Google Alerts from it. Here are some reasons why I think blog tours are effective:

• Massive exposure to an audience you possibly would never have found on your own. Each blog stop has its own followers. There are also people who enjoy following the complete tour, so new blogs get new readers, and you, the guest, get a whole lot of attention.

• You are invited to write posts about yourself, your work, your book, and your writing techniques that give more interesting angles to you as an author. I felt challenged in a positive sense because many of my blog hosts asked me for posts relating to kids’ literacy, making reading more interesting for kids, how to get kids back into books, how to write for kids. It was great!

• Within a short space of time those blog posts start appearing on other people’s blog pages, pop up in Google Alerts, and there is a general spread of awareness as more and more people either follow the blog tour post by post, or simply pass on the information they have found through their own feeds. This can also be through emails, Twitter, Facebook and other social sites. When people enjoy something, they comment on it.

• Book giveaways are a wonderful way of getting people to comment and participate in the tour. Your blog tour hosts usually arrange this; you have to get the books to the hosts first.

• If people enjoy reading about you they may ask the blog tour organizers to add you to their blog as a guest post. I gained a few more stops on my tour once people began reading my posts.

What you can do to maximize your success:

• Send a personal email to all your blog hosts in advance thanking them for the opportunity to appear on their blog, and confirming date, time, their blog address, topic of the post, and when they can expect the information. Make sure they receive your post well in advance.

• Have a look at each blog on your tour and get a feel for the tone of it. Is it intellectual, chatty, quirky, fun, formal, etc? Tailor your post to reflect the tone of the blog.

• If you are sending giveaway or review copies of your book, make sure this is done well in advance and confirm with your blog tour organizers that the hosts have received their copies.

• Make sure you visit each blog stop for a few days afterwards to reply to comments. Your blog tour organizers will usually get the ball rolling by commenting first. Make it easy for yourself by setting an email request for when comments are made on the various posts. This will help you stay in touch.

Blog tours are a great way to develop new readers, fans, and friends, and to meet people interested in your work.

Fiona Ingram is the author of a children’s middle-grade adventure novel The Secret of the Sacred Scarab. To connect with Fiona visit her blog or follow her on Twitter.

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Use a Virtual Book Tour to Promote Your Book

Comments

[Kirsten Lesko]

I'm glad you covered this, because I've often wondered about this. Even though I've bought books because of blog book tours, they seem to be so ubiquitous I've wondered if they're losing their impact.

[BK]

This was great Fiona! Very well worded. Kudos!

[Dana]

Thanks for your feedback Kirsten and BK. We are fortunate to have Fiona share her real-world experience with virtual book tours!
Dana

[Fiona Ingram]

Hi Kirsten,
You are possibly seeing a lot more blog tours now as authors tap into this new social media option. I don't think they'll lose their impact because each author is unique for an audience, and there are so many different 'groups' of readers interested in various genres. I personally think the sky is the limit. However, the challenge is then for the author to make sure he or she has new material, a diferent angle, or something interesting to say to prevent each tour stop becoming a repeat of the previous one. Authors are always crying out to be challeneged, so it's good practice!

[nedyne]

I really enjoyed hearing your experience. Well done and thanks for the idea. Nedyne

[Ian@ Book Marketing Trends]

Great insider perspective on this. Even if you think about it this way: write a sizzling 250 word piece that inspires 1 person per blog on your tour to buy your book or come to your site and it is the cheapest most effective peice of advertising that you can use today.

[Paul Madden]

It didn't work for me. Then again the people "arranging" the tour were pretty incompetent. Pretty much all the blogs on the tour were ghost towns and not in my genre anyway. So I guess maybe it works if you do it on the right blogs.

[Dana]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ian and Paul. Yes, it's very important that the blogs on your tour be a good fit for your book and that they have an audience. In many cases (especially for nonfiction books) the author will be in a better position to compile the blog list than a tour organizer, because they know their field so well.
Cheers,
Dana

[Fiona Ingram]

Hi Paul, I am sorry things didn't work out for you. As Dana says, it only works with a dedicated organiser that knows the genre or has a good list of equally hardworking hosts. My first blog was with Women on Writing and the second one with BK Walker's Virtual Book Tour, where I am hosting and guesting, is also great. Contact Brandi on if you feel you would like to try again.

[JadeDragon]

Very interesting idea for using blogs. Is this really organized guest posting?

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Yes, that's an interesting way of looking at it -- a virtual book tour can be like an organized series of guest posts on other blogs.

[Shelby Patrick]

I just recently published a short story collection and was interested in learning ways to market it. This weekend was the first time I actually heard of a virtual book tour, so I am now looking in to it. Thanks for this wonderful information. It will help a great deal.

[Tonya Prince]

Thanks for posting this information. My blog is new but some of the authors enjoyed the experience and the exposure. I also enjoyed meeting them and what they had to say was very inspirational to me and my readers.

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[Christopher Posner]

I have researched virtual book tours and have found that most of the authors involved still have very poor Amazon sales ranks.

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Many of the book bloggers simply do it for the love of it. Publishers and publicists include the book bloggers in their marketing programs now. It's been highly successful in getting the word out about their author's books.

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Thanks for posting this information,was interested in learning ways to market it