Top 15 Reasons to Do a Virtual Book Tour

by Dana Lynn Smith

As publishers' promotional budgets shrink and travel costs rise, the traditional city to city author tour is waning in popularity. But what if you could reach a much larger, highly targeted audience from the comfort of home, and get people buzzing about your book? You can, with a virtual book tour.

On a virtual book tour, authors promote their books by making "virtual" guest appearances during a particular time frame on blogs, podcasts, radio shows, social networks, or other virtual venues.

So why should you do your own virtual tour?

1. You will sell books during the tour and afterward as a result of the tour.

2. Virtual tours are less expensive and time consuming than travelling. Generally the only cost of a do-it-yourself tour is the cost of mailing your book to tour hosts.

3. Reach far more people and a more targeted audience with a virtual tour. In contrast, live author appearances by authors who aren't well known may to have low attendance. (For tips on how to boost attendance at your live events, see Book Talk: How to Fill a Room.)

4. The virtual tour provides quality, lasting links to your website. These links have search engine optimization value and may continue to bring new visitors for months or years to come.

5. Making a commitment to a tour gives you an incentive to get out there and promote your book and get content onto other websites.

6. If any of your tour hosts do a review of your book, you'll get the benefit of additional reviews.

7. Tours build buzz for your book and get people talking and sharing with others.

8. When others host you on their blog or show, there is an implied endorsement of you which enhances your author platform.

9. You have the chance to interact with readers and potential customers.

10. Getting a lot of book sales in short period of time pushes up the Amazon rank of your book.

11. You get the chance to develop relationships with bloggers and other key influencers in your field or genre.

12. The content of a virtual book tour gives potential book buyers an opportunity to sample your work.

13. Nonfiction authors can enhance their expert status by posting content on other venues.

14. You get exposure to new audiences you might not reach any other way.

15. Additional traffic to your website during the tour gives you the opportunity to build your mailing list and blog subscribers.

For detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to organize your own successful virtual book tour, check out my Virtual Book Tour Magic guidebook for authors.

Comments

[Stina Lindenblatt]

This only works if you go outside your typical blogging circle. Otherwise, the same people will see every one of your posts and you'll just end up annoying them. Several people mentioned this on my blog this week. Blog tours are starting to lose the appeal they once had. Most of us skip those posts, unless the topic is of interest to us.

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Thanks for your note Stina. It is important to choose the right hosts for a virtual book tour and to provide content that's of interest to the specific audience for each venue. Virtual tours are also a good opportunity to reach out to tour hosts that you don't already have a relationship with, in order to get exposure to new audiences.

I recommend varying the type of content on a virtual tour – include articles, interviews, book reviews, contests, etc. It's easy for nonfiction authors to do a series of articles or interviews based on the topic of their book. It can be more of a challenge for novelists to come up with unique content for each site. These two articles have some great ideas:

How to Write Blog Posts When You Are Blogging to Market a Novel – by Phyllis Zimbler Miller http://bit.ly/gYWMGs

Blog Ideas for Fiction Writers – by Cathy Stucker http://bit.ly/1JTWBv

[Fiona Ingram]

I'd like to respond to Stina. I have been on three virtual book tours for my MG adventure novel The Secret of the Sacred Scarab. I had three different hosts who arranged the tours. They all had their own followers, who were clear from the outset what books they and their followers preferred. So, I immediately had a niche audience (times three) of interested people i.e. mothers who wanted great books for their kids. The hosts suggested blog posts related to literacy, getting kids interested in books, or else reviews, and then Q&A. My point is: a blog tour must be cherrypicked in that the readers will want to read the post/review/interview. Perhaps I have just been lucky, but virtual tours do work. Targeting the right audience to begin with is paramount.

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Fiona, thanks for your note, and I wish you much success with your books!