How to Take a Blog Tour

Like so many other things, this has been made easy for authors today. Blog tours are lined up and waiting for you to jump in and participate. Some are free and others come with costs that run between $50 and $300. These are great for ebooks from independent self published authors. I want to give you the nuts and bolts on a blog tour from the author's end. It's not as much of a time commitment as a traveling bookstore tour, but it does involve a lot of work. There are a few things you can prepare in advance.

Gather electronic head shot photos and book cover files for the promotion. Prepare a list of URL's to share such as your blog, website and sales pages. Write a back cover sales pitch for the book and an author bio. Also consider a giveaway for the tour. This can be something significant that goes to one winner or something small you can award to multiple winners like signed copies or e-copies of your book. You may be asked to provide answers for Q&A bits, so think of questions you want the host to include. This assures a chance to share info you find significant.
First choose the right tour for your book. There are several available. Author Joe Friedlander discusses 7 top ebook tours on the Book Designer website. Six mentioned are paid and one is free. Author Gregory Delaurentis shares his tour experience with one of the paid tours in this article posted by the Alliance of Independent Authors. Another free tour is offered by Baby Katie Media at blogtour.org.

You can also offer your blog as a host stop for touring authors if you're willing to receive guest posts to promote books in your genre(s). There is a good deal of preparation for hosting as well. Author Helen Ginger offers 30 tips for hosting blog tours to familiarize you with that. Scroll down passed her introduction to blogging to read this article.

Decide when to go on tour with your book. The tour can run just before the book publishes or sometime after.

Once you've chosen a tour or two, contact the hosts within three months of your desired tour dates. Some hosts will require payment and scheduling far in advance.

Select the length of your tour. When you participate in an organized tour, you'll decide on how big it is. Paid tours run for different rates based on the number of blogs you stop into over the number of days it takes. The bigger the tour, the more readers it reaches.

Some bloggers will want an interview with sound and video. Many prefer Skype for video calls to accomplish this. You can download the software and start an account at the above link. It will also be wise to invest in a video quality camera and microphone for your computer if you don't have these already. You'll use them for countless other promotions in the future as an indie author.

Put out a press release and advertise the upcoming tour on your blog and social networks. I look forward to giving you the dates for my first tour on this author blog in the not too distant future. I'll do some research and go into more detail on press releases soon as well.

The alternative to an organized tour is to search out and contact each book blogger who typically discusses your genre and accepts guest posts. Then you will have to research their contact protocol and submit request to participate.

The problem with lining up your own tour as such is scheduling. Each blogger will have a different date available for your guest spot, and it will not line up with all the others. The effect will be a slow emergence of your book's promotion.

Market research suggest that consumers have to see your title or cover at least 3 times before buying. The idea is to make this happen within a short period for optimal effect. An organized blog tour will be limited to a set number of days with your book featured on different blogs in succession. You'll be a guest on a certain blog one day, then you'll stop at another blog the next. The entire tour will wrap up within 30 days or less. Readers are more likely to remember seeing your book in a few places within that time span.

Don't try to forecast a number of sales because of a tour. Oh you'll see some sales, and a few will ring in right away. The promotion will get the word out that your book is available and create a bit of a stir over it. Many of the resulting sales, however, will not occur immediately.

Now that you know how to do this, there's nothing to stop you from taking the same book on tour again. A second tour has a chance to reach some readers who didn't catch the first go around. Happy virtual trails with your book promotion.

Thanks for stopping in
- Jonra Springs