What I Learned About Running a Blog Tour

We recently wrapped up the first blog tour I have ever organized and run myself. It was rewarding and exhausting, thrilling and nerve wracking… And I cannot wait to do it again!

I have participated in a few blog tours during my short career, but I haven’t had to do too much. Just answer interview questions, get my links together, and go; it was pretty straight forward. When I had my first experience with book piracy, I thought that organizing a tour would be the best way to raise awareness and get people to learn more about book piracy. My first thought was “This will be easy.” Yeah… right.

No matter how organized you think you are, there is always more to be done.

I obsessed about making this tour perfect. I had a sign up sheet and let the authors determine what days they wanted to do. I even had some authors generously volunteer several freebies, but I wanted to make sure that they were given a decent spread. I think that was my problem. I tried to spread books out too thin and ended up with more books at the end of the tour than the beginning. Looking back, it would have made more sense, and been more rewarding for the authors that donated several books to have their own day. That way one offs, prequels, and the first book of a series would be given a better lay out. Of course, there is the sense of build up and encouraging people to follow the tour because the more days they follow, the more books they get. I’m still playing with this idea, so hopefully I have it perfected for the next tour.

Authors have their own lives.

You know, as an author, I tend to get wrapped up in my own little world. I think part of my issue was that I didn’t give the authors enough time to process the fact that there was a tour before getting them to get their books ready. Personal emergencies and life in general happens. Granted, I had some of the most amazing authors to work with, so I didn’t care if the internet caught fire, just to say that I was able to work with these people was a blessing. In the next tour, I am going to announce it with enough time for everyone to get their stuff in before the posts need to be scheduled.

Sometimes people can’t help themselves

I don’t want to be too specific about the situation because they know who they are, but I learned that I can only do so much on my end. What I can be specific about it that rude people will be ejected from the tour and not allowed to participate in future tours. We are all doing this on a volunteer basis. Not once will an author or blogger be charged to participate. However, I still expect some level of professionalism and courtesy from everyone that wants to be involved. Granted, the authors and bloggers that ended up being on the tour were amazing and I cannot wait to work with them again!

Giveaways are awesome!

We did a $20 Amazon gift card giveaway with this last tour. I am paying for the card out of my own pocket and there has been a delay with the funds, so that is why the winner has not been announced yet but they will soon. What I would like to see happen in the next tour is do a bundle/ gift basket giveaway. Perhaps have authors donate autographed books or swag and put first through third prize baskets together for people. More detail needs to be put together, obviously, but I would love to do something like that.

We can never have too many people volunteering to donate books, give space on their blog, or even just spread the word.

While the group on Facebook isn’t huge right now, we are always accepting new authors and bloggers that want to help spread the word. The tour is not limited to a specific genre or a specific blog type. We had Paranormal, Romance, Sci-Fi and more in our last tour, and there are so many other fantastic genres out there that we would love to see join us. If you or someone you know is interested in the group, or being involved in anyway, please join our Facebook group and help us spread the word about ebook piracy.

All in all this tour was an amazingly rewarding and inspiring venture for me, and I am happy to say that it will be continued. I have big plans for the tour in the future and as it grows, I will share them all with you.

 

By the way, even though we are not running a tour right now, you can still get free books! Several authors that participated in the tour have permanently free books available every single day. We have started compiling a list on the blog under a brand new section called “Books“. To keep everything neat and pretty, I have added cover images for each of the free books. Those images link directly to the author’s Amazon listing. I will say that we preached about looking out for click bait, so if you are uncomfortable clicking the image, you can search for the book on Amazon and use the cover image to help you find the right book!

Thank you again for all of your support. We look forward to bringing you more free books in the future.