THE Group for Authors! discussion
Publishing and Promoting
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Michael wrote: "Alesha wrote: "My blog tour (this is my first time organizing one) starts Feb. 1, as mentioned earlier, and my fellow authors and I have already done quite a bit of prep work. If you want to see a ..."Thanks, Michael, and good luck to you as well!
Devorah wrote: "Alesha wrote: "My blog tour (this is my first time organizing one) starts Feb. 1, as mentioned earlier, and my fellow authors and I have already done quite a bit of prep work. If you want to see a ..."Alesha's preparation for this blog tour has been amazing. She's teaching me so much, and I'm just trying to hold on while she whizzes along.
Daniel wrote: "If you write magical fantasy, I have a free blog tour opportunity I can offer. I run www.MagicAppreciationTour.com, which is a free online book catalog for magical fantasy readers and a free member..."Daniel! I went ahead and signed up w/ MA Tour. It looks neat :)
Francene wrote: "Devorah wrote: "Alesha wrote: "My blog tour (this is my first time organizing one) starts Feb. 1, as mentioned earlier, and my fellow authors and I have already done quite a bit of prep work. If yo..."Thank you, Francene. Can't wait for us to kick this off--Feb. 1 is around the corner!
Michael wrote: "Alesha wrote: "My blog tour (this is my first time organizing one) starts Feb. 1, as mentioned earlier, and my fellow authors and I have already done quite a bit of prep work. If you want to see a ..."I'd love to take part in a blog tour, I'll be honest still not entirely sure what it's about and what to do?
L.M. wrote: "Michael wrote: "Alesha wrote: "My blog tour (this is my first time organizing one) starts Feb. 1, as mentioned earlier, and my fellow authors and I have already done quite a bit of prep work. If yo..."In my case on a day in March you post on your blog something to do with myself or the new book. On the other days different blogs do the same.
Your post could be an interview or a review or whatever fits your blog best.
Send me a pm if you're still interested. Thanks!
Thank you for the info. I am new at this too but have did a few interviews.
Yeah. What exactly is a blog tour? Authors get interviewed by bloggers?I often read about how much work is involved. Isn't it just exactly like being online and going to websites?
I apologize for my density. I'm new.
I'm so glad I found this group thread. I've been racking my brains trying to work out what a 'Blog Tour' is and how it works!Thanks a million for all the interesting info :)
Blog tours come in many forms. Some organizations charge you to get access to their pool of bloggers. They make all the arrangements and set up a schedule for you. Your job is to come up with guest posts or to offer books for review. Some author organizations help you set up a tour for free, but it is usually up to you to do the scheduling; they just give you ready access to the blogs of the other members.
You can arrange a blog tour by yourself. You just have to find several bloggers who are willing to host you during your tour. Each stop on the tour could be a guest post, an interview, a giveaway, a review, an excerpt, or anything else that sounds like fun.
Since the goal of a blog tour is exposure, you want your tour to consist of stops that give you the *right* exposure. In general, you'll do better if you tour on blogs that have a compatible audience. If you are a sci-fi writer, you should tour blogs that have a sci-fi audience. I'm sure this is obvious, but the bigger the blog (in terms of traffic), the better.
Most of the authors I've communicated with have said that blog tours rarely translate into instant sales. What they do is give you better name recognition in your market. Because the post usually links back to your blog, they also give your blog extra search engine juice. My belief is that blog tours help you find new readers, develop fans, and done right, establish credibility.
James wrote: "Blog tours come in many forms. Some organizations charge you to get access to their pool of bloggers. They make all the arrangements and set up a schedule for you. Your job is to come up with gue..."
Thanks for the super insight James. I guess I'll need to work on my blog before I embark on that journey :)
Bo wrote: "Thanks for the super insight James. I guess I'll need to work on my blog before I embark on that journey :)"You're welcome.
It is helpful to have an established blog. Sometimes other bloggers will offer to exchange posts with you, which is a good opportunity to get free content for your own blog. That's more likely to happen if you have a history of regular posts and/or a decent following.
One other thing I didn't mention about blog tours: it's a lot of fun to meet other authors in your genre. I've met several new online friends this way.
James wrote: "Bo wrote: "Thanks for the super insight James. I guess I'll need to work on my blog before I embark on that journey :)"You're welcome.
It is helpful to have an established blog. Sometimes other..."
Thanks James. I'm right at the start of the journey - published, now attempting to market :)
I've only recently started my blog, but I am finding it very enjoyable to speak about the unspoken. That's the way I use it anyway!
I'm also new to all this technology. But I love to write books....so the occasional blog post shouldn't cause me too much bother.
Great point about meeting other authors in your genre, I need to get my finger out and start networking more.
How can I access other blogs? I have a blog that I've nurtured for a few years and just published my first novel, Loving Christy, which has been well received. I want to get more exposure and am willing to work. But I am not sure exactly the best way to find blog tours--any suggestions?
I'm not familiar enough with any of the paid services to recommend one, but you can try the following Internet searches to get a feel for what's out there:virtual book tours
blog tour service
blog tour company
In addition to finding blog tour services, you'll find a number of articles that talk about what to look for. As I said before, I think you'll get the best value for your money if you can tour on blogs that have the same audience as your book. It seems like that would be obvious, but it won't be the case with all touring companies.
Another thing you can do is join a few writer's forums (www.kboards.com for example) in addition to Goodreads and connect with other authors in your genre. I've joined a few group promotion events as a result of connections like this. If you friend other authors on Facebook and Twitter, you will occasionally get posts from other authors who are trying to organize a blog tour or group promo. If you become a stop on their tour, they'll often reciprocate when it's your turn.
Right here on Goodreads, you could put put up a post asking for other authors to host you for a blog tour stop.
Best of luck, and I hope you have fun with it!
Kathy wrote: "How can I access other blogs? I have a blog that I've nurtured for a few years and just published my first novel, Loving Christy, which has been well received. I want to get more exposure and am wi..."Hey there Kathy, I'm no expert on this (see above) but I'm guessing that Blog Tours probably work best as reciprocal deals. Someone was seeking 'blog hosts' earlier in my twitter stream - if you're interested I'll happily trawl through them and find the detail for you :)
I have a blog at sylvienickels.wordpress.com on which I include a section interviewing other people (only just started so only a couple of interviews so far). My plan is to build up on this, though in my case I want to specialise in people with whose genre I empathise. From this small beginning it's a question of building up links with which, hopefully to exchange info. Good luck. Sylvie Nickels
Just ran across this discussion today. We recently had a tour done by Beck Valley Books, www.beckvalleybooks.blogspot.com and were very pleased. If you are looking to do a tour and don't mind spending a bit of money, they were great to work with. We're also participating in Blogger Book Fair this month. Here's a link http://ow.ly/mLnoa. Several authors and bloggers sign up and then are paired to do guest posts on each others' blogs. Kayla runs this free of charge twice a year.
I'd like to do another but don't want to be greedy. However if you are lacking enough participants give me a holler. I have experience!:)