Questions about a virtual book tour?

[Angel]

I'm wondering about virtual book tours. Can someone please give some details about what this is (I get the basic concept, I think), have you done one, what exactly you did? Maybe some details about what worked for you, what didn't, how many "stops" seems appropriate, etc? Was this successful in your opinion? And what do you consider sucessful in this regard (book sales/meeting people/getting your name out there/etc.)? If you're a blogger, have you hosted authors on one of these and what would you recommend to make it successful? TIA for any input.

[Peggy]

Thanks for asking this, Angel. I keep seeing all these announcements about this subject and I too would like someone to explain it to me.

[Michael]

I'm into the second week of a month long tour. I would say a month is probably too long.

So far I've seen a few sales, but nothing amazing, but I do think it has improved my exposure. Plus I've met some cool bloggers :-)

[Florence]

My first blog tour will be in April. I chose the simplest, cheapest one available and I'll see how it turns out. Then I plan to invest in a more comprehensive tour and possibly some other stuff when I see how the wind blows. The only thing I can say for sure now is that some kind of publicity is essential and blog tours are a good place to start. I used Black Lion Tours but may go with Goddess Fish Promotions next. Spread the publicity around and see what works.

[Christine]

I wrote a 3-part blog series on how I ran my own month-long blog tour successfully.

Here is part 1: http://christinerice-author.com/2012/...

Here is part 2: http://christinerice-author.com/2012/...

And here is part 3: http://christinerice-author.com/2012/...