A.C.E. Writers

As writers, the unfortunate reality is that we have to do the lion’s share of book marketing and promotion ourselves. Key to that marketing is the virtual book tour, otherwise known as a blog tour. Advertising a book tour actually begins way before your book release.

Here’s how I did it. I created a blog a year and a handful of months before my book was released. On that blog, on Wednesdays, I hosted an author. Almost without exception, each interviewee told me that when the time came for me to begin my blog tour, they would be glad to host me.

Would I remember all those names? Of course not. So, I created a file, where I printed off the emails from those authors, highlighting their comment. Each time I received a comment like that, I printed it and tucked it in my file.

Over the course of the year, I got a handle on which blogs created more buzz than others, and which ones had a good following. I made it a point to host those authors on my blog. It was a win-win proposition.

My book, “Guardian,” was released the end of January, 2010. Planning a blog tour is about organization. I began planning mine for the first 10 days of March. I went to my file and perused its contents. Then I chose several folks from that file.

I had to contact each one and suggest a date. I also had to keep track of who I suggested each date to, so that information went in my file also. Once I had the dates nailed down, I placed the dates and blogs who would be hosting me on my blog. I did the same thing on my website.

I then had to create the content for each blog. Sometimes, I guest posted, sometimes I was interviewed, and sometimes my book, “Guardian,” was reviewed. It is important to mix it up so your followers don’t get bored with repetitious information. It was my responsibility to make sure that my blog hosts had all the information from me that they needed ahead of time so that the day of the blog came the post was up.

Then, for each day of the blog tour, I advertised on all the yahoo groups I am a part of that I was on so-and-so’s blog that day. I also advertised on my own blog for that day, Facebook and Twitter. Key to the success of the blogging, I think, was having a copy of my book to give to a lucky commenter at the end of the blog tour.

Further, the blog’s owner advertised on the day of they hosted me, so that was central to the blog’s success as well. Those blogs that were advertised by me and the blog owner (in an enthusiastic manner) were key to a successful tour.

In retrospect, 10 days was probably a bit too long. I think people stopped following me because they got some of the same information more than once. Seven days would have worked better.

When it was all said and done, the tour was pretty much a success. To be honest, I don’t know how many books it sold as I’m not privy to that information, but my publisher has those numbers, and I’ll find out when I get my first royalty check.

To sum it up, place the schedule on your blog and web site, post about it daily on Facebook and Twitter, promote it daily on your yahoo/ning groups, and ask the blog host to do the same thing.

You can visit Katie Hines on her blog at http://katiehines.blogspot.com for more information about blog tours and her book Guardian.