Good news, indie authors: you too can feel like Beyoncé when promoting your new book by going on a world-wide tour—a World Wide Web tour, that is. One of the savviest ways authors are harnessing the age of the Internet is through blog tours. So, while Queen B is strapping herself into a Swarovski crystal jumpsuit, you can slip into your comfiest pajamas and ready yourself to round the interwebs.
Instead of physically traveling by plane, train, or bus, a blog tour allows you to make virtual pit stops promoting your book and your author brand on websites relating to your work. Despite the name, they don’t even have to be blogs!
Although this type of promotion is a convenient option for today’s authors as they market their books, don’t be fooled: a great deal of thoughtful planning goes into planning a successful virtual book tour. Many authors hire help or access blog tour sites when planning their book launch, but it is possible to plan a low-budget tour on your own—if you start early.
Blog Tour Basics:
- A blog tour can range in length, but typically lasts a minimum of two weeks, with “stops” on a different blog every day
- Blog tours can begin before a book’s release to generate buzz, but typically extend through the first couple weeks of a book’s launch
Stage 1: Research
The most time consuming portion of the blog tour—the research—starts well before your book is released. Wise Ink recommends you begin planning your blog tour three months before your book comes out. This will give you time to identify and contact suitable blogs (or other websites) to tour.
Start by making a list of sites on which you would be interested in featuring your work. The blogs of your contemporaries (other authors) are a great place to start. Be sure to focus on author blogs with similar content, however. Your YA paranormal romance probably won’t appeal to the blog audience of a business guru.
Think outside the box—don’t limit yourself to author blogs. Consider the subject matter of your book. Did you write a memoir about your process coping with a chronic illness? Don’t forget to research blogs relating to health and wellness that may be interested in promoting positive voices.
Wise Ink recommends creating a list of up to 50 potential blog stops in the research stage. Although it may seem lengthy, you are bound to encounter sites that, despite aligning with your mission, are not interested in hosting a guest post during your blog tour time frame.
Stage 2: Contact
While your personal contacts are a good place to start, don’t limit yourself to blogs you know. As long as you’ve done your research and approach the topic professionally, it is advisable to reach out to new sources.
Initiating contact can be a bit daunting. When reaching out to another author or website, be sure to compile a pitch that is tailored specifically to each site. Give a little bit of information about your book and describe why it coincides with the mission of their website. Conclude by asking if they would be interested in hosting a guest post.
Before sending off your requests, be sure to have your media kit ready. This includes a PDF of your book (or an excerpt), a high-resolution image of your cover, an author photo, an author bio, a short description of the book, and any purchase links you have available. In the event a blog is interested, these items will likely be requested to accompany your post, and its best to have them ready to go!
In addition to your media kit, consider preparing a series of freebies for blog readers. Many blog tours include book give-aways to further entice your audience to check out your tour. Once blogs begin accepting your guest post requests, send them copies of your book to distribute once your blog tour rolls around.
Stage 3: Draft
Determine the types of posts you would like to include in your blog tour. Consider spotlights, excerpts, reviews, author interviews, or character profiles. Compose a variety of different posts to keep readers interested. Although your information may be new to your host audience, your own blog followers will likely tune in to learn more about your recent projects. Don’t bore your readers—reveal a little bit of new and different information about yourself and your book on each site.
Regardless of the specific content of your posts, be sure each one concludes with a link to your author blog, as well as information for readers to purchase your book!
Stage 4: Promote
Spreading awareness about your blog tour is key to its success. Drum up some anticipation for your readers by posting your blog tour schedule before it begins. Don’t forget to imbed the links!
Then, remind your Twitter, Facebook, blog followers, and email subscribers every step of the way. Once your blog post is live, let your followers know. Ideally, your blog tour will include a variety of posts. Highlight these differences in your social media posts so your follows don’t feel spammed by your daily promotional updates.
Blog tour veterans: do you have any additional tips?
I would add: Make sure the blog tour company (if you’re hiring it out) knows what kind of book you’ve written. My literary, historical YA got peddled to a bunch of bodice-ripper sites because the tour coordinator only heard “romance.” Ask coordinator if they actually read the book before signing.
Excellent tip, Katie! Thanks for sharing!
Like Katie, I had the same experience with my Review Blog Tour recently. The good news is that the blog site hosts were terrific and I get 6 outstanding reviews from them, the participation by readers was poor.
We had a Rafflecopter $50 gift card give away that drew 1450 entries. When I looked at the list, de-duped entries, there were 67 unique people. That was a big disappointment.
I’ve chatted with the tour operator, who did a terrific job of organizing and administrating the tour, about this and got rationalizations instead of suggestions to make it better for the promised next tour. I guess I’ll have to find someone else to pay for that.