How to Plan and Launch a Blog Tour
If you’re launching a new product or service, why not let cyberdwellers know by going on a blog tour?
What’s a blog tour?
When authors release a new book, they go on a book tour, traveling to bookstores in multiple cities to do book signings. A blog tour is similar to a book tour, with the exception that you (the person releasing the new product or service) travel virtually among various blogs.
Our good friend, Camy Tang, has taken all three of her fiction novels-Sushi for One?, Only Uni, and Single Sashimi -on blog tour. She schedules each tour during the month of the book’s release.
We had a chance to chat with Camy about how she plans and runs her tours:
Do you organize your tours yourself or outsource them?
Camy: I do my tours myself mostly because I started off doing them myself, and now I’ve got everything down to a system. Also, I know many bloggers who are happy to participate in the tour, who all have blogs that have blog readers who are specifically within my reader demographic. This is a very important point for me.
For someone else who isn’t as well connected with bloggers who target their book/product/company’s demographic, I think outsourcing is the best way to go.
How many stops do you make on a typical blog tour?
Anywhere from 30-70, and there’s original content on every person’s blog which I write or they write. I like to target my personal tours over a longer span of time because then it makes it easy, time wise, for me, but there have been very successful tours that are only a few days long.
I also belong to the FIRST Wild Card blog alliance, and everyone there posts the first chapter of the book on tour, which I think is a key marketing point-it gives blog readers a taste of the book. That blog alliance can be as large as 200 or more bloggers, and they are all posting the same thing.
What kind of topics do you address most frequently when you go on tour?
Bloggers in my personal tour like to ask questions that are in line with their own blog’s theme. I will either answer interview questions or write a guest blog on a topic of their choosing, and I really try to make my answers or guest blog post match the blogger’s blog theme.
What is the biggest challenge of doing a tour for your own books?
The time commitment is huge, especially because I am writing original content for those bloggers on my personal tour (the FIRST Wild Card tour has everyone posting the first chapter, so it’s hardly any work for me for that one).
But I don’t mind the time it takes because for me, the marketing potential is huge and worth it. Especially in writing original content for each blog-that makes me more accessible to readers and impacts them in their book buying choices.
The other factor is in choosing blogs that have:
(a) unique readership,
(b) large readership, or
(c) both.
One blog targets scrapbookers, another has a theme of self-image. Two very different readerships, which is great. I want diverse blogs on my tours.
What’s the biggest benefit for you personally?
I like connecting with different people out in the blogosphere, and I’m hoping it translates into more sales for me.
Do book tours really help sell books, or are they more about spreading name recognition?
I don’t know for sure if my tours really help sell more books, but I like to think they do. Each of my books in the Sushi series has done better than the one before, and I think that’s in part due to my increased online marketing efforts for each novel.
Do you host blog tours at your blog?
Yes! I will often have a blog guest who takes part in a Camy-style interview (i.e., irreverent and flippy) and I give their book away to my blog readers. This has been a great way for my blog readers to get informed about new books and new authors.
What advice can you offer people who are thinking about hosting blog tours?
Make sure the books or products you host are in line with your blog’s theme. I will usually host books that I think my particular blog readers will enjoy-and they are mostly readers who like chick lit, romance, romantic suspense, some women’s fiction and a few teens who like fantasy. Accordingly, the majority of the books I host are chick lit, romance, and romantic suspense. I have some women’s fiction novels and some fantasy, but not as much as the other genres.
What advice can you offer authors (and others) who are planning their own tour?
a) Pick your blogs carefully. Make sure their readerships are both diverse and yet target people who would want your book/product.
b) Each blog owner gets a free copy of your book/product. This is a hard rule I always follow. They’re allowing me time on their blog, and they deserve something for it.
c) If you can, give away another copy of your book/product on their blog. Have the blogger mail you the winner’s address and mail the winner their copy yourself so the blogger doesn’t have to spend money on postage. This is being polite. Again, remember that the blogger is doing you a favor.
d) Try to have original content on as many blogs as you can. This will enhance the effectiveness of your blog tour and make you (and your product) more interesting to blog readers.
Thanks so much for your input, Camy!
And yes, we are giving away a copy of Camy’s latest book, Single Sashimi (Sushi Series, Book 3)