Originally published October 12, 2013
Virtual Book Tours, Effective Online Book Promotion from the Comfort of Your Own Home by Jo Linsdell, Available in Kindle for a special release price of $2.99. ($4.99 after the tour)
Jo graciously asked me to provide a review of her new release as part of her book-tour-in-progress. I have to admit I am quite honored and shall give her the full Alcove Treatment. First the basics.
Virtual Book Tours are a great way to create a buzz for a new release, or to put life back into an older publication. This book takes you through everything you need to know to be able to set up and carry out a successful virtual book tour.
The book is divided into 4 main sections for easy navigation:
1) What is a Virtual Book Tour?
2) How to organise your own tour
3) Promoting a tour
4) Useful resourcesYou’ll find it packed with links, tips, and advice to help make your tour a hit.
I don’t often visit the world of writing on my blog. Most of the writers I have interviewed were invited to contribute to a special interest of the time, such as research for books on science fiction or history or some other topic I was delving into. Sometimes I just get excited about something I’ve found that really helps me as I work through my own writing. Most of the time, I stick to building my platform and letting my fans and readers get to know me. That process is rooted quite deeply in how a blog is managed.
I adore many of the friends I have made over the past couple of years as I have become more deeply involved in social media. I probably spend far more time on Facebook than I should; it is, however, my main source of “outside world” contact. Granted, that can be a bit skewed. What I have noticed is that many of the places I visit, the groups that have included me in hopes of my contribution, and the pages that are created for various and sundry books, products, or people, have become overwhelmed with advertising. Some of my most cherished groups have clamped down hard on hawkers and provided a day or a place to “hang out your shingle.” Then, the managers work hard to keep the communication as informative as possible.
Many marketing gurus in the book industry will tell you that blasting your new release in a dozen or more groups/pages in social media is looked on as spam and does more harm than good. Sadly, I tend to ignore most of those announcements, focusing more on the informative chats and concentrating on building my network. I must smile as I write this, because I almost missed a review on my own book with this inattention. So, where can you express yourself, tell people about your latest work, define for the world the thing you most want to say? On your blog. There are books on how to structure a really successful blog, whether you want to sell books or not—and I will look at them in coming weeks. Right now I want to talk about Jo Linsdell and her marvelous little book about tours.
Blogs are wonderful things if used to their greatest advantage. I use mine as a quiet place to express my discoveries, share my wonder, and build an audience for the way I think and write. In that process, it is often fun to entertain a guest. This, of course, is what happens in a blog tour. It is a time when you have someone in for tea (or coffee) and chat about a mutual interest. Jo shows you how to use that chat to the best advantage of the host and the guest.
There are rules one should follow to be a good guest and a good host. If you want to discuss some aspect of a work in progress, then you need to find blog hosts interested in your topic, the way you work, how you write, where your inspiration comes from. As noted, I have invited guests to share their point of view on a number of topics. It gives my blog life, draws traffic and, well, I usually learn something very interesting.
I learned a great deal from Jo’s book. She will take you through all of the steps of organizing, managing, closing and analyzing a blog tour. This little book is packed with page after page of links and references to help you find the blogs that fit you like a glass slipper. There are even commercial resources you can take advantage of, if you don’t feel confident enough to manage the first tour on your own.
One of my favorite parts (since I’m so obsessive when it comes to organization) is how you think through the process of organizing. What do you want to accomplish? What is your goal for the tour in general? (Don’t cop out here and say—“sell books.”) Think about what is most important about your work. Do you write fun youth fiction where the character grows? Is it steampunk or scifi fantasy? Do your characters portray historical personalities? If you know where you are going, then you have a much better chance of picking effective blog hosts (ones that will actually welcome you) and you will know what type of blog posts you want. Reviews are only one. There are interviews (of you and your characters) or feature stories. Jo knows I like to do book reviews, and that is what she asked of me.
I think that Jo has addressed a really important aspect of the cyber world, and she has given clear and sound advice. Exchanging ideas, progress, thoughts, and connections in a media that allows reflection and preparation has a very different flavor from the “buy me,” “like me,” freebie hurly- burly of social media. Don’t get me wrong: I believe that there is a place and time for marketing on the big network sites. But I much prefer the path described by my friend and colleague, Jo Linsdell.
Here comes all the “where to find her and who she is!”
Jo Linsdell is a bestselling author and internationally recognized book marketing expert. She is the founder and CEO of the Writers and Authors blog and the annual online event Promo Day. Learn more about Jo at https://www.JoLinsdell.com
For more information about Virtual Book Tours: Effective Online Book Promotion from the Comfort of our own Home, please visit https://www.JoLinsdell.com or contact webmaster@JoLinsdell.com.
Some of the titles now available by Jo on Amazon are:
Children’s’ Books: Out and about at the Zoo, A Birthday Clown for Archer (& Coloring book and in Spanish), Fairy May
Guides: Italian for Tourists: Pocket Edition, A Guide to Weddings in Italy
Social Media Links:
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube,
Goodreads, Amazon
Click to tweets:
Must read book about organising virtual book tours! https://bit.ly/VBTKindle #Authors
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