Guest Post: 10 Things You Need to Know About Virtual Book Tours

10 Things You Need to Know About Virtual Book Tours

By Dorothy Thompson


By now, most authors know what virtual book tours are or at least have heard of them. They're that wonderful marketing tool that should be a must have in every new book's campaign. With each new book I write, I'm making a game plan before the book is even published and a virtual book tour is the first promotional venue on that list.
While most of us know what they are, there are still a few new authors who might have heard of them but have no idea what they involve. I give you my top 10 things you need to know about virtual book tours so that you will know what to expect.

1. Virtual book tours are the BEST way to get the MOST online exposure for your book. Not only are you presenting your book and yourself to thousands of people, all of your interviews, guest posts and reviews are archived which means months down the road, you're still selling your book because of that one tour.
2. Virtual book tours ARE a lot of work. Not only are you searching for the perfect blogs to host you, you are acting as the middle man between you and the blogger unless you are using a paid service such as Pump Up Your Book who will do all the work for you. Even if you do sign up with Pump Up Your Book, there is still lots of work to do completing assignments - filling out interviews and writing guest posts unless you choose an all review tour. Even though it requires a little bit of your time to fill out interviews and write guest posts, it's well worth it.
3. You will learn more about your book than you ever did. I had an author tell me that through the interviews and guest posts she had to complete, she never learned so much about her book which caught her off guard. Now when she is interviewed on radio shows and makes television appearances, she is better prepared.
4. Virtual book tours will build up your author platform. No matter if you're a fiction author or a nonfiction author, virtual book tours will build up your author platform using your key search words.
5. Your reviews are guaranteed. Offline publicists while they mean well do it all wrong. They query a book blogger, make arrangements to send the book, then that's where it stops. The review is not a guaranteed thing. The reviewer can post the review anytime they see fit. With virtual book tours, your review is guaranteed on a certain date unless the reviewer jumps ship which rarely happens. I had an author tell me she signed up with an offline publicist who sent out many books and only one or two reviewers actually came through for them. That was money loss for the author. Books don't come cheap these days so coming up with a date you and the reviewer can agree upon guarantees that review will be a given thing.
6. Many reviewers now take ebooks which save you money. Thank goodness someone was smart enough to invent a device that automatically loads a book in a few seconds (no waiting to go to the book store anymore my friend) and makes it fun to read. When Amazon lowered their price of the Kindle, sales soared and book lovers started talking about getting one. What that means is that it opened up a wonderful way to get these books to the book reviewers quickly and less expensively. Have you noticed how much books are and how much it takes to ship them? Not saying all reviewers will take ebooks, but as time goes on, most will have an e-reader and, as a matter of fact, will prefer an ebook.
7. More website hits, more blog hits, more Twitter hits and more Facebook Fan Page hits. All authors should have a website or blog and accounts at Twitter and Facebook. No matter if you think they're all a waste of time. A virtual book tour will definitely give you more hits at all places as long as your links are in your bio.
8. Going on a virtual book tour raises your Alexa rankings. What is Alexa? Alexa measures how well you are doing in the search engines. By going on a virtual book tour, and including interviews and guest posts during that tour, your website and blog links are included in every bio (or should be!). Those are incoming links which Alexa uses to measure your ranking. The more your website or blog link shows up on other sites, the more valuable your site is to them and thus, your rankings soar.
9. You will learn how to sell your book through media exposure. Not all authors take advantage of their interviews and guest posts by gearing them toward their audience, thus luring them to their book and/or website/blog. I've had many authors on tour and the ones who really take the time to make their interviews and guest posts effective selling tools are the ones who profit the most. The key thing here is to make your audience curious. One liners in the case of interviews may not cut it. Of course there are only so many ways you can answer "What's your book about?" but take your time and get your audience's curiosity peaked so that they do make your way over to your website or your book's buying link.
10. Virtual book tours teach you how to connect well with others. There is no better way to learn how to network. All these wonderful book bloggers who agree to host you are your new friends in your extended network and they will be there for you the next time you have a book to promote (unless they completely hated it of course). You'll also learn how to use the social networks effectively as you study how to get people over to your stops by persuasive wording. Remember to talk to your audience, not at them.

There you have it. 10 reasons I feel you need to know about virtual book tours in a nutshell. If you have a tour coordinator as opposed to setting one up yourself, she will walk you through it so that it will be a fun experience for all. Your book will thank you for it.

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book!, a public relations agency specializing in online book promotion. You can visit her website at http://pumpupyourbook.com.

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Seven Simple Tips to Getting Your Book Reviewed by Paula Krapf

Today's guest post is courtesy of Tony Eldridge, creator of Marketing Tips For Authors.
http://blog.marketingtipsforauthors.com/


I am excited to introduce our guest today, Paula Krapf. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., a company that has its finger on the pulse of the publishing industry. She will be blogging on a subject that every writer wants to learn more about: How to get your book reviewed.

You may also want to check out the Publishing Insiders Wrap-Up: Blogging Ideas the Whole Year Through. This is the summary of the Blog Talk Radio program that Paula interviewed me on as a guest. You can also replay the interview on demand when you want to listen to it.

Make sure you check out the great additional resources that Paula lists at the end of the post.

7 Simple Steps to Getting Your Book Reviewed
By Paula Krapf

Your book is ready for reviews and all you need to figure out is where and how to find the appropriate reviewers – so you can add the reviews to your website (you were planning to add the reviews to your own site, right?), find blurbs for your book cover if you don't have any yet, and just generally spread the word about your book.

But first, you need to know what to look for and where to go online to find reviewers.

1. Google is your friend

You can always start with Google and type in your “genre” + “book reviews” to start building your list; or, if you are familiar with books already published that are in your genre you can type in the “book title” + “book reviews” in order to discover reviewers who have reviewed similar material and might therefore be open to reviewing your book. When doing these searches, be prepared to do some serious groundwork, however – you'll need to visit each of these sites not only to collect contact information but to learn about the blogger and his or her site. You'll want to make sure they're still accepting review requests, see the genres they typically review and get a general feel for the blog and its tone and whether you feel it fits you.

2. Use the free tools

If you can, download Google's free toolbar which includes the Google Page Rank (GPR) algorithm. This is a useful tool for determining the “weight” of a given site; the higher the rank (from 0-10), the more important Google deems the site. What you want to try to do is find the most active people who review in your genre. A rank of 3 is very good for a review blog; although that doesn't mean you should discard anything below a GPR of 3. You should also read the blog and get a sense of whether the blog attracts readers; one sure sign of this is the fact that there are comments following the blog posts. Certain factors don't weigh as heavily – for instance, many blogs have Google subscribers, but this number can be misleading as those who join have to sign up to do so. There are many regular blog readers who simply won't take the time to sign up, so the number of Google subscribers may not mean much. You'll also want to see if the blogger is active on sites like Twitter and Facebook; if so, then the books they review are most likely posted to those popular social networking sites, which is great additional exposure for you and your book.

3. Read the fine print

In addition, most bloggers post their blog policies and genre/publishing preferences – it's important to read their policies in order to understand what they review, preferred genres, whether they'll consider self-published books and how long they may need to review your book. Here's a great example of a review policy: http://blog.mawbooks.com/contact-me/. If you're working on a tight timeframe and they indicate it could take 6 months to get to your book, well... you probably won't pitch them. Then again, if your book is in a small niche and this blogger and site seem perfect for you, a longer wait might be worthwhile. Many authors do not read the review policies before pitching bloggers, which is a bad idea. This information is readily available and there for a reason. Also, never send attachments via email but DO send links: to your author bio, photo, press release, books blurbs and book excerpts. These should all be on your website, and including them in your pitch is a great way to make it easy for prospective reviewers to learn about you and your book.

4. Reviews versus blog tour considerations

There is a difference between pitching for reviews versus seeking a blog tour. Requesting reviews could lead to coverage at any time, really, unless you work out a timeframe with the reviewer, but each situation is handled separately. A blog tour is typically coverage of your book by a certain number of bloggers within a given timeframe – a week, two weeks, a month. Blog tours can consist of reviews, interviews, guest posts and giveaways – there are many options. But before you seek bloggers to fill your tour dates figure out in advance what you'd like to do, how long you'd like to do the tour (so you know how many bloggers you'll need) and if you can't prepare guest posts in advance at least have some topics ready to present. Some bloggers love blog tours, others don't want any part of it. Your research will uncover the best prospects to pitch; just give yourself plenty of advance time to set up your tour. Bloggers are busy so you may find a certain number must decline due to other commitments and you'll need to seek others in their place.

5. Be thorough

The key is to do your homework – research the blog, the blogger and learn the things that matter, such as the blogger's name, contact information and preferred genres so you can send a professional, personalized pitch. If your genre is a natural fit for them it's a fact you can use in your pitch by indicating that your book is similar to other books they've reviewed (and provide examples). Also become familiar with their style – some bloggers tend to emphasize the positive and if they can't say anything nice, they may decline to review the book. Others prefer to be honest (brutally) if need be. Some bloggers are not afraid to tear and book and its author apart and are quite merciless in their approach. You need to know this before you pitch and be honest with yourself – look at the tone of the blog as ask yourself how you'd feel having your book reviewed the same way. If you can't handle it, don't do it. There are hundreds of blogs out there and there's room for you to decide that a certain blog or blogs don't work for you.

6. Free versus paid

One final note regarding paid reviews or tours. There are some review sites that charge for reviews claiming that they must compensate their reviewers for their time. There are sites that will charge you for a blog tour. They do not do anything you can't do yourself – research and identify bloggers, pitch, schedule, send books – so let the buyer beware, as the saying goes. You may be much better off going the free route in the book blogosphere where hundreds of bloggers connect with each other daily and work hard to provide as much exposure as they can for each book.

7. You do know best

Don't be afraid to trust your gut, either. You might find a gem of a blog that has a low Google Page Rank, but it's a nice-looking site, well written, has regular commenters and basically demonstrates a commitment to reviewing books – if you like what you see don't sweat the statistics, make a pitch! There are things you can do to boost your reviews such as posting your reviews on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, and those techniques will help you gain even wider exposure for that review. Once you find blogs you like, you can also look at their blogrolls for additional blogs to check out – often bloggers who like similar books list each other on their blogrolls.

Additional resources

Looking for sites to pitch? Here are some great and useful lists:

* Book Reviewers on the Web – this list includes industry standards, literary blogs, off the beaten track blogs and the more opinion-driven book bloggers, http://robinmizell.wordpress.com/book-reviewers

* Midwest Book Review – a listing of a number of sites to check out, http://www.midwestbookreview.com/links/othr_rev.htm

* Best of the Web blogs – blog listing with a description of each blog listed, http://blogs.botw.org/Arts/Literature/Book_Reviews/

* YA Book Blog Directory – bloggers who specialize in Young Adult books, http://yabookblogdirectory.blogspot.com/p/ya-book-blogger-list.html

* Kidlitosphere Central – bloggers in Children's and Young Adult Literature, http://www.kidlitosphere.org/bloggers/

* Book Blog Directory – a large list of blogs followed by a brief description, http://directory.kaysbookshelf.com/

* FSB – search by genre(s) for bloggers, http://www.fsbmedia.com/book_blogger_search.php

* Book Blogs Search – a huge listing of blogs, http://fyreflybooks.wordpress.com/about/book-blogs-search/

* Things to know about Blog Book Tours - http://blogbooktours.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-tips-to-consider.html

Paula Krapf is Chief Operating Officer of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., a marketing and publicity firm that specializes in Internet promotion, strategically working with social networking sites, blogs, micro-blogs, ezines, video sites, and other relevant sites to push an author's message into the virtual community and connect with sites related to the book's topic, positioning the author in his or her market. In the past 15 months their creative marketing strategies have helped land 10 books on the New York Times Bestseller list. Get free tips from our blog, http://www.amarketingexpert.com/blog/ and our biweekly newsletter Book Marketing Expert, http://www.amarketingexpert.com/. You can find Paula on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PaulaatAME.

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Guest Post: Top Tips on How to Set Up, Organize, and Promote a Virtual Blog Tour for a New Book or Author

By Lynn Serafinn

When I organise a book launch campaign for my author clients, I always include a Virtual Blog Tour. Every time I start a new campaign I am invariably asked, both by my clients and by their Joint Venture Partners (JVPs), "What exactly is a Virtual Blog Tour?" I thought it would be a good idea to write an article explaining what it is, and why it is a great promotional tool when properly organised.
What is a VBT?
A Virtual Blog Tour (VBT) is an online "event" wherein an author "visits" a different blog each day during a specified period of time, generally 2-4 weeks in duration. For instance, if your VBT were 2 weeks long, there would be 14 blogs, and each blogger would be assigned a specific day on the tour. In selecting blogs on which to appear, the author would seek out bloggers who have good traffic aimed at specific target audience(s) congruent with the topic of the book.
Technically, the author doesn't "visit" these blogs. Rather, on the assigned tour day, the blogger would post a blog about the author's book. Some blog platforms (such as WordPress) allow you to schedule a post in advance, making it more convenient for the blogger by automating the process.
The content of the blog could be an article about the author, a book review or an interview. When I organise a VBT, I generally prefer to use interviews, which are organised in advance between the blogger and author.
Organising a VBT
The way I organise the interview is to provide a good selection (10-20) of sample topics or story angles on which the author could answer questions. Then, each blogger provides (well in advance) 3 original questions he/she would like to ask the author, aimed at their particular reading audience.
Recently I designed a VBT for a book on the topic of OCD. Here are some of the sample topics I provided my bloggers:

1. What OCD is and what it is not
2. What doctors know or don't know about OCD
3. What parents need to know about OCD
4. What teachers need to know about OCD
5. Being a parent with OCD
6. OCD in personal relationships
7. Having OCD in a work environment
8. OCD and health issues...

And so on.
When I send the sample topics to the VBT bloggers, I ask them to formulate 3 questions based upon a topic (or topics) they feel would be of greatest interest to their readers. The questions are sent to the author several weeks in advance of the tour. The author provides written answers to the bloggers' questions, and together we assemble the "virtual interview" into a structured format, so the bloggers can more or less copy and paste it into their blogs (of course, they can edit it as they choose).
The format we provide the bloggers goes something like this:

"Today I have the great pleasure of being the host on Day 4 of the Virtual Blog Tour for The Super Duper Book by author Mary Jones. Yesterday, Mary visited John Smith's blog at [link to John's blog]. Below is the great interview I did with Mary about how to be super-duper.
[Interview]
I hope you enjoyed this interview with Mary Jones and that you'll check out The Super Duper Book by Mary Jones coming to Amazon on [date]. You can receive a collection of great gifts when you buy her book on the day of her launch, including one from me: [name of blogger's gift]. To find out how to buy Mary's book and receive these gifts, go to [link to author's sales page].
Be sure to follow Mary tomorrow when the next stop on her Virtual Blog Tour is Charlie Brown's blog at [link to Charlie's blog]."

Promoting a VBT
When I organise a VBT, I create a "Tweet" for every stop on the tour, and give them to all bloggers and JVPs well in advance, asking them to post at least one update per blogger. That means, on their designated day on the tour, dozens of people would be sending out updates with a link to Mary's blog post to potentially hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. (depending upon the size of your campaign team).
Additionally, the author would post the tour calendar, with all the links, on his/her own blog.
Being a blogger on a VBT has many benefits:

1. It provides bloggers with easy, original content for their readers.
2. Because an organised team of networkers is sending out updates for each stop on the tour, it has the potential to drive 1000s of new readers to each blog.
3. It helps increase search engine rankings for the blogs, as the blog is linked to, both forwards and backwards, the other blogs on the tour.
4. Bloggers on the tour get to connect with new bloggers who share common interests and speak to similar audiences.

Of course, for authors, a VBT is wonderful because:

1. There is a diversity of content going out about their book during a concentrated period of time.
2. The content is easy to create.
3. It expands their network.
4. They get their book promoted to 1000s of people every day for the duration of the tour.
5. The content you have created could be reused for other purposes.

And don't forget, if a blog post is particularly interesting, both the author and the blogger can "reTweet" about it every now and then after the tour is over.
I hope you found this information useful. Please do feel free to leave your questions or comments below, or to contact me directly for information about setting up or participating in a Virtual Blog Tour.
Lynn Serafinn is a transformation coach, book promotion coach, radio host and bestselling author of the book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self. She also works as a campaign manager for mind-body-spirit authors and has produced several #1-selling book campaigns. She is the founder/creator of Spirit Authors, a virtual learning environment and community that offers training, coaching, business-building and inspiration for mind-body-spirit authors, whether established or aspiring. Subscribe to her Spirit Authors blog at http://spiritauthors.com/category/news/ so you can receive more useful tips and news about upcoming online events. While you are there, do check out the excellent and affordable online courses for authors available at Spirit Authors. If you are an author seeking 1-to-1 support or campaign management for your upcoming book launch, or would like to set up or participate in a Virtual Blog Tour, contact Lynn via the contact form at http://spiritauthors.com/contact.

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