Comments on Book Marketing Bestsellers: Promoting books to a worldwide audience. Book Promotion Blog!: Authors Tour the World with Virtual Book Tours

Hi, Cheryl, You are not only a wonderful writer, ...

2009-08-30T05:39:15.877-07:00

Hi, Cheryl,

You are not only a wonderful writer, you're obviously exceptionally smart when it comes to promoting your books. I too am Canadian, but from the east coast and have a couple of books published by a major NY publisher, finished the new one and searching out new and ingenious ways to promote it. (As soon as I find a new publisher. -:)) VBTs sounds terribly involved, and I would probably opt for someone like Dorothy to do the organizing for me, who could do it for a reasonable fee. Thanks for this very helpful article, Cheryl. Looking forward to your next novel

Hi, Cheryl, You are not only a wonderful writer, ...

2009-08-30T05:37:04.035-07:00

Hi Cheryl, Just stumbled on this article and real...

2009-07-29T14:40:27.264-07:00

Hi Cheryl,

Just stumbled on this article and really appreciate the practical details. It's so much of what we authors need to get our arms around this. I'm a published author looking to create better buzz about my newest book and I know a blog tour will be helpful, but feeling a little in the dark about getting off the ground. Great help to me here. Thanks again.

I'm on a Viritual Book Tour with Dorothy's company...

2007-12-07T12:59:00.000-08:00

I'm on a Viritual Book Tour with Dorothy's company. The sites are diverse and highly promoted. Like all forms of promotion, the more the author participate, the more successful the tour will be. Not only does the author have to be available for interviews, but she or he needs to promote the tour. The interviews not only promote the book, but help to create a name brand for the author.

Hi Dorothy et all:I've been researching blog tours...

2007-09-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

Hi Dorothy et all:

I've been researching blog tours for over 3 years and have followed around a number of authors, watching what works and what doesn't. I guess I'm a bit of a voyeur! lol

I also just finished my own 1 month blog tour, so I feel confident that I have a good grasp on how things work. Plus I have been involved in internet promotion for over 10 years.

I don't know if it was your company I had noticed or another, Dorothy, but one stood out as having far too many duplicate or clone sites. I followed one author's tour and they didn't stray too far from the clones. And that is what I'm talking about.

There are forums, blogs and sites on nearly every conceivable topic and with the right approach, a VBT organizer should have no problem adding some to their list. Yes, it does take time and work.

From your other list of blogs (Blogcritics, Bookseller Chick, etc) that feature your authors, it sounds like you are hitting some major blogs with high traffic, so you probably aren't the one I was referring to. Keep in mind, I was simply pointing out that clone sites are not the most beneficial to authors. And they aren't. They need exposure on a variety of sites and blogs, with different traffic. Unfortunately, clone sites tend to see a lot of the same traffic, same visitors.

It's really great that you aren't overpricing your service. It's nice to see in this industry. :)

Really, my article was for those who want to organize a VBT themselves. I wanted to show the pros and cons of a service vs. DIY. In the end, every author has to decide whether they want to spend time or money. I personally loved the control of doing my own. It was a lot of work, weeks of preparation, but I've made great connections. And I know my market. :)

Cheryl

Something Cheryl said in this article I would like...

2007-09-13T00:53:00.000-07:00

Something Cheryl said in this article I would like to comment on. She said, "Some services cost thousands of dollars, while some cost less but only post your content to duplicate sites―ones they have set up themselves. The latter is not an advantage to you."

I feel she is wrong about this because she does not understand the intricate parts of what makes these tours successful. I run a tour service and I do have my authors on a few in house blogs. The reasons for this is that if you were a tour coordinator who has spent hundreds of hours scouring the net for certain kind of blogs and come up empty handed, the first step would be to create a blog for this certain purpose. In order to fully understand this, I’ll give you an example. I have a client coming up whose book is about coaching a baseball team. He specifically requested to be placed on baseball blogs. If you go on a baseball blog hunt, you will find that they all are talking statistics and no one wants to even talk books, much less host an author trying to sell his book there. I contacted the author and told him this and he agreed as he has been trying to get baseball bloggers to appear on before he signed up. There are ways around it, e.g. friends who love baseball. Okay, so you end up on your friend’s blog who loves baseball and no one buys your book because a) the friend updates irregularly and b) his friend must not have networked because he has no friends who visit.

Our in house blogs are set up to accommodate any type of book. They are all optimized with SEO and we promote the stops intensively. While we do limit the amount of in house blogs our authors appear on for variety such as Blogcritics, Bookseller Chick, Beatrice, Galley Cat, Trashionista, other high profile blogs, we do a successful business with almost ten authors a month going out and this is every month so it must be something we are doing right. Our clients have been NY Times bestsellers, small press authors, ebook authors; it varies, and they are all happy with the results.

Our tours are one of the cheapest around and I have every intention of keeping it that way because it’s about time someone was for the author and not for their almighty dollar.

Sometimes more expensive doesn't make it better.

Thank you, Anonymous, for your comment and questio...

2007-09-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Anonymous, for your comment and questions.

And thanks, John, for clarifying things. I was out most of the day and just had time to check the article now.

Anonymous, the article was written after I completed a one-month virtual book tour. There are many articles that explain WHAT a VBT is but not many that explain in depth HOW to organize one. So I wrote this to help other authors, traditionally published and self-published. I know of major bestsellers who have done or will be doing a virtual tour; and I know of first time self-published authors plus everyone in between who want to do one but have no idea where to begin.

As John pointed out, I highlighted and linked certain words and services that I found very useful, rather than making people search for this information. These are just my suggestions. There are many services for instance that will coordinate a virtual tour for an author. I am not affiliated with these companies.

My publisher at Kunati Books (a traditional publisher) is very keen on VBT's and he's striving to encourage all Kunati authors to have one. Not only are they a great way to promote a book, they are a lot of fun (and yes, they are work :)

And really, an author can visit any blog that has an audience that would read their book. I found that it was a wonderful way to connect with readers, and I tried to make my VBT exciting and fun for everyone.

Thanks again for leaving a comment.
Cheryl Kaye Tardif

1. Self-published authors, small presses, regular ...

2007-09-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

1. Self-published authors, small presses, regular publishers, and published authors have all used blog tours as a way to market their books. It's not just for self-publishers.

2. It is not an advertisement for the highlighted words. The words are highlighted as links for those who want to follow up on the services the author of this article used or recommends.

3. Agents do not partake in blog tours. Publishers do -- if they are helping their authors.

4. 90% of blogs are rants or tales of life without a story. 10% are legitimate sources of information, tips, inspiration, etc. If you do a blog tour, you want to tour on those useful blogs.

I'm not sure I understand this. Is this to promote...

2007-09-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I understand this. Is this to promote self-published authors?
This seems to me, an advertisment to the highlighted words.
Do agents and publishers partake in this?
I find many of the blogs substandard to the publishing industry. They are rants or tales of life, without a story.
Keep in mind this is my opinion, but I am curious about how this VBT really works.