Blog Tours 101 for Authors, Part 4: The Author's Role

Blog Tours 101 for Authors

Part 4: The Author's Role

by Audra Jennings, Litfuse Publicity Group

Whether your publisher sets up your blog tour for you or you hire an agency for the job, there is still work for you to do! In order for an author to be truly successful, he/she must make a connection with readers.

Your publisher or publicity team can give you a list of blogs and links so you can keep up with what has been posted, but you should also set up Google Alerts so you can keep track of everything being said about your book online. As bloggers post reviews, visit each blog and comment on the blog post, thanking them for their review, joining the discussion readers might be having about the book, etc. The blogger and their readers will be grateful you took the time to read the review, visit, and interact with them.

When you get a really great review, share the love by posting links of that review on your Facebook page, Twitter page, etc. In addition to more people seeing glowing reviews of your book, it helps the blogger gain readers. When a blogger gains readers, more people will be able to learn about your next book when the blogger reviews the next release. The benefits grow and grow.

It's also a good idea to offer some sort of giveaway on your blog or website during the blog tour in order to draw people to your website to enter. While they are there, they will be able to learn more about you and your other books.

Also, be willing to answer a few questions for interviews as they come up. Interviews are one way bloggers make their post unique (which is always desirable). Yes, it might require a little bit of time from you, but it’s worth it to make a personal connection with readers.

All of us live a life full of more to-dos and commitments than we can ever hope to get done. We understand how busy a writer’s life can be, but always make time to interact with your readers and do what it takes to promote your book—even if your next deadline is right around the corner. If it weren’t for readers of your current book, you wouldn’t be able to get your next book deal! 

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For more information about Litfuse Publicity Group,

visit these links:

www.litfusegroup.com

www.twitter.com/litfuse @litfuse

www.facebook.com/LitfuseGroup 

Blog Tours 101 for Authors, Part 3: Why do We Need A PR Agency's Help with a Blog Tour?

Blog Tours 101 for Authors

Part 3: Why do you need a PR agency’s help 

with a blog tour?

by Audra Jennings, 

Litfuse Publicity Group

 

Have you ever watched How I Met Your Mother? One of the main characters, Barney, is always exasperated at all of his friends when he thinks they are out of the loop about something. “Haven’t you read my blog?”

The truth is lots of people have blogs. Anyone can start a blog for free. A lot of people start a blog just to get free stuff. And, unfortunately, a lot of people have blogs their best friends don’t even read. Just like Barney.

This is one of the biggest reasons you should entrust your blog tours to a publicity/public relations agency. There is no limit to the number of blogs that you can find online that review books. One of our most important jobs is reaching out to the bloggers who are the best fit for your book, and screening the ones who aren’t.

Here are some of the benefits of working with an agency on your blog tour:

• Researching quality blogs with readership and getting contact information takes a lot of time. An agency will have already done that work and is always adding new reviewers to their rotation. 
• Pitch your book to specialized groups of bloggers, such as Mommy bloggers, homeschool groups, Amish fiction lovers, etc. 
• Screen new bloggers who request your book after seeing information about the book from other sources.
• Decline bloggers, for whatever reason (limited number of books, new blogger with only one post on his or her blog, etc.), so that you don’t have to do it. Let us be the bad guy for you.
• Compile mailing lists so you don’t have to keep up with potentially hundreds of emails coming into your inbox.
• Schedule posting dates for bloggers.
• Track review postings and provide links to reviews.
• Push bloggers that have not posted reviews.
• Provide content to bloggers (interviews, book trailers, contest information, book summaries, etc.) in an easy-to-use HTML format.

If you are not able to work with an agency to set up your blog tour, some tour groups out there can help you contact bloggers. There are a number of blog tour groups out there, but one piece of advice we would always give—do not join a tour you have to pay to be a part of. There are groups that tour books as a ministry, and the tour coordinators don’t believe in charging to send information about your book. As a rule, paid tour groups usually do not provide anything that free tours don’t, and most of the bloggers overlap.

While tour groups will help you distribute information about your book to potential readers and provide content for the bloggers to post, they don’t provide the services outlined above that an agency will provide.

At Litfuse, we want to free authors to do what they do best: write! Your time is better spent writing while you let us take care of all the details and use our expertise to promote your latest work. 

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For more information about Litfuse Publicity Group, 

visit these links:

www.litfusegroup.com

www.twitter.com/litfuse @litfuse

www.facebook.com/LitfuseGroup