Re-post: Promoting Yourself With a Virtual Tour

Imagine lines of fans outside your local bookstore waiting to meet you, listen to you and, hopefully, buy your book. Now imagine being able to make appearances around the world for little to no expense. Best yet, your visit never really ends. 

A virtual blog tour is all of the above. Blog tours can feature guest posts of articles on any subject, book excerpts, back stories, character visits, reviews, straight out advertising of your book, or just about anything that can be imagined. Blog hosts invite visits and you and your book get publicized to possibly hundreds more than an in-store appearance would generate. 

You can set up your own blog tour or pay a fee for a professional company to arrange it. Either way, you will be expected to write a few articles and supply information. You should make frequent stops at the blogs after your feature is posted to respond to comments and questions. 

The beauty of a blog visit is that it lasts a lot longer than just your scheduled date, people can stop by anytime they are surfing the net. 
Being a blog host also has its benefits. Whether you put the word out that you are looking for guest bloggers or you invite friends to swap blog time with you, you can increase traffic to your own blog by having other authors post articles and invite their followers to read them. As the “hits” increase on your blog more potential readers and buyers see your name. When you post on a friend’s blog, you also invite your followers to visit and you help to increase their traffic. 

Generally a professional blog tour is limited to a time span of anywhere for two to six weeks; it also usually focuses on one book or series. Some authors will arrange second or third tours for books when they find that their sales numbers have gone up. Professional blog tour coordinators will not only have a list of reliable and worthy blog sites for your visits, they will also be able to offer you guidance about topics to blog about and will help smooth over some of the missteps that might happen along the way. The author is still required to be a full participant. 

You can also arrange your own blog tour and visits. Research blogs that appeal to a similar readership as your book. Look into a blog’s popularity. Contact the blog owners and ask if you could make a blog visit. If you are about to, or have just, released a book, you will want to get a concentrated group of dates so that your book and name pop up on the internet frequently. If you have more than one book out, or if you are just looking to maintain your popularity online, you don’t have to stop making blog visits by any special date. 

My very first blog visit was on a Nikki Leigh blog called Share Your Hero which featured Lon from Bartlett’s Rule. When you visit a blog remember to help publicize your visits by posting the site on your own blog, on FaceBook, Twitter and sending emails to friends. Be sure to list all of your appearances, virtual, media and in person appearances on your online media site. 







Writing assignment: I have a blog, The Potpourri Parlor, featuring book promos, reviews and guest posts. You do not need to be a published author to post a review or an article. Check it out at https://ccepotourri.wordpress.com/; for directions to get involved, go here… 

Writing prompt: Write up a few questions that you might use to interview one of your favorite characters. What do you think his/her answers would be?