Authors and Virtual Book Tours … Make Them Match!

DM Productions LLC has worked with many authors as our clients and friends. In recent years the book game has radically changed with the introduction of Amazon.com,  the Kindle and Nook eReaders. Currently only one out of seven books are sold in a traditional bookstore. We have seen the demise of one major book chain, but that fact has also made independent book stores stronger in some markets.

So how do authors reach more readers if book stores are a very small percentage of how books are marketed? To sell books, you still have to create a buzz about the book. If you’re not lucky enough to have your own television program like Bill O’Reilly where you can promote your book, what else is available?

Book tours are still used by established authors, but even folks like Debbie Macomber and Gregory Maguire with large followings have cut back on travel in today’s economy. For an emerging author the task and expense can be daunting.

Enter the Virtual Book Tour or Blog Tour. You’ll find a goodly amount of information about how to conduct a blog tour online. What you won’t find is how to make one work for your book tour. Research. Match the author’s book with the interest of the blogger. I know that sounds simple, but it is a lot of work if done right. And, if done right, it is very successful.

Follow Mara Purl documentation of her recent blog tour for her book, What the Heart Knows, and you find a real success story. She devoted herself to the tour just as if it were a real travel, city-to-city book tour and it worked.  Mara was on blogs with more than 17 million unique readers and she had 15,000 e-book downloads … in one month! It made her book a best seller hitting #9 on Amazon.com.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the book game is that writing a book is only about ten percent of the total effort it takes to get the book published and then once published … sold! Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done because it can. It just takes work.

Or, you can call on me and I can help, it is what I do and I love it.

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Filed under PR, public relations, road trip, social media

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