Why the Virtual Blog Tour?


If you’ve read my blog before, you know that I am a HUGE advocate of virtual book tours.

What’s a virtual book tour? Well, on a regular book tour, a publisher pays travel expenses to let you hawk your book in bookstores. They don’t do that much anymore, especially for new authors.

A virtual book tour is where you “tour” the internet by stopping at different people’s blogs to answer questions, interview, etc. The cost is nominal, which people (and publishers) love and it’s great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I recommend Tywebbin Virtual Book Tours. They’ve recently cut back their workload, so contact them.

The downside to blog tours is exactly how to convert blog readers to sales. Try a giveaway if you get stuck. I still recommend doing a tour, but do your homework. The offerings vary from good to gruesome, meaty to fluffy, inexpensive to sticker-shock pricey.

Say, like me, you have a modest marketing budget with no room to spare and you want bang for your buck. You can get it, IF you’re willing to be a bit unorthodox.   

DISCLAIMER: There is NO substitute for quality. If you promote a poor product, the critiques you receive will reflect it. And there is such a thing as bad press.

Fortunately for us, there’s a community out there with an audience who LOVES to read free stuff. They’re called book bloggers, and they are your besties for book promotion. Think Amanda Hocking, whose popularity skyrocketed as a self-published author, partially due to book bloggers.

Here’s what I did to promote my next book, The Anarchists, despite being told that no one would do it. You can do it too:

  1. Do online research to find book bloggers who review electronic copies (they prefer almost anything over PDF, but some like that too). This saves you the COG of a print book and the mailing fees, which add up fast.
  2. Curate the list. Eliminate people who only accept paperbacks, have broken URLs, closed submissions, or do not accept your genre.
  3. Contact them and send it off!

 

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3 thoughts on “Why the Virtual Blog Tour?

  1. Brian,

    Awesome blog post! Thank you being an advocate for virtual book tours. I’m starting heavy on my online book promotion and the virtual book tour was the first item on my marketing plan. You can’t beat word of mouth advertising and the internet has opened opportunities up to everyone.

  2. Pingback: Crazy Book Tours Virtual Blog Tour: Review for Comeback Love by Peter Golden | Books in the Burbs

  3. Pingback: Riddle Me This: Promoting your book through a virtual blog tour | Don't Sweat the Technique

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