Monday, August 6, 2012

The Journey of Self-Publishing #10: Book Blog Tours


Thoughts At One In The Morning is proud to present a blog post series for unpublished writers on the self-publishing world. I have asked four indie authors to share with you the different steps they have taken on their journey. They will discuss the writing process itself, the steps in between, and publishing itself. Please join us every week for a new topic on the journey to becoming an indie author!

Our Indie Author panel:
Marie Landry, author of Blue Sky Days
You can find her on her blog Ramblings Of A Daydreamer.

A.M. Hargrove, author of The Guardians Of The Vesteron series
You can find her on her blog A.M. Hargrove.

Avery Sawyer, author of Notes To Self
You can find her on her website The Teashop Girls.

Michelle Flick, author of The Owens Legacy: Revelations
You can find her on her blog Oh! For the LOVE of BOOKS!.

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This week on The Journey of Self-Publishing:

~Book Blog Tours~

Did you do one?

Marie Landry: I did a huge four-week tour that started the day the book was released (January 17th). I organized it all myself - I emailed a few specific people that I knew I really wanted to be part of the tour, and then I talked about it on my blog, and created an event on Goodreads where I asked for people who were interested to email me.

 
A.M. Hargrove: Yes, I've done them and would recommend them. They're fun and you get to meet some awesome people that way. It's also a great tool to use for promotion.
 

How many bloggers did you use?
 
Marie Landry: I had 24 bloggers, a few of whom posted two different days as part of the tour.

What kind of things did you offer for bloggers?

Marie Landry: Bloggers could choose from reviews, excerpts, guest posts, interviews, giveaways, and author spotlights. I also offered for them to come up with any unique feature they could think of, or work their tour stop into a regular established feature on their blog - one blogger asked authors to give random facts about themselves, and another blogger asked authors to talk about music and how it affected their writing, so those were the features I did for them as part of the tour.

 
A.M. Hargrove: I've done guest posts, interviews, character interviews, giveaways, amazon gift cards and things of that nature.

Is there anything you would do differently?

Marie Landry: I think next time, I might have someone else organize it. It was a lot of work on top of other promotions, plus writing. If I did do it myself again, I think I’d do a few short tours rather than one big one.


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Thank you for the great advice on book blog tours!

Join us next week when our Indie Author panel will tell us about Pricing, Sales, & Giveaways and how to know what price range to put your novel in and how sales and giveaways benefit you.

6 comments:

  1. Awesome post, Jess! I loved reading about the various author's takes on how they organized their book tours. Until recently I never knew how many sites out there offered to host/run book tours for authors!

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    1. I didn't know until more recently either! It's nice that there are those sites because it can be a huge task to take on all by yourself. :)

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  2. I think blog tours for indie books are a great thing. I've participated in a few and it's definitely a good way to get the word out.

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    1. I always thought they were great myself. I've discovered many books through blog tours! :)

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  3. I'm with Molli. I can't believe how many sites out there are now offering their services as part of blog tours. Makes you think about being industrious in this bloggig business...I can just imagine the amount of work that goes into a blog tour. I find it hard to keep my blogging straight. I don't know how I'll remember where I'm posting on a certain day!

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    1. Oh I know! I've thought about how it would be a great business to start one myself but I don't know if I'd be able to handle all the emails and signups and what not. I could probably manage to handle it (a short tour) for my own book, lol. :P

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Thank you for commenting and happy reading!