DIY Blog Tour: Organization

One of the most crucial pieces of a successful blog tour is keeping everything neat and organized. Once you start sending requests, you'll have tons of information to keep track of. So before you send that first email you need to set up a system that works for you.

Personally, I'm a fan of excel. It's easy to use, and the color options appeal to the side of me that likes things to be pretty.

I suggest making a master list for each blogger that you plan to contact. Include basic information like name, website, email, etc. This is also where you can keep track of when you sent them the request, their response and other contact dates such as when you sent them post materials, confirmation emails and thank yous.

Here's a sample of how you can structure your pages.


It doesn't matter how you decide to organize the information. Feel free to use a notebook, a PDA, or stone tablets. Whatever works best for you. Just make sure you have all this information in one place that makes it easy for you to know who you've talked to and what role they will play in the tour.

And just like all the drafts of your manuscript, make sure you back up all this information somewhere. Digging back through pages of emails to find a blogger address or figure out who is posting on Tuesday is going to waste a lot of time, right when you'll need it the most.

If you're offering a reviewer sign-up on your website or blog, consider using Google Forms. They have easy to create forms that you can add right to your site without any coding and send all the information to a spreadsheet built around the data fields in your form.

It's tedious to set up, but once the information starts flying, you'll be glad you did it.