Book Highlight Tour
This is the most basic tour format. For each stop, you provide the blogger with all your books basic info like release date, back cover copy and cover photo. On their assigned day, they spotlight your book without any extra commentary. If done all on one day as a blitz this can be effective in raising awareness for your novel, but isn't likely to engage your audience.
Review Tour
This one requires the least amount of work from you, but is the hardest to pull off. Simply because it's difficult to get reviewers to narrow down a specific date they can review your book. You may find several bloggers who agree to review your book, but can't commit to a certain day to have it posted.
Guest Post Tour
For a guest post tour you are providing a unique guest post for each of your tour stops with a brief snippet about your novel at the end. This is great if your readers live in hard to reach places that aren't as obvious as review sites. This is most common in non-fiction, but can be used for fiction as well.
Mixed Tape Tour
This is my personal favorite since it offers up a little something for everyone and gives your tour hosts a lot of flexibility in working you in to their existing blog format. This type of tour requires the most coordination and probably causes the most headaches, but I think it's worth it.
Free For All
Just because most tours are made up of guest posts and reviews doesn't mean yours has to be. Maybe you want to try a scavenger hunt? How about a food or music themed tour. Eliza Tilton ran a Choose Your Own Adventure tour last spring that was a lot of fun. Don't box yourself into an idea of what a tour should be. Let our writer's brain free and get creative
No matter what kind of tour you decide to run, make sure you are very clear about the amount of work each tour will require. I know Eliza worked her tail off for weeks coordinating tour stops, writing story snippets and making sure everything went live at the right time.
If the idea of making that happen on your own sounds horrifying, find a tour buddy. Another author with a release date a month before or after yours can be a great asset. You can be an extra set of hands for each other when the crazy sets in.
I've heard review only tours help sales more because it gets more reviews up on Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, etc. Do you think that's true?
ReplyDeleteI think asking for as many reviews as you can get while planning your tour is a stellar idea. I've found that a lot of bloggers are willing to be part of your tour on a set date and then agree to review the book on their own schedule. There's no rule that says a blogger can only feature your book once. :)
DeleteThere are a lot of different ways to tour a book. It's mind boggling to me. But fun too. I'm wondering about what Kelly says, too?
ReplyDeleteIt can be overwhelming, especially when our creative minds start wondering. That's why it's so important to understand audience. Then the question is simply "What does my audience want to see?"
DeleteHaving done a couple tours, I think it's good to mix it up. Perhaps have one-half of the tour be reviews, but also have otehr fun stuff.
ReplyDeleteThis is my personal preference. I like hearing from reviewers, especially if I've been on the fence about a book. But it's also fun to get the behind the scenes stuff too. :)
Delete"If the idea of making that happen on your own sounds horrifying," Hahaha! Yes, everything about my book release is horrifying to me!
ReplyDeleteI'm a chicken, so I've gotten a friend whose book releases a day before mine and we're doing a blog-hop with rafflecopter. It's not a splashy "My Book is OUT!" blog-hop, but more like a "Let's have a fun blog hop and by the way, my book is out!" I don't know if it will be too successful, but at least it's not as horrifying as a real blog tour. lol
That's sounds like a great idea. Hopefully, you can cross into each others audience and bring your book to a whole new pool of readers. :)
DeleteI definitely like seeing an assortment of things in blog tours. Some of my favs are a peek into the writer's creative space, snippets or extra scenes from the book, and fun lists of questions(as we've all seen 'where do you get your ideas' one thousand times...). I don't have an up and coming book in the works, but I'm enjoying reading this series of posts- storing it all away for one day when I might need it! =)
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the pictures of where the magic happens or even writing schedules. As a writer, I think all of that is fascinating.
DeleteI'm shy - in person and even with the idea of a blog tour! I can't ask, but I'm fortunate enough to have been asked by a few other bloggers to be a guest on their blog. However, I have not reciprocated (except once) because my followers ask me to just stick with my posts. How horrible is that, when I don't reciprocate?
ReplyDelete