How to set up your own blog tour.
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By Lynn Cahoon
First disclaimer, my first blog tour was in June of this
year, so I can’t talk about the tangible results. Like in money or sales. My goal was to getting my name out there.
My Google alerts kept telling me I was showing up on their radar.
Step One: Make a calendar. First, I set my
perimeters. The Bull Rider’s Brother released June 4th, 2012. I set up an excel calendar I found on the
intranet. I wanted to blog for the
entire release month. I didn’t want to blog on the weekends or visit more than one blog a day. I have a full
time job and popping in and responding to comments takes time. That left four weeks with 20 slots open on my
calendar.
Step Two: Fill in the easy stops. So I knew I
wanted to blog on my own website on release day. One square filled. My publisher has an author driven blog, and I
grabbed the closest day to my release to blog there. Two slots filled. I put in my two New Kids blog days as well. Four slots filled, sixteen to go.
Step Three: Reach out to friends and blogs you love.
Then I started sending out emails to my writer friends who had blogs or were on
group blogs. I send blind emails to
blogs I frequented and yahoo loops I participate on. I learned something
important about writers. We support each
other. Out of all the emails I sent
asking to guest on their blog, only two people either didn’t get back to me or
said no.
Step Four: Watch for problems but take advantage of
opportunities. As I filled the days, I tried to space them across the four
weeks. I had two days where I did double
duty on blogs, but those were blogs where I really wanted to post, so the extra
work was worth it.
Step Five: Write and
send your blogs in advance. (Keep good records.) Once I had eighteen days
set up, I stopped. Then, I started
writing the blogs.
Some blog owners want an interview. Some a short blog. Some a recipe. All of them wanted my bio, a picture of me, a
picture of the book cover, a blurb, buy links, and an excerpt.
So I made a file with the add-ons. This allowed me to write a blog on my lunch
hour at work, then ship that blog with all the attachments out that
evening. I also kept my blogs filed in
one email folder. Several times I had to
follow up with blog hosts because they’d forgotten to post my blog. Or once, I had to send everything again to a
different person. Stuff happens. Be
prepared. I had three weeks worth of
blogs written and sent before my book even released.
Step Six: Use your website and Face book page as blog
tour central. One, it reminds people you’re out there. And two, if you wanted to find a post you
did, having them listed on your blog is quick and easy access. Make sure you add clickable links to your
post.
Step Seven: Thank your hosts. Be there when the post goes up and respond to
the comments. Send your host a thank you
after the posting.
I’m already scheduling stops for my November/December Double
Duty blog tour. I’ll have A MEMBER OF
THE COUNCIL (Lyrical Press) and A BULL RIDER’S MANAGER (Crimson Romance)
releasing within a week of each other.
So who wants to host me?
14 comments:
thank you for this - it's so very helpful.
RowenaMay - I'm glad you find it worthwhile. I'm trying to do things on the inexpensive side for this first book. I may talk a bit more about choice of blogs and tracking comments next post.
great tips, Lynn!!
Thanks Kristi! I've been asked several time on how I set up my blog tour - so I thought I'd blog about it. LOL
Thanks so much, Lynn. I want to set up a blog tour as well and didn't quite know how to go about it. Did you always write about your book or occasionally about things which are writing related?
Good question Carol - The subject of the blog depended on the blog I was visiting. At Under the Tiki hut - I did a vacation from my childhood and brought in characters from my book at the end. Sometimes, it was about being a new author. Fun blogs for me were the ones where I could make up recipes for my characters.
I can't imagine doing the tour you did but am in awe that you were able to pull it off. Great work!
Lynn,
You are amazing. Thank you.
-R.T. Wolfe
www.rtwolfe.com
Thanks Laura! Remind me how tired I was at the end in a few months so I don't over commit again. :)
RT - you kind of prompted this post. Thank you for your questions. Good luck with your release.
Thanks for this info, Lynn. I don't have a blog and blog tours are a mystery to me.
Good luck with your next books.
Thanks for the insight and the excellent advice on setting up blog tours. A good, organized way to do it. I hope to be abe to take advantance of it myself one day soon.
As for hosting, Pick Me, Pick Me *Waving Madly*. Seriously, I hope you'll consent to appear on my Writers Wednesday blog during that tour.
All best in the current and in the upcoming releases.
Megan - I think it's my wanna be a project manager career choice coming through. I love the concreteness of the blog tour. It's something I can do to get my name out and hopefully sell more books.
Barb- you're already on the reach out list! Thanks for the support. You've got a great blog.
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