What is a book blog tour?
A book blog tour is a virtual tour to help an author promote their book without traveling. It’s the same concept as going from store or event signings but instead of physical places, the author is going from blog to blog during the time frame of the tour. It’s just one form of PR that reaches all the readers/followers of the blogs who participate in the tour. Tour “stops” will be a combination of reviews and guest/promotional posts that make the tour interesting and hopefully encourage readers to buy/read the book.
There is also typically a tour giveaway that help draw readers to participate. Usually, the publisher/author will offer a certain number of eBooks (or prints if available and able) as the giveaway as well as a signed print copy or two and possibly swag such as bookmarks, bookplates, or something specific to the book like bracelets inspired by the novel, or an Egyptian steampunk necklace the author thought really went with her book. Granted, giveaways vary from tour to tour, author to author, and is also not mandatory, just a nice touch and a great draw for reader participation.
We have around 500 blogs who are on our notification list that participate in our tours. The blogs decide if the book interests them and sign-up for the tour with us if they are. We average around 20-55 blogs per tour (we cap at 55 on tours) depending on the interest of the book.
We organize everything and are the go-between with the review blogs and Marketing Associate or author depending on who is working with us. The author works on the type of posts we assign to the tours (interview questions we send, etc) about 3 weeks before the tour starts and then sit back and enjoy the tour once it starts.
