Book Blog Tours – An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors
by Barb Drozdowich
Blurb:
What are Book Blog tours? Are they something that you have tried yet? “Book Blog Tours – An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors” covers the topic of Virtual blog tours from beginning to end with the following topics explained:
• What is a book blog tour?
• How is a tour different from Online Public Relations
• How to set goals for a blog tour
• How to choose a Book Blog Tour Company for your book
• Giveaways and Tour Graphics
• Author responsibilities before, during and after the tour
• Follow up and planning for your next tour
• Book Blog Tours from the point of view of a book bloggerThis book covers all aspects of a Book Blog Tour in easy to follow language that will help any author take on the challenge of a blog tour with confidence.
My Review:
I received a copy in exchange for an honest review
As a blog tour organizer and blogger myself this non-fiction book caught my attention. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction books, but this sounded like one I wanted to read. Book Blog Tours – An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors gives a basic and simple explained overview of what a blog tour is about, a bit about finding bloggers, how to gauge their reach, getting reviews for your book and how to handle negative reviews, booking a blog tour, what you can do as a author before, during and after the tour and organizing your own blog tour. I did think the book stayed a bit on the surface, although that’s also because a lot of this depends on how you want to run your tour or which tour organizer you book. There’s a lot of basic knowledge and it gives you a good understanding of the basic concepts.
I didn’t really learn much new from this book, but then again I am a blog tour organizer myself, so I didn’t expect to learn much if anything new, but wanted to get a feel for how valuable this book is for authors. Overall I would say it’s a good book for new authors, who don’t know much about bloggers and blog tours yet. Most of this information can be found online or through experience, so I am not sure if it’s really worth it, but if your a newbie author who wants to have everything simply in one place this book is a good place to start.
I really liked some parts and agreed with the author, but also disagreed on some small points. I really liked how the author emphasized that blog tours don’t sell books. This is such a big misconception and I think that many authors might be disappointed with a tour because they expect that. I always say a blog tour brings you exposure and yes contact as this author mentions and that’s the true value. I also liked her advice about negative reviews and how to handle those as an author and also illuminates how negative reviews aren’t always a bad thing. I felt like Barb had a good understanding of blog tours, bloggers and the whole blogging business and that showed in this book. All the information was spot on, although there was also some subjective information.
I did disagree with a few small points, like how she advices to make a word document instead of a pdf media kit. Yes I do agree that a word document media kit is a good idea, but if you really want to make things easy for a blogger make a premade html media kit, if you know how to do that, as copy and pasting from word often still leads to formatting problems. And I don’t think having only one blogger a day during a tour is ideal. I think multiple bloggers a day works just as well and I think that’s more a personal preference and I sometimes mention that to authors when they book. A longer tour often has more spread out stops and less bloggers a day while a shorter tour or a cover reveal of one day has all those stops in less time. Whether that’s good or bad? I don’t know, I think it depends on what the author prefers.
The book was easy to read and formatted nicely with list and clear and concrete topics. It read easily, but I did think it was pretty short. Like I mentioned before I think this book is great for new authors, but if you already have done a tour and know about the topic you might not find much new here. I liked how the author gave some tips for how authors can promote a tour themselves by sharing and commenting on the post and went into detail about how to handle those things. It might sound obvious, but it’s something authors sometimes forget and I think it can be valuable for authors to help promote their tour that way. Also some tips and advice might be more applicable to some authors or specific situations, not everything is applicable to everyone.
The commenting on blog posts thing is something I think you should decide as author whether you want to do that or not. Not all bloggers are comfortable with it and besides a thanks you I am not sure if commenting is always a good thing, it depends. It’s also more written from an author/ blogger than blog tour company point of view and you notice that in a few details. Like the having a back-up plan for when a blogger doesn’t post, my advice on this topic is to expect as an author that not everyone will post, that’s normal and realistic for blog tours. And no matter how much a blog tour organizer does their best, this is unavoidable and there’s a limit to what you can do about it.
To summarize: this book was well written and easy to understand. I finished the book quickly and while I didn’t learn much new, I do think this book could be valuable for new authors who know very little about bloggers and blog tours. There are some great pieces of advice and I liked how the author emphasized that blog tours don’t necessary have as goal to sell books as that is so true, they mostly helps for exposure. The book was written in a clear and simple manner, it might stay a bit on the surface and not offer much value to authors who know their way around the online community already, but it still was a nice read. It’s obvious the author knows enough about the blogging, writing community and about blog tours. She shares some valuable pieces of advice, although I did disagree with her on a few small things. It’s a nice basic read for when you want a clear and basic guide to blog tours and get an idea of what to expects, how blog tours generally work and what you can do as an author. It is written from an author/ blogger their point of view and you notice that in a few small things. All in all this book is a nice start for new authors and gives you some basic information for when you consider booking of a blog tour.
Links:
– Goodreads
– Amazon
– B&N
Good Morning!
Thank you so much for the review of my book! As you read in my book, I appreciate the time that people put in to reading and creating reviews! You certainly hit the nail on the head – this book is supposed to be aimed at beginner authors – experienced authors either don’t need this information or as you say, they can Google it. I work with beginner authors every day and most of them write an outstanding story but marketing – not so much! Those numbers are shown up in my survey of 500+ book bloggers. Although 75% of the respondents said they participated in book blog tours, when asked if they feel that authors know what to do when their book is on tour, 38% of them said ‘No.’ I probably get 2 or 3 questions a day from my site The Book Blogger List basically asking for help on what to do. There is a huge lack of information out there – of course – the reason I write books for beginners 🙂 Thank you so much for all you do! It’s an interesting world that we work in, isn’t it?
Barb Drozdowich recently posted…Wordless Wednesday
I think your book is a great resource for beginning authors. They have written a great book, but might not know where to start with the marketing. And providing help and information to those authors is always a good thing in my opinion.
I recently started my own feature here on my blog to help authors as like you said they can use some tips or help with marketing and it’s nice to be able to help when possible. And you’re right it’s an interesting world that we work in 🙂
This is good especially on etiquette like using BCC and asking for acquiescence first before bombarding bloggers with info. That annoys me when I get an email with a kit for a tour I didn’t sign up for.
Maybe you should write a book like this too, Lola. I think you have a lot of helpful pointers to offer
Braine recently posted…Loved It: Born To Be Wilde by @JennStark #UrbanFantasy #Tarot
Good etiquette is so important, it’s annoying when you receive another e-mail where someone forgot the BCC.
Thanks for the compliment :). I had someone else mention that me once as well, but for some reason I am just don’t feel like writing a book? Not sure why, maybe later. For now I am happy with sharing tips here on my blog. It’s hard to realize how much you know about a certain topic compared to others and whether that information is helpful to them.
I love nonfiction books. I’ve always been okay reading some, but this past year or so I’ve been on a big nonfiction kick. The last one I read was I Suck at Relationships (So You Don’t Have Too) by Bethenny Frankel. It was fun and interesting!
Anyway, nice review. I wouldn’t imagine you’d learn much new since you do blog tours, but it is intriguing to see what the author stated and how you feel that’s not always the case. It honestly does depend on the book and the author for a lot of things. When it comes to commenting on blog tours, I think it’s okay if someone asks a question or something about the book and the authors comes on to reply/answer.
-Lauren
Let’s Get Beyond Tolerance recently posted…Famous Names With LGBT Children
I never have read a lot of nonfiction, so it was fun trying a nonfiction book for a change.
I didn’t expect to learn much new, but I did think it was fun to read a book about a topic I know a lot about. And yes in many cases it really does depend on the tour and the author and sometimes the blogger. With my own tours I do notice most bloggers are okay with comments, but you don’t really get the conversation going. And I once heard an author in who’s street team I was saying she didn’t dare comment on blogs due to a few negative experiences where bloggers didn’t appreciate it. So that’s why I would advice caution sometimes.
Ooh, this is the second book blog tour non-fiction book I’ve heard of. It sounds like a handy resource 🙂 I read non-fiction, but rarely! Right now, I’m reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. I recommend it 🙂 It’s engaging and Bill has an excellent sense of humour 😀
Priscilla and her Books recently posted…I Enjoyed May Day Murder, And Here’s Why I Think You Will Too
What’s the other book blog tour book you heard of? Now I am curious ;). It was fun to try a nonfiction book, I don’t really read them, probably because I don’t know where to start or what I would enjoy. But I did like this one, so I might try a nonfiction book now and then.