Last time, I wrote about why authors do blog tours (and why maybe you should, too). I was just about to kick off my annual Days of the Dead blog tour, which always runs the week leading up to Halloween.
So now I thought it might be useful to explain what the moving parts are that go into something like that and how it all really does work together toward my ultimate nefarious scheme to get more people to look for my books. (Who needs world domination? I want readers!)
I picked the date/theme for the tour because I write about necromancers and ghosts and magic and it seemed appropriate for a week that had Samhain, Dia de los Muertos, All Hallow’s Eve and Halloween all at once. (Branding–I do creepy/spooky stuff.)
In the months leading up to the blog tour, I laid the groundwork–contacting bloggers to see if I could do a guest post that week, prepping photos to spice up my site, and preparing pre-tour tweets and Facebook posts to let everyone know it was coming. Because it’s a Halloween-themed tour, I also went to a bunch of my friends and some friendly small presses asking for download links to excerpts that I could sprinkle around like the candy for Trick-or-Treat. (Relationships–built in advance, nurtured over time, and something in it for them.)
Now because I’m crazy, I was simultaneously part of ANOTHER 30-author blog tour (the Full Moon tour) that was overlapping my tour. While I just had to write a blog post for that tour, it had a pretty awesome giveaway, and I wanted to promote it, too. Cue more tweets and FB posts.
AND because I’m really insane, I was simultaneously part of YET ANOTHER multi-author promotion offering readers an envelope full of book swag (The Swaggiest Swag). That needed to be promoted too.
Then I wrote the blog posts for all 43 blogs and delivered them on time. Each blog post not only talked up the Days of the Dead tour, but it also had a link to the main Full Moon page and the Swaggiest Swag page, so they got visibility on all of those blogs. Ditto the Goodreads giveaway links for the two giveaways I was doing myself and one for an anthology I’m in and my Reddit/Fantasy giveaway. AND each post had 3-4 excerpt links to those Trick-or-Treat downloads from me and my friends. Plus I made sure that the Deadly Curiosities Adventure short story that was going to come out in October was Halloween-themed. I also used the extra eyeballs I was getting to launch a new novella series. All those things got the benefit of boucoup international exposure, plenty of bang for the buck. I also took the advice of the Wattpad Fright team and added “(Haunted)” to the titles of my spookiest stories to get more Halloween readership.
Done? Not by a long shot.
Every day, I checked to see which new blogs posted and then I tweeted the heck out of them. That maximized benefit for me and for my blogger host. I got exposure, he/she got increased traffic. win-win.
I recapped what was new each day on my blog and main website, compiling all the new blog links plus info about the giveaways, my upcoming events, an appeal to join my newsletter and yet more of the Trick-or-Treat download links. Crazy…maybe. But because of the three overlapping events, I was somehow featured on 73 international blogs during one week plus the cross-promotion of the swag authors. Not bad exposure.
Done yet? Nope.
First there’s the sweeping up. I made sure I thanked all my blogger hosts profusely. I wrote up tweets that tagged them on Twitter with the blog link. And I followed up on picking winners and mailing out prizes.
BUT WAIT–there’s more! Because this kind of thing takes an enormous amount of energy that I could have used to be writing other things, I need to get double or triple value out of it. So I’ll give all those blogs a 6-month exclusive on my post, and then recycle them onto my own blog. All of those links to my blog posts, the excerpts of my stuff and my friends’ books–they’ll get turned into evergreen tweets that can be programmed on Hoot Suite to run forever (a nice thank-you to all involved). I can Facebook those blog posts links individually from now until kingdom-come.
So is it worth it? My BookScan numbers are up across the board, so there was a 
bump in sales. Other bloggers, conventions and news sites got into the action by retweeting, which broadened my reach even further. I promoted my upcoming new book (Vendetta), along with my newest short stories and anthologies. The giveaways were fun and made a bunch of people happy. I had fun cross-promoting with other authors. All of the social media interaction made for some good conversation with readers, and the bloggers liked the posts I sent them, so relationships have been strengthened. I had the chance to do something nice for my friends and publishers by plugging their books in addition to my own (readers win on this too since they find out about new authors). And I enjoyed it. So yeah, it was worth it.
Needless to say, a blog tour doesn’t have to be this elaborate. I’ve been doing it now twice a year for 8 years, and it didn’t start out like this. But this is what it can grow into, and why I do it.
Got questions about blog tours or book promotion? I’ll do my best to answer them!
Now about those giveaways–here are some that are still going on, so you can still get in while the gettin’s good!
The Broad Universe Full Moon blog tour with 30 author blogs and 3 awesome book bundle giveaways runs through 11/7. Find the blogs here: http://bit.ly/1LPBLNR and the rafflecopter for the giveaways here: http://bit.ly/1LRYrtr (ends 11/7 so hurry!)
More Treats! Enter to win a copy of Deadly Curiosities! (ends 11/14) https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/160181-deadly-curiosities
Treats! Enter to win a copy of Iron & Blood! (ends 11/14)https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/160182-iron-blood
Win yourself a copy of The Weird Wild West (which includes our Steampunk Storm and Fury Adventure Ruin Creek) http://bit.ly/1iUU8pw (ends 11/30)
Bookloons is doing a giveaway for a copy of Deadly Curiosities (ends 11/30) http://www.bookloons.com/HandHTML/contest_bookloons5.html
New holiday giveaway with free books, book gift cards and cool stuff from the same bunch of authors (including me!) who brought you The Swaggiest Swag—to enter, just comment on a blog or Facebook page, or join our newsletters, like our pages, details here—the more you enter, the more chances to win! http://www.ltpromos.com/2015/10/31/happyholidays/
