Wednesday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

MY TOP FIVE TIPS FOR A GREAT BLOG TOUR

By:  Nancy Christie

Book blog tours are great! They are a wonderful (and cost-effective!) way to connect with an audience across the country and across the world—sans boats, trains, cars or planes.

But if you want it to be successful, you need to put some time and effort in the preparation stage. Just because you aren’t leaving home doesn’t mean you don’t need to plan! Here are my five top tips for making your blog tour a success.

Start early. It takes a fair bit of time to find the host bloggers who are most appropriate for your tour. This means that they, and their audience, are interested in the subject of your book or the type of book you are promoting.

I used The Book Blogger List, choosing the category that fit my book, TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER AND OTHER STORIES—literary fiction—and then started slogging my way through all the blog sites.

There’s no real shortcut: you need to check out each site, find out if they do blog tours, and take a look at some of the authors they have hosted. Then contact them with your request, providing just enough information about your book to whet their interest.

Create a tour packet. . .

. . .

Read the full article HERE!

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If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

1. 34 Tips and Tactics to Rapidly Grow Your Social Networks http://ow.ly/ER6Qb
2. Ten Ways To Publicize Your Book You May Not Have Thought Of | Self-Publishing Review http://ow.ly/ER7IL
3. Adventures in Agentland: Plotting Your Hero's Emotional Journey http://ow.ly/ER7PD
4. Author, Jody Hedlund: 8 Things Writers Can Be Thankful For http://ow.ly/ER81w
5. The Wake-Up Call: What it Means to Be A Self-Published Writer - Write Hacked http://ow.ly/ER8xB
6. 18-Point Checklist for Selling Books - Social Media Just for Writers http://ow.ly/ER8Gf
7. Should You Self-Publish or Go Traditional? This Chart Will Help You Decide http://ow.ly/ER8So
8. Publish, Release, Launch: Some of The What and When of Book Publishing | Claire McKinney Public Relations, LLC http://ow.ly/ER9g8
9. What Is the Role of Theme in a Story's Climax? - Helping Writers Become Authors http://ow.ly/ER9AF
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11. Take Your Writing Seriously | Writing Forward http://ow.ly/ERqNb
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13. Third Person Point of View Advantages | Novel Writing Help http://ow.ly/ERrfd
14. Why Marketing Your Book is Like Trying to Lose Weight - The Savvy Book Marketer http://ow.ly/ERrrF
15. Twitter Abuse - Books & Such Literary Management : Books & Such Literary Management http://ow.ly/ERs4L
16. The Creative Penn Blog: Helping you write, publish and market your book | The Creative Penn http://ow.ly/ERskc
17. Writer Unboxed » The Online Presence That’s a Natural Extension of Who You Are and What You Do. (Is It Just Fantasy?) http://ow.ly/ERsDd
18. My Top Five Tips for A Great Blog Tour http://ow.ly/ERsWt
19. The Ultimate Gift Guide for Writers | Jami Gold, Paranormal Author http://ow.ly/ERtsB
20. BookMarketingBuzzBlog: How Does The Media Know Your Book Is Great? http://ow.ly/ERu2r
21. 14 Twitter Holiday Tips To Beat Your Competition - Heidi Cohen http://ow.ly/ERuOt
22. Book Promotion: Networking for Introverts http://ow.ly/ERv8l
23. Why I Love Scrivener - Writeonsisters.com http://ow.ly/ERw4B
24. Does Building an Online Presence Stress You Out? - Jane Friedman http://ow.ly/ESkSS

Happy running and writing, Kathy