How Blog Tours Can Build Visibility for Your Book

By Misty M Beller @MistyMBeller

Free Workshop in Progress: This summer on our ACFW-SC chapter blog we are happy to welcome one of our members, Misty M. Beller, for a special 12-week workshop on Marketing. Misty has experienced great success marketing her first novel and later ones, consistently selling 10,000 books a month. Join this free workshop and be blessed. Be sure to leave a comment and tweet the blogs to your friends. 

Elva Cobb Martin, President, ACFW-SC Chapter  www.elvamartin.com

As we come to week nine in our marketing workshop, let's talk…appearances. 

No, not first impressions, although that can be connected. Today we're talking about online appearances.

Remember, as I covered in another post once you have the pre-requisites in place (cover that sparks emotion, product description that hooks, and good reviews to validate quality) your main goal in bookselling is Visibility. 

Online appearances can be helpful toward that goal. 

These primarily take the form of guest posts and interviews on other blogs. As I mentioned when we were talking about your reader blogs, you'll want to establish your goals when using these venues. Is your goal to get your books in front of potential readers? If so, you'll want to focus on blogs whose readership is your target reader. Or maybe you want to develop a "buzz" in the writing world to bring attention to your book from industry professionals? If so, seek blogs read by those people. Make sure you understand your goals and plan accordingly.

This approach requires your "time" resource, but not typically your "money" resource, unless you do extensive giveaways.

How to find online appearances? There are several different routes you can take. Through your writing journey, you've no doubt built a circle of writing friends or organizations (like ACFW). Scheduling through other authors and friends is a great approach. 

Again, make sure you're keeping your target reader and goals in mind so you don't waste resources. 

Don't be afraid to find target blogs and contact the blog administrator to see if they would be interested in you doing a guest post. Explain your credentials and reasons for the request, and many people would be happy for you to do a guest spot.

Another approach is to use an online blog tour or book review service. I've never paid for this service, as I typically prefer to coordinate these myself, but if you have more of the money resource than the time resource, you may want to consider it. Two sites I've heard positive feedback on are:http://literatiauthorservices.com/contact-us/ and http://www.cbbbookpromotions.com/

Now it's your turn! Have you done a blog tour as part of a book release? Did you find it successful! It can be great fun! 

Misty M. Beller writes Christian historical romance, and is author of the bestselling novels The Lady and the Mountain Man and The Lady and the Mountain Doctor.

Misty was raised on a farm in South Carolina, so her Southern roots run deep. About ten years ago, she made a career change from farm life into the business world, where she now works as a Senior Manager and Director of Process & Training. Her husband and two daughters are gifts from God, keeping her both grounded and crazy.

You can find her on her website, reader blog, marketing blog for authors, Goodreads,Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.