Yes, this is another blog post prompted by a question on Facebook.
An author had seen blog tour posts, spotlighting books from authors, and wondered how an author got that kind of opportunity.
It’s a good question.
A blog tour is the modern online equivalent of a book signing tour.
The author will “visit” several blogs over a day, a week, or longer. There may also be a giveaway associated with the tour, usually a copy of the author’s newest release. The author may also offer bookmarks or other book-related gifts (often referred to as swag). Depending on the tour, visitors can enter the giveway either by commenting on one or more posts, by signing up for the author’s email list, or by sharing the post on social media.
[Read this post to find out more about online giveaways.]
A blog tour is a great way of raising awareness about a new or upcoming release.
They can be used to refresh an older release, but most book blogs focus on new releases. As such, bloggers are less likely to be interested in featuring an older book without a good reason e.g. three or more older books combined into a box set.
Types of Blog Tour Posts
Blog tours can have a variety of types of post, depending on the purpose and timing of the tour. As such, the exact content will depend on the type of post. However, all blog tour posts usually have:
- An image of the book cover.
- The book description.
- Sales links.
- Author photograph.
- Author biography.
- The author’s online website and social media links.
The purpose of a blog tour is to raise awareness, so there’s no point in embarking on a blog tour without something to sell and somewhere the interested reader can buy.
Cover Reveal
A cover reveal post or tour is the first time the cover has been revealed to the public. The key to a great cover reveal should be obvious: a great cover. You’ll need to be prepared to share the cover with bloggers ahead of time. Many will make their decision whether or not to feature your book based on their perception of the cover and how they think it will appeal to their readers.
As with all blog tours, it’s important to target bloggers who regularly blog in your genre.
The cover reveal occurs before the book is published, and the objective is usually to raise awareness and (hopefully) kick-start pre-orders. Personally, it annoys me to see a cover reveal without a pre-order. If I’m interested in the book, then I want to be able to pre-order it there and then, so I don’t forget. As such, my personal recommendation is to ensure your pre-order is live before spending time or money on a cover reveal blog tour.
Guest Post
Some blog tours feature a range of different posts related to the book. As a reader, this is my favourite type of tour post, because each post is unique, and each post is an opportunity to find out something interesting about the book and/or author.
How does a guest post work?
In the tours I’ve participated in, the author has contacted me with a list of suggested post titles, and given me the option of choosing to do a book review, author interview or one of the post options. This is the easiest to agree to as a blogger, because we know what we’re getting, so can pick a topic that fits our blog and audience.
The author writes the posts in advance. When each blogger requests a post topic, the author sends through an original post and deletes that topic from the list. Here are some suggested topics:
- An interview with the hero.
- An interview with the heroine.
- An interview with both the hero and the heroine.
- An interview with the hero or heroine’s mother or best friend (who is also a character in the book).
- The inspiration behind the story.
- The inspiration behind the characters.
- The inspiration behind the setting.
- The novel’s theme and why that’s important to the author.
- Interesting facts the author discovered while researching the novel.
- A devotion based on a key verse featured in the novel.
Many of these posts can be written months in advance.
For example, historical fiction authors often undertake a lot of research. This research can’t all be incorporated into the novel, as that would slow the story. But it could form the basis for one or more blog posts.
Alternatively, the blogger might have a specific theme you could write to. For example, International Christian Fiction Writers has a Wandering Wednesday feature in which the author introduces readers to their book’s setting. The only proviso is that ICFW want international settings—either non-US authors, or US authors featuring a non-US setting.
A blog tour based on guest posts can be a lot of work for the author. However, it’s also less work for the blogger, which means they’re more likely to be open to participating in the blog tour.
Author Interview
Blog tours will often include author interviews. Some authors (or blog tour organisers) send through a series of questions with the author’s answers. Others will invite the bloggers to submit questions for the author to answer.
From an author perspective, I can see the appeal in writing one master interview and sending that out to all participating bloggers and asking them to pick and choose five to ten questions to feature.
But from a reader perspective, it can get monotonous to read the same interview on several different blogs. In that respect, reader-me prefers it when the blogger asks their own questions. I also prefer it when the author provides detailed answers—the purpose of an author interview is to allow the reader to feel they’ve gotten to know the author. That’s hard when the author only provides one-word answers (unless the questions were clearly designed to elicit a one-word answer).
Book Review
Authors want book reviews because positive reviews from reputable reviewers help sell books.
When you ask people what persuades them to buy a book, they’ll often say a recommendation from someone they know. That someone might be a real-life friend or acquaintance, or it might be a book blogger they follow and trust.
But a book review is a bigger commitment from the blogger than other blog tour posts because they have to read the book, write a the review, and load up the blog post. That’s eight to ten hours, compared to an hour or less to schedule a cover reveal or author interview. As such, a blogger is more likely to be able to agree to a guest post or author interview than a book reivew.
Book Spotlight
A book spotlight post has much the same contents as a cover reveal post. Some also include an excerpt from the published novel. They’re the easiest kind of blog tour post for the author and the blogger. Why? Because it’s mostly a cut-and-paste exercise with little formatting required.
I don’t tend to pay a lot of attention to book spotlight posts, especially when they’re part of a larger blog tour that also features book reviews. Book spotlights on a review tour suggests the bloggers either didn’t get time to read the book, or they didn’t like it.
A spotlight-only tour helps raise awareness and provides the author with backlinks. But it doesn’t provide the reader with any incentive to read the post. As such, I suspect this is the kind of post that’s least likely to drive sales.
I’ve followed a few blog tours, but some of them can get a bit samey. By the time you get to Day 3 of the tour, you feel like you already know everything about the book. As you mention, there’s a lot of variety of things authors can do. So I think it’s important to think ahead of time about what kinds of different posts you can do, what would be suitable for different sites, and then mix it up a bit.