What is a Blog Tour?

By Iola Goulton

What is a Blog Tour?

A blog tour is the virtual equivalent of a book tour. Instead of trawling around the country with a pen and a suitcase full of books, an author arranges to promote their book across a series of blogs.  

I participate in several blog tour programmes, sometimes as a reviewer and sometimes as an influencer (if you remember, I discussed the difference last week: a reviewer shares their opinion of a book, while an influencer try to influence others to buy and read the book).

I’ve seen several different types of blog tour, and I’m going to summarise them today.

Review Tour

Tours such as the Australasian Christian Readers Blog Alliance are review tours. An author or publisher books a place on the tour, bloggers request the books they are interested, and post a review, an author interview, or some promotional material about the book on a designated day. Over the course of a week or a month the author will get reviews and interviews from a wide range of bloggers, hopefully each with a different audience. In most cases, the individual blogger is providing the content in the form of a book review.

The down side of a review tour is that some bloggers will request books and never post reviews or interviews. Sure, they will post the basic promotional code (usually a book cover, book blurb, author photograph and biography), but they won’t say anything about the book or author. As a reader, these blog tours are useless to me. They actually make me less likely to read the book, because my assumption is that there is no review because the blogger read the book and didn’t like it.

I understand that bloggers might not have time to read every book they agree to feature as part of a blog tour, but it seems that just posting a book blurb and cover isn’t going to convince many people to buy the book without a review or something more. This is where the next type of tour can benefit both busy bloggers and authors: the interview tour.

Interview Tour

The interview tour includes stops at a range of blogs appealing to the target reader for the individual book. The author may write a series of articles promoting their book, or be interviewed by the blogger. If you look at the blog tour schedule for KM Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel, you’ll see she’s got a series of articles with some high-profile bloggers, including The Creative Penn, LiveHacked and Jane Friedman. This would have been a lot of work to set up, but it sold me the book (which I highly recommend, by the way).

This works well for non-fiction, but it might not work so well for fiction. The blog tour demonstrated KM Weiland’s understanding of and expertise in plotting, which convinced me to buy the book. But for fiction, the relationship between the quality of writing in the post and the expected quality of the book isn’t so direct.

So what do fiction authors cover in their blog tours? JodyHedlund decided to organise a tour where she shared little-known facts about herself. This was supported by a bigger blog tour organised by Litfuse, a book publicity specialist. She also had activity on Pinterest and Facebook.

Contest

One final kind of promotional blog tour is a contest of some description. Author interviews may well include a contest for a free copy of the book, usually a paperback for US readers and ebook for international readers. In order to enter the contest, readers usually have to comment on the post and answer a question related to the book.

Other contests will be purely promotional. For example, CrossReads do two-weekly book blasts in which 25 bloggers will promote the same book, and blog visitors can enter a competition to win a $50 Amazon voucher. I don’t know if these sell books, but they’ve certainly increased the number of people who’ve ‘Liked’ my Facebook page, Iola’s Christian Reads!

Blog Chase

This is a relatively new concept, and it’s a cross between a blog tour and a contest. Instead of focusing on reviews or author interviews, each post will share something different about the book, and will link to the previous and next post in the chase. Each post will pose a question, and at the end, readers will have to answer all the questions in order to enter the contest draw. Only readers who have ‘chased’ from the beginning will have all the answers.

International Christian Fiction Writers featured a blog chase in October and November 2013, promoting Heaven’s Prey by Janet Sketchley. Australasian Christian Writers will be starting a chase this week to celebrate the launch of Falling for the Farmer, by our own Narelle Atkins. Be sure to stop by on Wednesday to join in the fun!

By Iola Goulton. I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website (www.christianediting.co.nz), or follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christianediting), Twitter (@IolaGoulton) or Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/iolasreads).

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog (www.christianreads.blogspot.com). I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2600.

Why Join a Blog Alliance?

By Narelle Atkins and Jenny Blake 

Jenny and I are co-founders of the Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance (ACRBA). During our many conversations, I asked Jenny to share what a reader would gain from belonging to a blog alliance. I understand authors need to build a marketing platform and blog tours are one way authors can interact with readers and promote their books online. But, what exactly are the benefits for readers who join a blog alliance? 

Jenny: There are a few benefits for readers, one being free books to read. With so many new books coming out and the cost of books, receiving one or two free books a month to read and review is a real blessing. Readers also get to know new authors. Readers who join blog alliances and are faithful in posting reviews will sometimes find authors contact them to promote their books which leads to more free books to review. Also, being in an alliance can bring new readers to your blog and open new opportunities. One other benefit is the html is provided for the post so the only additional information to add is a book review if you request the book. 

Narelle: What inspired you to start blogging? 

Jenny: I actually fell into blogging. I joined Shelfari, a site where you can keep a record of books read, leave reviews and connect with other book lovers. On this site I met Rel from Relz Reviewz who also has a book blog for Christian fiction. Through her I came in contact with Camy Tang (Author) and her blog. I became a regular follower and Camy had a meme (a few questions to answer) on her blog and challenged others to post on their blog. I had to join Blogger to post on the blogs and decided I could have a blog to post reviews. Camy's challenge was my first real post. I then started posting reviews. This was December, 5 years ago. When I posted my first author interview with Mary Connealy I was so excited. My blog has developed since then to include an author interview most weeks. 

Narelle: What information do you include in a book review? 

Jenny: In a review I tend to use information from the book blurb, my impressions of the book but I do not give information that happens after the first couple of chapters. Authors often have hidden gems in books. For example one book I read the hero had a brother with health issues that were more an issue to the hero. The hero is trying to contact him and he is not answering. The brother then turns up where the hero is which leads to a few other interesting turns of events. In this situation the Author hasn't mentioned the brother in the blurb or the first few chapters as it's a surprise for readers. I would not mention this at all in a review no matter how much it impacts the book. I also like to say what issue the book deals with. For example if the book is dealing with trust issues or forgiveness I will mention this. You do not have to say why. If the book impacted you you can mention this without giving the story away. 

Narelle: What do you do if you request a review copy and don’t like the book? 

Jenny: I have had this happen to me. Most recently it was because of the language in the book which was fine for America but in Australia it was swearing. I wrote to the co-ordinator of the blog alliance and explained that I just could not read any more of the book because of the language. I still posted the html but because of the language I put a note that the book may offend some Australians. In other cases I have requested a book only to find when I started reading the book I found I just couldn't connect or didn't like the book so I didn't finish it but again I let the co-ordinator know I just couldn't get into the book. I have learnt what genres I like now and can normally tell by the blurb but in some cases the blurb can be misleading and not give an accurate description of a book. 

Also, if you don't like a book and would give it under a 3 star rating, you may want to email the co-ordinator and let them know explaining why you didn't like the book and ask if they still want you to review it. Not everyone will like all books. Personally if I don't like a book after a few chapters I do not keep reading. Even if a book is only a 3 star you can still review the book and mention the positives and mention why you didn't like the book. If I can't give a book 3 stars I will not put up a review. 

Narelle: Do you have any advice for readers who are thinking about blogging and reviewing books? 

Jenny: My advice is just do it. Blogger is so easy to use and if you are new at reviewing just put down your thoughts for the book without giving away secrets or the plot. You will find your way with practice and people will get to know you and your voice. Decide what you want your blog to be about and how often you want to blog. Some people will set up a schedule where as others will post when they have a review to put up. Try to post at least twice a week at regular intervals.

If you're interesting in joining the Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance, please visit the ACRBA blog. International members are welcome. http://acrba.blogspot.com