We are all familiar with the idea of music tours. Musicians go from city to city, playing their music for audiences. And a book tour is similar to this except instead of visiting different cities, your book is visiting different blogs.
Now, there are more than one way to conduct a book tour. Either there can be one featured book, which is spotlighted on multiple blogs. Or there are multiple books with a common theme or genre connecting them. There may be one giveaway for the whole tour, individual giveaways at each blog, or there might not be any giveaways at all (though that's not as much fun!).
Authors new to the book world, or least this form of marketing, may find the concept of a book tour to be pointless or too difficult to figure out. And depending on how a tour is set up, it can be rather complicated to participate in. But that doesn't mean that authors shouldn't give book tours a try. Here are 5 reasons why you should start researching and take part in a few of your own:
1) It's Fun
What's more fun that joining with lovers of a common interest (i.e. BOOKS), to chat and generate buzz for different stories?
2) The Marketing
Not every author is good at marketing. That's why there are so many blogs, podcasts, and youtube channels dedicated to teaching it. However, book tours allow authors and enthusiastic bloggers to join marketing forces and promote whichever book(s) is being featured.
3) Connections
Book tours are a great way to digitally meet other people in the industry, whether that be authors or influencers. People you may not have ever heard of before may become a solid connection for the future.
4) Audience Sharing
Everyone who participates in a tour brings their followers to the mix, putting your book in front of more eyes than you could have done on your own.
5) Book Buzz
Book tours almost always mean there will be giveaways. And people love to share and take part in them. The more a book tour announcement or giveaway entry is shared on social media, the more people are seeing and talking about the books being featured. And the more often someone sees positive comments about a book, the more likely they are to purchase it.
Even knowing this, many authors still find it difficult to take part in a tour of their own. While marketing is taught by my many different individuals, platforms, and universities, book tours are not. In my newest blog series, I'll discuss different ways to take part in or else host a tour, as well as some of the best ways to ensure views for those posts.
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