After Paradise 21 came out, I decided to do a bunch of blog tours for promotion. I used a lot of different tour sites, including Bewitching Book Tours through my publicist, Enchanted Book Tours, and Kismet Book touring. All great companies to tour with. (Or to host with)
I noticed how many followers these tour hosts had, and how much traffic it drove to their blog. And, I loved the whole process. I got to meet a lot of new readers, and the tour hosts were very nice.
I thought about making my blog into a hosting blog for book tours for a long time. I didn't want it to turn into an advertisement everyday, and I didn't want to promote books that I didn't like, or that didn't fit with the theme of my blog. I was also afraid of losing followers.
When you sign up with a touring company, you get to choose which books you host on your blog, and you even get to choose a range of dates. You can have a guest post, which is always nice because you don't have to post that day, do a interview, or do a review. If you do decide to review the book, you get it for free! -Another bonus. You don't have to host every week. Some sites ask if you'd like to host once a month, once a week, or more frequently.
So, here's the advantages to being a tour host:
-Increased traffic to your site
-Meet new authors
-Free books
-New Followers
The work that comes with it it relatively easy. But you do need to be organized.
The big question is: have my hits gone up since being a blog tour host?
The answer: YES. Even though the comments don't show it, my hits went up on tour host days by about 50-100 visitors.
There you have it! Now, who else is thinking about being a book blog tour host?
7 comments:
Great post. I'm glad to see that it's helping. Now I'm off to sign up, lol.
Hmm. I never knew anything about blog tours. Thanks for the info. I probably wouldn't be a blog tour host until 1) I have more time in my schedule and 2) I have a book published, if I do. But this is good to know for the future!
Sadly, too busy with invalid husband, writing my books and doing the publicity - but it's a lovely thought.
I didn't realize this was something you could just 'sign-up' for. Thanks for the tip. I'd love to be one.
Aubrie, Thanks for the interesting post. I honestly didn't know about such services. Prices aren't extremely bad either. I will definitely check further into this a little later. :) Once I get caught back up with life.
It's something I've considered, but that word, "organised", keeps creeping in. Thanks for the info though. I didn't know it was so versatile, and you could pick how frequently to post.
It is something I've been considering for a while and I would likely get involved with hosting book tours at some point. I do some that the author puts together now and they are great fun.
Perhaps after the New Year I can consider it more.
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