Kicking off my blog tour: What I learned in the first week

A week ago, I embarked on my first blog tour for Perfection Unleashed. I consider this blog tour my first real exposure to marketing my novel. Prior to this, I’d spent my time requesting reviews for my novel. My blog tour runs for two weeks, and a week in, I consider myself enough of a professional to have an opinion about blog tours (not that one ever needs to be a professional to have an opinion…)

Organizing your own blog tour is more effort than you probably expect: In between reaching out to bloggers, tracking their responses, and the e-mails, files, and confirmations that go back and forth, expect to spend several hours on this at least a month in advance of your tour and an hour a day during your tour. Lesson learned. In December, I’m planning another blog tour (a much larger one) to launch my second and third novels, and in addition to organizing a portion of my tour, I’ll hire a company to find and organize another twenty stops for me. For more information on organizing blog tours, please read one of my recent entries in my Author’s Journey.

Bloggers are wonderful people: I’ve found them to be charming, helpful, and responsive (at least the ones who responded.) One of them (*waves at Charlie from Bitsy Bling Books*) went so far as to help me brainstorm ideas for blog posts. I’m deeply grateful to all of my hosts for sharing my blog posts and author interviews with their readers and fan base. And if they didn’t respond, there’s a good chance my e-mail to them is sitting in their spam inbox. It’s amazing how many mails end up in there.

Giveaways aren’t necessary: I’m hosting a giveaway of two $25 Amazon gift certifications along with my blog tour, but I really do question the effectiveness of the giveaway. A week in and there are only eighty entries. (Yes, if you want a chance, you have a better than good chance at this, seeing how few people have entered.)

There’s no evidence that ties a blog tour to book sales: Don’t get me wrong. I have sold a bunch of books so far this month, and for several days, Perfection Unleashed reached the top 100 list for science fiction series and fantasy series. However, I did several things in conjunction with my blog tour, including increased marketing through tweet teams. I’ve also heard that sales tend to pick up after the summer is over. It’s hard to attribute the uptick in sales to any one thing I did.

Anyway, please visit the blogs that graciously hosted me last week. You’ll find unique posts and interviews, I promise. And do remember to take part in the giveaway!

• September 3, 2012: 3 Reasons to reach for Perfection at Bookgasm

• September 4, 2012: The Perfect Monster at The Bunny’s Review

• September 5, 2012: The origins of Perfection Unleashed at Literary R&R

• September 6, 2012: Meet the characters of Perfection Unleashed at Red Headed Bookworm

• September 7, 2012: Author interview at Curling up by the Fire

• September 8, 2012: Author interview at Kevin Rau H.E.R.O.