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10 things I learned on my blog tour, Book Promotion, Goddess Fish blog tour, The Nun and the Narc Virtual Book Tour
I just finished an extensive blog tour with Goddess Fish for my book The Nun and the Narc. While I had a number of guest spots on other blogs, they were not as intensive as this tour was, and I learned a few things along the way. I thought I’d share them with my readers. I hope you’ll find them of value.
1. Be prepared to spend a lot of time answering questions for interviews. Making an interesting and non-repetitive interview takes more time that you might think.
2. Keep a log of what you’ve said in your interviews so you don’t constantly repeat the same things. Readers like new info.
3. Be selective. Don’t spill everything in the first interview or you won’t have fresh information for the next forty interviews. If you have six authors you love, don’t name them all. Spread them around for some variety.
4. Be prepared to write blog posts about all kinds of things: personal info (within limits of course), professional (writing related), and about your book.
5. Blog posts actually bring in more traffic than interviews after you’ve been on a book tour for a while. They provide fresher content.
6. Speaking of fresh content, don’t reuse things you’ve written on other blogs when guest blogging. Reposting to your site might be okay, but your hostess will want something new.
7. If you don’t want to put fresh content on your site the day you are guest hosting, try putting a paragraph from your guest post, to hook your blog readers, and a link for them to click over to your guest post and read the rest of the post. Encourage them to leave a comment on the guest post, too.
8. If you choose to put fresh content on your site the day you are guest blogging, don’t think you have to write 1,000 words. Consider writing tips, or quotes that your reader might like and let them know you are guest blogging elsewhere that day and provide a link to the guest blog spot.
9. Make sure you comment follow on every site so you’ll get email updates and know when your followers or potential followers have commented. I followed a couple of sites via email, and the traffic in my inbox became overwhelming because I got every new post the site put up. They did several each day! By comment following on your post only, you will only get content related to your post. It still counts as a follower for your host, too.
10. Make sure you thank your hostess for having you and reply to any comments you receive. Your hostess will be happy because she won’t have to do your job. I had one hostess thank me for actually showing up. Apparently, she’d had other guests who didn’t bother to come to their own party. I was surprised, because I thought the point of guest blogging was to show up, have fun, and get to know your guests. Potential readers want to interact with you.
That’s my ten hints for today. Have you done a blog tour? If so what did you learn?
Catherine Castle 
i’ve done a couple of blog tours, and your advice is “spot on,” Catherine. This is valuable information for anyone undertaking a blog tour 🙂 –Katie O’Boyle
Thanks, Kate. Marketing is not easy and a blog tour is a learning curve of it’s own. IMO.
Excellent advice Catherine! I imagine the guest posts and interviews kept you crazy busy. Bookmarking for future reference! XOXO!
Yes, they did. Between the week or 2 it took to write all the posts and replying daily to one-or more-blogs there were some hectic didn’t get any writing done days. I need uninterrupted time to create. Glad you found the post helpful.
Nice post, Catherine. And I loved the Nun and the Narc. You have a very realistic and compelling ‘voice’. As to the blog tours, I’m in the midst of my third and I think they are exhausting and thrilling. One thing I’ve found is how important it is to respond to reader’s questions and comments – I’ve made some new friends of some of my readers, and I try very hard to really listen and respond when they share personal anecdotes about themselves. So yes, it is time consuming, but I think very useful. Especially for small press and indie writers who don’t have books in stores.
Thanks, Emelle. I totally agree about the comments. Using your social media to spread the word is important too. Thanks for the kind words about The Nun and the Narc. I just finished your newest book Dating Cary Grant and absolutely loved it.