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Virtual Book Tours - A Marketing Tool for Your New Book

Written by: Rita Cartwright

Article Overview: A virtual book tour (VBT) uses similar concepts as a book tour except it is done virtually on the Internet. Instead of physically going on a tour visiting book stores, you visit blogs.

Virtual Book Tours - A Marketing Tool for Your New Book

A virtual book tour (VBT) uses similar concepts as a book tour except it is done virtually on the Internet. Blogs are the brick and mortar book stores where book tours are held. Instead of physically going on a tour visiting book stores, you visit blogs. When you are arranging a VBT to promote your book online, research different blogs to determine if their readers are the target market you are promoting your book to, as well as how much traffic that particular blog gets. Are there a lot of site visitors/readers?

After you select the blogs, which meet your criteria, contact the owners to arrange a date for you to virtually stop by to visit with their readers. Then you will need to supply the blog owners with a copy of your interview, graphic image of your book cover, and your picture. The media standards are you provide the interviewer with the questions and answers for your interview. Although, the blog owners will get a lot of traffic, due to your book tour, you should offer them something for being a host. Maybe a discount or a free copy of your book.

On the day of your tour visit, the blog owner will post your interview, book cover image, and your picture on their blog. You and the owner will want to encourage audience participation, as well as create an incentive for readers to visit the blog site on the day of your tour stop. You want as many site visitors as possible in order to promote your book or e-book.

The best incentive is to give away a copy of your book to a randomly selected visitor. There is a website called random.org where you enter the e-mail addresses of the site visitors, and it randomly chooses one. The contest can be something along the lines of all who post a question or comment on the day of your visit will be entered into a drawing for a free copy of your e-book or book.

You will check in throughout the day to see if there are any questions or comments that need addressing. This can create a dialogue or conversation, which in turn, will generate more audience participation. To make it more exciting, the owner of the blog can post the winner's name after they have been notified that they are the lucky winner.

Following is a list of possible questions you can use to construct your interview. Don't forget to include your answers along with your initials.

RC: Why did you write this book?

RC: Tell me about yourself.

RC: What qualifies you to write this book?

RC: How long have you been an entrepreneur?

RC: What is the e-book about?

RC: What do you want the readers to get out of this e-book?

RC: Can we look for more books from you in the future?

RC: How can the readers contact you if they have any questions?

RC: Where can the readers purchase your e-book and how much does it cost?

RC: Thank you for stopping by my blog on your tour.

Overall, virtual book tours are more cost-effective than physical book tours. Plus, you reach a much broader, larger audience, including an international audience. If you don't have time to arrange a virtual book tour, outsource it to your dependable virtual assistant.

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Article Tags: author, book, ebook, marketing tool, virtual book tour



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My reading log - Hi OmnivoreInk, Before starting my business, I read the following books as research: -"The Art of the Start" by Guy Kawasaki -"The AdSense Code" by Joel Comm -"Don't Think Pink" and "Mind Your X's and Y's" by Lisa Johnson And since then I've continued my "research" by reading (in this order): -"Technical Tennis" by Rod Cross -"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom -"The Twits" by Roald Dahl -"Little Black Book of Connections" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne -"The Profitable Retailer" by Doug Fleener -"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell -"Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis -"Little Green Book of Getting Your Way" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling And I'm currently reading and am in the process of finishing the following: -"There's No Such Thing as Public Speaking" by Jeanette and Roy Henderson -"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -"The Book of Tells" by Peter Collett -"Little Red Book of Sales Answers" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch -"The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron -"The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Feedback on a New Company Name - Hi Shri, In my honest opinion, I think your new business name is too long. Anything more than 3 words is already a tongue twister and difficult to remember. Why not just call it "Promo 101 Tours"? Another suggestion would be to brand the blog tour with your name. Besides, the word "Virtual" is useless since once you mention "Blog", it's already implied that the tour is conducted online.
Blogs in Search Engines - The format for blogs make them very compatible with search engines and Blogger uses a format that Google really likes. My Virtual Book Tour site is set up in a format that Google likes and that certainly helps with search engines. I would assume you have the person's name in the Google Alert and that's what you're looking for. Are you using the name in post titles, the blog title and name? I've also been surprised to find how well the profile details show up in the search engines. Also, are you using his name in your tags for each post? Usually each time I post, I have a Google alert within 2 hours to a day. I haven't started a new blog in a month or so, but it seems like the last ones started showing up within a day or so. That's all I can think of at the moment. Shri
Re: 10 Reasons Who Startups Fail & Book Recommendations - Great post,but please edit the headline. I presume it is "10 Reasons Why Startups Fail & Book Recommendation


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