Markething for Authors: Blog Tours

Blog tours are big business right now. There's tons of tour companies around and it can be hard to know who to chose or even whether you should bother.

Why do you want a blog tour?

Is it for reviews? Is it for exposure? Is it to connect with book bloggers? 

If you are after reviews, look at companies who offer review packages, then check out their previous tours. Often you'll be able to see how many reviews they go. 

If you're after exposure, take a good look at the sort of blogs that host the blog tour company's tours. Some will list who they work with while on others you may have to look at their current tours to see who is hosting. Depending on your genre, you may want to connect with certain authors who host for them or popular blog pages. 

Connecting with book bloggers is one of the most important things you can do. If they like you, they will continue to support you with each and every release. This adds a huge amount of value to your blog tour. Again check out who hosts for them. If it's all authors and your aim is to connect with book bloggers, maybe take another look around.

Once you've narrowed down your selections, you need to look at the quality of their stops. Are they hastily put together? How good are their banners? Will you be a top slot or will you be buried under other book tours on the day? Looking at their current tours is a great way of judging this.

Price

Price is not always an indicator of quality. And sometimes it is. One of the first tour companies I worked with was great and efficient and very cheap but I didn't get a lot of stops from them. The next one was more expensive. I got tons of stops but not particularly high quality ones. The final provider I tried is still very cheap but amazingly high quality. So I've stuck with them and have never been disappointed. 

Etiquette

Although you are paying for a service, blog tours take a lot of time to arrange and tour providers rely on bloggers to be efficient and coordinated. Often life gets in the way of this and it may mean your stops are delayed or occasionally come up missing. It happens and unless you're really unsatisfied, I recommend you let it slide. If you miss one or two stops on a thirty stop tour, don't be a diva. Blog tour providers generally work for very little money. Also be sure to stop by and thank the bloggers for hosting you. This will go a long way to developing those all important relationships.

Are blog tours worth it?

The most powerful tool is still actually blogging. It's permanent and it shows up in search engines. Add that to the fact the bloggers will probably then share your post on their social networks and you're probably hitting at least two or three different arenas. Great exposure for very little money.

Who do I recommend?

I mentioned these two providers last week but these are who I work with and would work with again.
My Family's Heart Book Reviews
Goddess Fish

And if you're still not sure who to choose, try asking around. Word of mouth is still one of the best ways of finding what you're after.