Joyce’s client, Lena Nelson Dooley guest blog

Joyce’s client, Lena Nelson Dooley, is an expert at social networking and marketing online.

Here is Lena’s blog on Blog Tours.

Blog Tours, Who Needs Them?

Electronics have come of age, and a large number of people have embraced the Internet for many things. Readers welcome the ability to meet authors, learn about their lives, and more importantly learn about their books. With the economy so tight, people are careful about their book budgets.

I have blogged for readers since 2005, when I started interviewing authors about their latest releases. With several thousand hits per month, as well as an unknown number of people who receive a feed of my blog, readers are flocking to the site. And authors are no longer strangers to the average reader.

Authors, publishing companies, and literary publicists have chosen to utilize this electronic interest in authors and books. One of the best ways is through blog tours.

Blog tours are a lot of work but worth every minute invested. I’ve had authors tell me their stats on Amazon and similar sites spike while they are featured on my blog.

I’ve planned a couple of the blog tours for myself and other authors who shared a release. With most blog tours, all the stops on the tour get the same information to use. I’m not sure how many use all of the information, but I chose to do it a different way.

With my own personal author-interview blog, I’ve written several different sets of questions. So readers who come to my blog get different information from whatever else is out there about that book and author.

I applied that principle to the blog tours I set up. I had each of the authors answer all the questions I wrote for the interviews. Then I divided all the questions and responses between the people on the blog tour. That way, readers at each stop got new information.

Other things can bring readers to a blog tour. Book giveaways always interest a number of people. Other giveaways include gift baskets, jewelry, food items, trips, etc. I personally don’t know which draws the most readers.

I think I was the first person to start giving away books on a blog. The people who left comments were entered in the drawing. But my readership includes a vast number of people who never leave comments at all. And the commenters love to interact with the authors. The more active the author is in the comment section of the blog, the more people are drawn to participate. Some very interesting conversations ensue, which is good for the reader and good for the author.

How do I choose the blogs for a tour? I began compiling a possible list for blogs to tour. Then I checked them out. I only chose blogs with quite a few active commenters. I felt it was the wisest use of the promotional books.

Next time you have a release, you might want to consider setting up a blog tour.

Lena Nelson Dooley – multi-published author of Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico, and Family Secrets.