Blog Tour Take Two and Upcoming Giveaway

Tomorrow my Reading Addiction Blog Tour comes to an end. The good news is my second blog tour will be starting on Friday through July 9 and has been set up through Bewitching Book Tours. To celebrate this next leg of my book tour, I'll be hosting another giveaway. Prize will be a $20 Amazon.com Gift Card and an autographed copy of my novel. Since Wordpress.com doesn't support Rafflecopter (totally lame) I'll be running my giveaways on my Facebook page. Like the page to keep posted on book news and upcoming contests. To enter, you can like my Facebook page, tweet one of my blog stops or leave a comment at one of the stops. Here's the link to the contest and the tour schedule is posted below.

By the way, if you're on the fence about doing a virtual book tour, I highly recommend it. It has helped expand my audience and receive more reviews on my novel. Tour hosts post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads which is helpful for new books or novels that do not have many reviews. Compared to other promotions, the price was very reasonable.

June 22 Character Interview
Simply Infatuated
http://simplyinfatuated.wordpress.com/

June 25 Promo
It's All About me
heathercim.wordpress.com

June 26 Promo
http://ariannecruz07.blogspot.com

June 27 Interview and review
Tana Rae Reads
http://tana-someofmyfavoritebooks.blogspot.ca/

June 29 Interview and review
My Neurotic Book Affair
http://myneuroticbookaffair.blogspot.com

June 30 Promo
Read 2 Review
http://read2review.com

June 30 review
Books, Books, and More Books
http://dream-reader-dreamer2229.blogspot.com/

July 1 Interview and review
For The Love Of Film And Novels
http://www.fortheloveoffilmandnovels.com/

July 2 Guest blog (review later)
Keeping Up With The Rheinlander's
http://mnmrheinlander.com

July 3 Promo
A Bibliophile's Thoughts on Books
http://bibliophilesthoughtsonbooks.blogspot.com/

July 5 Review
A Case of Reading Insomnia

http://acaseofreadinginsomnia.blogspot.com

July 5 Guest blog and review
www.stormgoddessbookreviews.blogspot.com

July 6 Promo
Mila Ramos
www.jademystique.blogspot.com

July 8 Review
http://booksfromthepurplejellybeanchair.blogspot.com

July 9 Guest blog
Fang-tastic Books
http://www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com

Virtual Book Tours to Promote Your Novel

Virtual book tours are a new-ish marketing tactic to help gain readership for your novels. On the simplest level, you're going blog to blog to promote your book. The main tactics used to market your book is the author provides guest posts, excerpts from your novel, interviews and giveaways. The blog host can share a review of your book. Each blog stop will typically do a combination of these things on the days they host your book.

Now, one option you have is to request guest posts, interviews, etc. from blogs directly. However, this could be time-consuming and you could have no idea where to start. If you know a lot of fellow bloggers though, this could definitely be a possibility. The simplest option may be to hire a book tour company. For a flat fee, you pay them to act as a middleman and set up your appearances on various blogs. They help work out your guest post topics and provide you with the blog's interview questions. They put together a press kit after you send them a copy of your book, selected excerpts, your bio, etc.

I'm scheduled for two tours using two different companies over the next couple of months. My first tour for First Visions begins May 28 and is through Reading Addiction Blog Tours. My tour will be a month long and stop at 20 different blogs. 10 of the blogs will have review stops and bloggers are asked to cross-post reviews on Goodreads, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. I figure this will also be a good way to get more reviews since my book has only been out for three weeks. The pricing packages for both companies started around $25 and went as high as $150. The month long blog tour package ranged from $75 to $100 and both have 20 stops on the tour.

I'll be cross-posting during the month, so check back for giveaway links and more. I'm also sponsoring a giveaway on LibraryThing for free ebook and paperback copies of First Visions. Members can enter here.