An Insider's Guide to a Blog Tour - Guest Post Vivien Brown

Blog tours go hand in hand with publishing a book but what is it really like going on tour? I asked author Vivien Brown this question as Wendy's Writing Now is the final stop in Vivien's tour to promote the paperback publication of her novel, Lily Alone.

 Over to you, Vivien.

When I hear the words ‘going on tour’ I instantly think of rock bands and roadies, packed into a bus with a mound of guitars and being pursued by screaming groupies! I am glad to say that, when it comes to books, a tour is a very different thing altogether. I had heard a lot about blog tours over the last year or so, particularly since becoming a novelist myself, but I had very little idea of how they worked, so planning and promoting one of my own has been quite an experience!

There is a lot more to launching a novel than just writing it and then sitting back waiting for sales. From as soon as my book ‘Lily Alone’ was given an e-publication date, I have had to talk about it on social media and in every conceivable forum, until my potential readers are probably sick to death of the very sight of its (rather lovely) cover. But now it is has been published in paperback too, things seem to have stepped up another gear and the search is on for more readers and, crucially, more reviews.

The best way to make a real splash, I was told, was to organise a blog tour, whereby I and my book would feature on a series of bloggers’ sites, travelling from one to another during the days leading up to, and soon after, publication. At each stop, I would provide photos, answer interview questions, perhaps offer free copies as prizes, or write a post that in some way links to the book. If I was lucky, some of the bloggers might review and recommend the book too. But, where to begin?

I am a member of the fantastic Facebook group known as Book Connectors, a friendly and very active community of readers, writers and bloggers who enjoy talking about, promoting and reviewing books, and all without a penny changing hands! So, I boldly asked if anyone there might like to include me in a possible future tour, and I was flooded with enthusiastic replies. Having taken a look at all of their blogs and talked about what they would like me to supply, I was able to select the ones that I thought best suited my book, and after several emails passed back and forth as we juggled available dates, I ended up with eight who were happy to ‘host’ me, one each day (apart from Sunday), starting two days before publication and ending up right here, after a much needed day’s breather, with my friend Wendy’s super blog as my final stop. Then I designed a poster, put all the dates in my diary, and waited for it all to begin.

So, what was the hardest part? It had to be making sure that I didn’t give exactly the same information to each blogger. People interested in books may well read more than one of my interviews and will soon tire of reading the same replies. It helped that each blogger had their own unique way of doing things, varying the questions asked, trying to include more imaginative and unusual questions, and often providing a longer list than was needed, so I was able to pick and choose which ones to answer. I was also conscious of having too many identical photos of me floating about the internet, so I tried to send a different one each time. Okay, so in some I am probably five years younger than in others, but I think they are all just about recognisable as me!

And the best bit? Well, I have been overwhelmed by the level of response. Of course, I shared the blog posts on my own Facebook and twitter pages as each one appeared, but then friends, other reviewers and bloggers, and total strangers, started to like, share and comment on them too. It helped that a short story I had written to tie in with the book appeared in My Weekly magazine on the second day of the tour, so that generated a lot more interest and even more retweets. And then the RNIB tweeted on day three to announce that the book was now available as a talking book, which produced even more ‘traffic’ from its followers and beyond. I looked up the voice artist, Penelope Rawlins, and found she had also narrated books for such great writers as Jo Jo Moyes and Maggie O’Farrell. I tweeted a thank you and she replied that my novel had been ‘an absolute joy to narrate’ –Wow!

Hitches? There were one or two. One blogger lost my email replies, and the poster that my publishers made for me on day two to replace my home-made effort was great, but it was only after sharing it just about everywhere that I spotted it had an error in it (the date of this final blog was correct but it said it was a Wednesday instead of a Thursday!) But these were just minor blips in an otherwise hectic, but highly enjoyable, exercise.

But, after a week and a half ‘on the road’, has the blog tour actually resulted in extra sales or reviews? Well, my Amazon rankings certainly went up day by day. Not astronomically so, but then not all sales are via Amazon, and not everyone buys a book the moment they first hear about it. And reviews tend to follow some time later, as I have to give readers time to actually read what they have bought before they can voice an opinion. So, only time will tell. But, overall, I’m sure such intense promotion can’t have done any harm, and it was certainly fun!

Amazon paperback: http://amzn.to/2v2THAK

Amazon ebook: http://amzn.to/2nF1iDC

BLURB: What sort of mother would leave her daughter alone? Would you leave a very young child at home on their own – knowing that terrible things can happen in the blink of an eye? Lily, who is not yet three years old, wakes up alone with only her cuddly toy for company. She is hungry, afraid of the dark, can’t use the phone, and has been told never to open the door to strangers. In the flat downstairs, a lonely and elderly woman keeps herself to herself but wonders at the cries coming from upstairs. Lily’s grandmother frets that she can no longer see her granddaughter since the child’s parents separated. Lily’s father hasn’t seen her for a while. He’s been abroad, absorbed in his new job and his new girlfriend. A young woman lies in a coma in hospital – no one knows her name or who she is, but in her silent dreams, a little girl is crying for her mummy… And for Lily, time is running out.