The key to a successful blog tour

[Irina Shapiro]

So, I am in the middle of my second blog tour, and unfortunately, I am not having a very positive experience.  So far I've had bloggers who committed to a certain day and failed to post, bloggers who posted, but made so many spelling mistakes and grammatical errors that I was embarassed to share the links on my sites, and bloggers who asked for a PDF, but obviously never read a word and just cut and pasted what was sent to them by the tour organizer.  So, I would appreciate some words of wisdom from the bloggers and the authors.  Have I made a mistake by not choosing the bloggers and organizers more carefully, or is this the norm?  What is the key to having a successful blog tour and can anyone recommend people that they've gotten better results with?

Irina

www.irinashapiro.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Irina-Shapiro/307374895948375

[Tamelia Tumlin]

Well, my blog tour started yesterday and I can't say I'm impressed so far. :(  Yesterday was the kick off with my publisher's blog. That went fine since the post wen to the newsletter as well. However, today my blog tour host did not post my guest post. I emailed her yesterday to remind her about the event. No response. I emailed her today find out why she didn't post. No response so far. :(  VERY disappointed. first stop on my tour and it was a no go..Ugh!!!  I'm not even getting very many click throughs to enter my Amazon gift card giveaway at the end of my tour. The rafflecopter is on my website and I tweet about it 2-3 times a day.. :(  What am I doing wrong here?

[Irina Shapiro]

I don't think you did anything wrong.  Just as I have no control over these bloggers, neither do you.  Some people are very responsible and detail-oriented, and others do things willy-nilly.  As many people have pointed out in these posts, we have to find tour organizers or screen bloggers more carefully.  Either way, it's hit or miss. 

[Grace]

One of the things that I noticed about the company that I worked with is that when bloggers didn't post, they seemed to be very good about adding additional stops to the end of the tour to make up for it.  I had been shocked when I saw that people hadn't posted on time, as that's pretty much the point of a blog tour.

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Books Without Any Pictures

[Rachel Marks]

Hey Irina!

I organize blog tours for YA authors and I have to say that it really is no simple task, especially for an author.  I screen all my bloggers before they go on tours and I stay on top of all them to make sure that they post.  I make it super easy for them because when they are happy and informed then they will be happy to participate in the tour. 

My suggestion to you is to either take the time to really screen your bloggers and make your tour easy for them to participate on, or to find a blog tour company that will do all the hard work for you.  

 

Young Adult Novel Reader Blog Tours

[Tamelia Tumlin]

Well I'm still on my blog tour, but I had another blogger not post my guest post. Strange thing is I think BOTH places that didn't post my tour blogs are the same person and they just have more than one site. I say this because the exact format is set up on both blogs (one for characters and one for plot) I think they have another one for setting. Neither of those blogs have posted anything since aug. 9 and didn't answer my email. I noticed someone else was scheduled for a tour stop at one of the blogs as well and it wasn't posted either. At first I was a bit aggravated,but now I'm a little more worried about them. It sounds like something might have happened to them ( or family crisis  or something). Just seemed odd. I hope they are fine and just not responsible, but it really doesn't seem like it. And by the way, my blog tour is not going well. I haven't had hardly any comments on my post or reviews (I don't think the bloggers I have have very many followers, but the blog host themselves are very nice). Oh well, at least I didn't pay for this tour. Ugh!

[Patricia Gligor]

I'll be participating in my first blog tour in November. I've appeared on lots of writers' blogs and had them as guests on mine but this will be the first actual tour for me. Fortunately, the woman who organizes the tour is a well respected professional author in the mystery/suspense genre, my genre. I know that she chooses the participants very carefully. I think that's the key.