Promote Your Novel

The third (and final, at least for the purposes of this series) type of blog tour I’m calling a Progressive Tour. Rather than focusing on a specific day, or three days, or week – like the previous tours we discussed do – this tour can stretch out for weeks, even months.

How progressive tours generally work is you ask bloggers if you can write a guest post for their blog. You create a schedule so you have a guest post appearing on a different blog every (or every other) weekday for a set time period. Each post is unique and based on the blogger’s needs. Many ask interview questions. Some may want to review your book. Others may be more writer-focused and would like you to share some tips.

This type of tour requires a lot of work, but since the posts come out gradually you don’t need to write them all at once (though it’s helpful if you do have them finished before the tour starts, or at least a general idea of what you’ll be writing about). You’ll also have more time to comment and interact with readers of each post.

If you have your own blog with a good amount of readers, you’ll want to keep them informed about the tour, which can get a little tricky if you’re not used to posting every day (it’s a great way to help you get started with that, though!). You’ll want to create a teaser blurb for each post, and link directly to the post after it’s live. You’ll also want to include a “master list” post that shows all the stops on the blog tour.

Camy Tang is a talented author who has progressive tours down to a science. Here’s the master list from the blog tour for her latest novel, Deadly Intent.

If you choose to do a progressive tour, remember – every day of the tour you’ll need to:

1. Post on your blog with a teaser blurb and permalink (no, you can’t schedule this because you need to wait until the post goes live to get the permalink)
2. Update your master list post with the permalink
3. Visit the blog after the post has been up for a little while to thank the blogger and respond to comments

So which kind of tour is right for you and your novel? I don’t know – maybe you’ll be adventurous and try all three! But I hope these posts will help you make an informed decision based on how much work is involved and how you want to reach readers. I wish you great success in your novel promotion!

The second kind of blog tour I call Participation Tours. Like cookie-cutter tours, they focus on posting about your book on a certain day or series of days. However, bloggers don’t have content to cut and paste (though some still paste information like back cover copy), so the posts require significant more work on the blogger’s part. Media copies are usually still provided, and you may be asked to provide unique content for specific bloggers.

You can see that this type of blog tour may get time-consuming, especially if you’re getting interview requests from ten different bloggers that all need them within the week. Usually, however, this type of tour has a smaller number of participants than the cookie-cutter tour.

Another aspect (not always present) of a Participation Tour is linking to other bloggers on the tour. While this would make little sense in a cookie-cutter tour, in a Participation Tour every blog has unique content. There is often a list of links to the other blogs on the tour at the end of the post, and bloggers are encouraged to comment on other posts in the tour.

This type of tour may not generate the sheer quantity of Amazon links that cookie-cutter tours do, but it outclasses them in quality. People will be actively discussing your book. One drawback to this is that their opinions may not always be positive. They (usually) invested time to read your book, and if they hate it, they’ll let you know. Or at least point out a few things that may make you squirm.

Don’t response in anger if a blogger doesn’t like your novel. If you can’t reply civilly, ignore the post. Often, if the remarks are unjustified, other bloggers on the tour will come to your defense.

If you have the time (and if you don’t, try to make it!), comment on all the tour posts, thanking the bloggers and addressing any questions that may come up. You may want to wait until the day or two after the tour so others have time to comment first.

I belong to one Participation Tour group, the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour.

Seasoned literary publicist Sabrina Sumsion has an excellent post on publicity this week on Seekerville:

Publicity 101

Within the past 5 years, blog tours have become an increasingly popular form of novel promotion. I myself am a part of three tour groups that focus on Christian fiction. There are many different types of book blog tours, and groups tend to focus on one in particular.

Each of the different types of tour have their own strengths and weaknesses. Which ones you (or your publisher) decide to schedule for your novel will depend on what kind of publicity your book needs.

The first kind of blog tour (or blour, as author Brandilyn Collins deemed them) I’ll call a Cookie-Cutter Tour. Blog tour participants simply have to cut and paste content telling about your book into a blog post on a certain day or week, and hit publish. Often the tour group leaders encourage individual reviews and content, but it’s not required. The publisher or author agrees to supply media copies for the participants to review if they choose, along with content for the blog post. Some groups (like the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance) charge for this service, others (like FIRST Blog Alliance) do not.

Cookie-Cutter Tours generate a lot of links to your book’s Amazon page and your website within just a few days. Their effectiveness to create buzz is, however, hindered by the sameness of the posts. Buyers usually need a number of exposures to the product (in this case, your book) before they will purchase it, but those exposures need to be varied. While each blog that hosts your book on a tour gets the message out to more potential readers, in truth there’s a lot of overlap between blog viewers. If a blog viewer sees an identical post about your book on blog after blog, he or she will tune it out quickly. It will be like viewing the same commercial a dozen times in a row.

So if you choose to book a Cookie-Cutter Tour for your novels, for the most impact try to find a diverse group of  bloggers without much viewer overlap.

Seasoned agent Chip MacGregor is offering a two-day intensive seminar – solely for novelists who want to learn how to promote and market their novels. Because, face it, most marketing instruction is aimed for non-fiction authors. Novelists tend to yawn when they’re told to develop side products for their books and to write articles so they’re seen as an expert in their field. That’s one reason I started this blog, to shine a light on the few bits of marketing advice fiction authors need. And now, there’s a whole seminar about it!

Actually – two! One in Dallas and one in Indianapolis.

Go to Chip’s blog to find out more. And take note of the special offer to save $199 on the seminar (that’s 40% off!).

Amazon.com is the one site where reviews have a direct impact on sales. Some glowing phrases and lots of stars and you’re set. No reviews and people will hesitate. A few disparaging remarks and one or two stars and people will move onto the next book. So how do you get good Amazon reviews?

I’m skimming by the fact that you must have written a good book. Your book is published now; so you can’t change anything about it.

Some authors give away copies of their book in exchange for reviews. This is great, especially if you have a group of influencers who love your work.

You can also link to Amazon’s page on your blog or website and ask readers to write a quick review if they liked your book. Most won’t take the extra step to click over to a different site, though. So how to reel in readers already on Amazon?

One excellent way is AmazonConnect. This allows you to directly connect with your readers right on Amazon. Cheryl Kaye Tardif wrote a great article to help authors get started on AmazonConnect – you can read it here. Bea Amor also shares how you can utilize the program and other services Amazon offers for authors.

How do you get Amazon reviews?

I want to interview some authors about their promotion methods, and I thought I’d ask all of you if you have any questions for them. Here are the questions I have so far – post any more you think of in the comments!

What do you wish you knew about promotion before your first novel came out?

Which has worked best for spreading the word about your novel, online promotion (website, email lists, social networking) or offline promotion (direct mail, booksignings, media ads)? Why?

If you could only promote your novel in ONE way, which way would you choose?

What’s the craziest thing you’ve done to promote a novel?

Tell me about your latest novel. Does it have any special challenges for promotion or interesting marketing angles?

A final fun one: What fictional character (film, TV, or literary) do you feel is most like you? Why?

I wrote an article on how I use social networking to generate ideas for Xomba articles. This post twists around to another effective way different types of web content interact – with traffic benefits!

This journey began, yet again, with a Facebook ad. It’s amazing – amid all the incredibly stupid and misleading ads on Facebook, I found two awesome ones.

This ad led me to Xomba.com. I really wasn’t looking for another writing avenue – I had Bukisa and eHow, both of which had yielded less than a dollar each for the time I invested (admittedly not much, but still several hours each). I had just deleted all of my articles on AddsYou (50ish) because of the low traffic and the developer’s preoccupation with his new TwitPic clone. I had four primary blogs and countless smaller ones, all of which I was consistently ignoring. I had my languishing WIP, a fantasy started years ago and mired somewhere along the way. I had (and still have!) a somewhat mundane job with an awesome company, and it looked like I’d be keeping it as the company’s imminent demise was averted. My passion for the written word was slowly drifting away.

Then, there was Xomba. The 50-word Xomblurbs intrigued me. I could sneeze 50 words. However, I didn’t join that day, but spent my breaks and that evening reading about others’ experiences with the site. I knew I wanted to sign up under someone’s referral so they would make money from my posts, and I settled on one writer whose articles about the site were particularly helpful, and who seemed friendly and approachable.

I wrote several Xomblurbs, including several that linked to blog posts on this site. While Promote Your Novel is all about promotion, truthfully I haven’t done much yet to promote this site. The reason for that is because I wanted to wait so I could put up more content. I didn’t want to get hundreds of visitors to a blog that only had one or two posts, and have them leave and never come back. So before I posted about it on Xomba, my highest day was two visitors. Most days were zero. After posting on Xomba, there were visitors every day, and a significant increase.

I took one aspect of writing for Xomba and wrote an eHow article about it. That was less than a week ago, and it’s already my highest-earning article on the site. I included my referral link, and am getting one referral a day.

So I blog, then bookmark the blog post on Xomba with a Xomblurb (I plan to later expand to other sites like InfoPirate). That earns me money, and also brings traffic to my site. I then write an article on the process of using these sites and earn more money and traffic.

I can finally see the process begin to snowball. Not a lot, but I’ve got from a marble-sized ball to a golf ball. I just need to remember to keep adding more snow (content) and not let what I’ve had melt away in the sun.

Xomba is a website where you can post articles to earn money, much like Hubpages, eHow, Bukisa, Suite101, and others. But Xomba offers a greater advantage to novelists for these reasons:

The articles are easier to write. The word count minimum for a Xombyte (article) is 150 words. The minimum for a Xomblurb (link description) is 50 words.

You can link to your own website. Xomblurbs let you post a link to wherever you want (except your own Xombytes). It works like a less-automated form of sharing on Facebook or linking on Twitter. Where else can you earn money for bragging about your own website?

All forms of writing are permitted. You can post poetry, short stories, and chapters of your novel right alongside your non-fiction articles. Don’t worry, you still keep the rights to all your work.

You can earn money while doing online research. Say you were searching for information on your protagonist’s profession, and found an awesome site on the day-to-day life of a veterinarian. Take five minutes and write a Xomblurb about it. Not only will you have a link and quick description to refer back to later, you may make a little change, too!

Xomba and social media sites feed each other. Don’t want to twitter what you had for dinner for the 10th time this month? Post a link to a recent Xombyte. Looking for something interesting to link to with a Xomblurb? Scan your Twitter feed or friends’ Facebook links for sites others wanted to share.

I am by no means an expert on Xomba – I just joined today! I do think it offers a great opportunity for novelists. I plan to post again with an update on how the site is working for me, however, I’m already earning money! I posted 3 Xomblurbs this morning (taking about 5 minutes each) as I came across interesting sites. After posting the third, I thought I’d check my Adsense account, even though I’d only joined Xomba two and a half hours ago. I’d already made $0.04! That may seem like only a little, but if I never posted anything else and kept earning at that speed, in a year I would make over $100 for 15 minutes of work.

So why not take a chance and try it? Even if you end up hating it, whatever you posted to try it out will keep earning you money for years to come!

(Side note: I felt confident saying years, because this isn’t some flash-in-the-pan startup company. It has already been around for 3 years.)