Well, technically the tour was over almost two weeks ago… but life got in the road, me wanting to blog about mental health awareness got bumped up and all in all this post is overdue. You know it, I know it, we’re accepting it and moving on. 😉

So! Yes, I did a virtual book tour during September with the fantastic Bewitching Book Tours. If you’re a writer of Urban Fantasy and the Supernatural I highly recommend you contact Roxanne and arrange a book tour for your own work. She is friendly, helpful (answered all my dumb questions) and communicated really well as to what was happening, when it was to happen and so on and so forth. And being a stickler for customer service (having done it myself for so long) communicating well with your clients is an absolute must. Roxanne passed with flying colours.

Yes, I am indeed proud to be a…

The sites that she arranged as tour stops were all excellent, well run and fun to visit sites. I actually picked up a few interesting books for my TBR (To Be Read) pile from checking out other authors on tour. They ran my Spotlights, interviews and guest blog posts on time and presented them well (no glaring colours or distracting flickering pics, etc). I even made a few friends along the way while literally doubling my followers on my Facebook Author page and now having more followers than followees on Twitter!

Do a virtual book tour, they might not bring in immediate sales, but they will bring immediate attention to your new book and I honestly can’t remember any of that attention actually being negative. That is how well run the tour was. 🙂

Now, I’m not saying that all book tours will be as awesome as Roxanne’s and her Bewitching Book Tours, so shop around before you jump on in. Check out what other people have to say about the sites, see what traffic or followers they have. Ensure your book suits their genre (yes, blogs can have genre too you know) and just have fun.

I don’t want to hear the whole “a virtual book tour isn’t the same as a real one” as duh! I’m not as dumb as I’m blonde looking. For one thing, doing a virtual tour meant I could still fit my normal life of horde wrangling and Haus Frauing around it without a glitch. Yes I didn’t get to travel anywhere, sit for hours in crowded, over-heated bookshops, give myself carpal tunnel from signing books… but hey, you can’t get everything in this world. 😉

And, to be honest, I’d much rather be at home not knowing how many people do or don’t visit a site to read my interviews, browse my blog posts or check out the free chapter than sitting in an empty bookshop as a Nigel no name nearly begging any passer-by to buy my book so I could sign it for them. Heck, I have book launches like that, I didn’t need a whole tour doing it too. 😀

But you know what? I had five eBooks to give away, along with an autographed promo card of the book. Just five. And how many people entered the competition to win one of them? Over fourteen hundred! For a Nigel no name… that’s a pretty awesome feeling you know.

So don’t turn your nose up at a virtual book tour, whether you have a paper book or an eBook to show off. It works well for both. Just because your books are printed on paper, that doesn’t mean you can’t use electronics to help sell and promote it. We eBook authors aren’t as biased and prissy and will still be your friends and help you out where we can. 😉

The online community of new Authors you meet and learn from during the tour is amazing. They share your work, help you shake your assets and all for nothing. Well, not exactly nothing… without asking you, their good will simply encourages you to do the same for them. Share their work, give them shout outs and so on. Well, it encourages the good Authors out there. Hint hint to some of you!

Okay, so I did the book tour, I had an awesome time while literally sitting on my couch through-out it all. I met some fantastic people, made from wonderful friends and even got a slightly bigger fan base than what I started out with. Heck, pretty sure I even made some sales, of all the amazing things that can happen on tour!

Besides thanking the lovely Roxanne and her Bewitching Book Tours for the fun time, I really want to thank Hague Publishing for arranging it, paying for it and helping me shake my assets and learn more about the wonderful worlds of being an Author.

If you’re interested to see what I did, where I went and how each stop played out… head on over to Hague Publishing’s blog post about it all.

That’s it for now. A short post for today… but I do have another post brewing so it won’t be too long before you get my next one. It’s going to be about Author’s needing to toughen up a bit and realise that reviewers are just trying to help with their open and honest reviews. Constructive criticism helps Authors write better books… you don’t like the review, have a quiet tanty and move on. Don’t go all cyberbully on the reviewers. Grow up!

Consider that a preview of my next blog post. 😉

Until next time,

Janis. XXOO