Favorite ways to promote a virtual book tour

By D’vorah Lansky

Over the years, and during the course of my previous six virtual book tours, I’ve promoted my virtual book tour in a variety of ways. In this post, I’ll share my five favorite virtual book tour promotion strategies.

Way #1: Get your virtual book tour promoted by your hosts.

Ask your tour hosts to announce your tour dates to their list as well as to their followers on the social networks. Because of their connection with their audience, this will raise the visibility of your virtual book tour.

When you make it a point to develop a relationship with your hosts, they will be more likely to help promote your virtual book tour.

Way #2: Harness the power of mini-posts to boost your rankings in the search engines.

Post mini-posts to your blog each day, and then post a link to that post across the social networks, letting readers know that it’s your virtual book tour celebration. If you use an online service such as Hoot Suite (HootSuite.com) you can post to several social networks with one click.

This accomplishes two things. First, it gets traffic to your blog from the social networks and second it allows you to have outgoing links from your blog to the blogs and podcasts where you’ll be featured during your tour. These outgoing links can raise your visibility in Google.

Way #3: Create a Facebook book or author Page and create interaction with your readers.

Facebook provides a wonderful platform for promoting your book. Creating a Facebook Page for your virtual book tour provides you with an “online billboard” if you will.

Facebook pages get a lot of visibility and when you post interesting content and encourage engagement with the people who “like” your Facebook page, your exposure can grow exponentially.

Way #4: Encourage conversation in the comments section below each blog post.

When you are featured as a guest blogger on other blogs, you’ll have lots of opportunities to interact with new audiences. Once your post has been published on a site, you’ll see that there is a “comments” section below the post. You’ll want to be one of the first to post a comment by thanking your host for featuring you during your virtual book tour.

Encourage your readers to comment by asking them an action-oriented question and inviting them to join in the conversation. You can then circle back and interact with readers by responding to their comments and answering their questions.

Way #5: Register your gravatar so your photo appears in all your comments.

Have you ever noticed in the comments section below blog posts that the photographs of the people posting comments shows up? There is a way to automate this feature and you’ll for sure want to have your photograph appear when you post comments during your virtual book tour.

When you post a comment, you’ll see a form to fill in your name, email address, and website address. Your name will become hyperlinked with your website address and your photograph will appear if you’ve registered that email address at Gravatar.com

What you do is head over to Gravatar.com and register the email address you’ll be listing when you post comments below your posts. Once you register your email address, you’ll want to upload your headshot photo and link it to that email address.

Which of these marketing strategies are your favorite? Do you have a favorite way to market your book or business? Scroll down to the comments section below and join in the conversation.

As podcasts continue to become more popular, more and more authors like you will use this communications tool to reach their target audience.

Just as it’s not enough to write a book and wait for it to be discovered,you can’t create a podcast and expect it to succeed without promoting it.

To learn how to do that, listen to this week’s episode of the “Podcasting Success Secrets for Authors and Entrepreneurs” podcast. I’m talking with host D’vorah Lansky about “How to Publicize and Promote Your Podcast.”

In just 30 minutes, you’ll get the essential information you need to make sure your podcast gets known and you get heard. If you host a podcast or plan to, you definitely want to make sure you listen to our conversation.

You can listen in and get the show notes on the podcast site, but you can also download it on iTunes, which is where I listen to Podcasting Success Secrets for Authors and Entrepreneurs. And hey, after you listen to my conversation with D’vorah, listen to a few more of her podcasts and then write a review. iTunes reviews are a lot like Amazon reviews — they help good content get found.

Enjoy the show!

Come back here and ask any questions you might have after the interview!

Develop your author platform and extend your reach

by D’vorah Lansky

I’d like to thank Sandra for hosting me in celebration of the launch of my newest book, 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour. In this article I’ll be talking about the importance of developing your online author platform. An author platform is a place where people can come to connect with you. It is where you share your message and it refers to the size of your following/readership and your presence on the Internet. It is essential for an author to have an author platform as your platform raises your visibility and allows people to get acquainted with you.

Here are a few things that you can do to develop your online author platform:

• Set your blog up so that it makes a positive statement about you as an author. If you have any intentions of speaking, you are going to need a website which actually shows people who you are and what you speak about.
• Have a media page or speaker sheet that can be easily accessed on your website. Include images of both you and your book cover.
• Include a page on your site where you can feature endorsements or testimonials. This will provide a powerful way for people to get to know you through third-party endorsement.
• Make sure that you have a professional presence on the social media networks. Social networks provide you with the ability to reach a large number of people easily, develop your presence, share your expertise, and impart the message of your book.

Whether you are beginning with a well-established website and large audience, or you are just setting up your website and beginning to grow your audience, there is much you can do to develop and promote your online platform.

The fastest way to develop your platform is to make sure you have an attractive looking blog or website where people can come to find out more about you and your book. Develop a daily writing schedule and post articles to your site several times a week. Interact on the social networking sites and invite your target audience to enjoy reading the articles you’ve posted to your site. You will soon come to be seen as an expert in your field and you will develop relationships and friendships with your readers.

Top social networks for authors

As authors, social networking is an important aspect of our marketing plan. In addition to the big four social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube) there are dozens of social networks that are designed specifically for authors. Following are some of my favorite social networks for authors. Take time to explore these sites and pick one or two to join. Set up your profile page, add information about your book, and begin networking with authors, readers, and publishers.

Author Central on Amazon – Author Central is a free service that Amazon offers so that authors can gain more exposure and promote their books. At Author Central, you can share with your readers the most current information about yourself, your events, and your work. In addition, you can view and edit your bibliography, add a photo and biography to a personal profile, upload book cover images and videos, track your book sales, and pull in the RSS feed from you blog as a way to connect with readers. Here’s my Author Central page if you’d like to connect: www.DvorahOnAmazon.com.

Authors Den – AuthorsDen is one of the largest and most vibrant online literary communities for both authors and potential readers. Nearly 1.5 million readers a month visit this website and have the opportunity to review books while interacting with others.

GoodReads – GoodReads claims to be “the largest social network for readers in the world.” GoodReads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they’ve read and would like to read, form book clubs, and interact with others. GoodReads authors can create an author profile, add their books, create events, and interact with readers.

Shelfari – Shelfari is known as a gathering place for authors, aspiring authors, publishers, and readers. They have numerous features to enable these groups to connect in an enjoyable way.

What kind of networking about your book and topic do you do online? Tell us about your favorite social networks and how these networks have helped you to promote your book and your message.

Take your e-book on a virtual book tour and share your message with more people

By D’vorah Lansky

Would you like to take your book on tour, around the globe without leaving home? Consider conducting a virtual book tour! A virtual book tour is where you take your message on tour, around the Internet, with the goal of being exposed to new audiences. You can visit blogs and share guest blog posts in the form of written, audio, or video posts, or you can conduct a teleseminar and invite people to listen in.

Think of the traditional book tour where the author gets in a car or boards an airplane to go from location to location to talk about a book, hoping that there will be a crowd at the event. Well, even very popular, bestselling authors face the same situation. They speak at well-attended events and have also arrived at venues expecting a crowd only to have no one show up.

With a digital book, you can still conduct a book tour. In fact, for either a print book or a digital book, you can conduct a virtual book tour. With a virtual book tour, you can take your book on tour, without having to pay for travel expenses or worrying if anyone will be at a destination when you arrive. When you conduct a virtual book tour and are hosted by well-known experts with a responsive following, your book can gain exposure to many new audiences.

By participating in a virtual book tour you will grow your audience, and you’ll sell more books. You will be travelling around the Internet to the blogs’ of experts who serve your target audience, and you will be seen as an expert by association.

Three virtual book tour formats to choose from

There are several different types of virtual book tours to consider. Today I’m going to share with you three popular formats, and you can decide which format is best for you.

The one-day teleseminar

The first format for a virtual book tour is the one-day teleseminar where you’ll be speaking about your book.  With this format you get the word out to your community and have your colleagues extend an invitation to their communities.

During the teleseminar, which is approximately 60 to 90 minutes in length, everyone is driving traffic and inviting people to this one event. In essence, you are creating a big gala celebration. This can be a lot of fun and is a great way to get your message out across the airwaves. Of course, you can record your talk and have it available for replay.

The one-day blog blitz

The next format is called the one-day blog blitz.  This is a very exciting way to conduct a virtual book tour.  However, it takes a tremendous amount of energy and a tremendous amount of organization.  Imagine this: You’ve connected with 10, 20, or 30 blog owners who serve audiences that are interested in your topic.  You coordinate either on your own or with your virtual team to get content to each of the blog owners, and the blog owners schedule your blog posts to all appear on a specific date.

The reason for this format is to create a lot of buzz about your book, on a given day. This would be an excellent strategy to coordinate during a book launch. The one-day blog blitz will give you a lot of exposure and create a buzz about your book in a concentrated period of time.

Over the course of the day, you travel from site to site, thanking your tour hosts and responding to people’s comments. Be sure to stop by these sites over the course of the week because people will continue to come to the blog and there may be new comments to respond to.

The multi-day, multi-blog format

The format that I prefer is the multi-day, multi-blog, virtual book tour.  This is where you decide on a time frame for your tour as well as how many days a week you’ll be touring during that time frame.

For example, let’s say we’re going to do a 15-day blog tour, and that your tour will take place five days a week. That means you’ll be touring Monday through Friday for three weeks.

I find this format to be the most effective and the most relaxed. This format also provide prolonged exposure to you and your book and builds momentum.

Staying organized

Post a virtual book tour schedule on your site with links to where you’ll be touring to each day. You’ll need to add the hyperlinks to each day’s post the morning that a post goes live. The reason for this is because if people visit the URL before the post goes live, they will land on an error page.

I find it really helpful to ask my tour hosts to go ahead and schedule the post for 9 am Eastern on the date I am touring to their site. I ask that they do that while it is on their mind and to email me the URL to the blog post. I then add each URL to a spreadsheet and list what date I am touring to that site.

Have you conducted a virtual book tour? Do you have questions about them? Add a comment with your information or question!

Before you comment, remember to stop by the Digital Publishing Virtual Summit to learn more about Sandra’s presentation about how to plan and execute your own virtual book tour, and to learn about all of the other exciting speakers, too! (Please note that the links to the Summit in this post use Sandra’s affiliate code.)