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So You’re Booking A Virtual Book Tour?

Imagine if you will:

You’ve published your novel.  Your mom, sister and best friend have purchased it. Your cousin smiled and asked for a free copy while your neighbor has studiously avoided you since you announced your happy news.

Your sales report from KDP is nothing short of humbling.

Now what?

You’ve checked into several options and seeing as how your marketing budget is quite limited.  You’ve decided to take your book on tour – a virtual tour.

STOP!

Before you go any further, before you sign on the dotted line, let me share a little of my experience as both a touring author and hosting blogger…

thinkingClose your eyes and picture yourself sitting at a table in your favorite bookstore.  There’s a line of people eager to meet you, patiently waiting for you to sign their copy of your novel. Of course, you smile.  You schmooze. You pull out your trusty pen and you sign your name with a flourish – just as you’ve practiced so many times before.

Now:  Open your eyes and let’s talk about your virtual book tour.  Because while they are much the same, they are uniquely different. Instead of a line of people physically standing in front of you, there will be countless people sitting in front of their computer screens.

First:  Do your homework.  Make sure that the tour organizer you’ve selected is a good fit for your book.  This is easy enough to figure out. Sometimes, you can tell just by the name.  (ex:  Deb’s Chic Lit Tours) Other times,  the name won’t give you a clue. (ex: Deb’s Virtual Book Tours) This is when you need to look at the books that are currently touring and those that have previously toured.  Is your book’s genre well represented? If so, go a step further.  Visit the host sites.  Note the visits/interaction on the site or the lack there of. Remember: It’s up to each individual blogger to sign up to host your book. There’s no guarantee that you’re going to be featured on a site with heavy traffic. However, a blogger who wants to increase their traffic is going to do their best to help generate views by sharing the post on various social media sites.

Next:  After you’ve selected your tour organizer – you will receive requests for book excerpts, author interviews and guest posts.  Meet the requirements.  If a blogger is willing to participate with your tour, offering you space on his/her blog – then kindly oblige with the requested guest post or interview.

Finally:  This is important.  Be selective in the dates you choose as tours are time consuming.  Just like with a face to face book signing, virtual book tours require that the author be present.  This can get tricky especially when juggling jobs, families and other obligations.

On occasion, I participate with virtual book tours as a host.  What I’ve seen has left me scratching my head.  I share a post featuring the author and their novel.  My readers comment with things like:  This sounds interesting!  Or Sounds like my kind of book!  

And the author’s response:  imagine

Seriously?  Potential readers are being ignored.

While the author has paid for the tour, he/she must remember that is more of an organizational fee.  It isn’t the hosts job to sell your book.  The hosts offer you, the author, a seat at the table, a place at the podium, a little time in the spotlight. But – it’s up to the you to take advantage of the opportunity.

How?  That’s easy:

*Stop by and thank the host for having you on their blog.  (You may have to get up a little earlier than usual to make that early morning visit.)

*Check in periodically through out the day.  (Lunch, breaks, after work)

*Share the post on your social media sites.

*Enlist the help of family and friends by asking them to follow your tour and share the posts.

*AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE – Acknowledge the comments!  Those comments were made by people who found something interesting about the book, interview, etc. Failing to do so isn’t any different than getting up and walking away from that table in your favorite book store, paying no attention to those folks in line.

ChirpDon’t forget – The people who take the time to read the posts and comment are potential book buyers…

And ultimately, isn’t that the point of doing a virtual book tour?

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Christmas Cookie Catastraphy

When it comes to baking, my hubs rocks.  He’s my own personal pastry chef.  No store bought pie crusts for my guy.  He makes his own.  His pumpkin pie can’t be beat.  It could have something to do with the fact that he doesn’t use canned pumpkin.  Nope. He picks out a pumpkin at the grocery store and goes from there.

It probably goes without saying that when my children wanted to bake cookies – it was their father who answered the call.

Now don’t misunderstand the situation – I can bake.  I’m a freaking pro when it comes to those refrigerated options – you know the ones where you break apart the squares of cookie dough and drop them on a pan and 13 minutes later – Viola!   And don’t forget turtles – they are my specialty. A pretzel, a Rolo and 3 minutes in the oven!  Top it off with a pecan!  I’m like the star of my own cooking show!

So – as Christmas approached and Hubs was up to his elbows in our bathroom remodel, I stepped up to the oven.  After all, I’m a team player and if Hubs could tear out drywall than I could throw together a few ingredients for some holiday treats.

chocolate-snowman-pretzel-craft-sticks-popsicle-crafts-I visited pinterest and found the cutest chocolate dipped pretzel snowmen. I mean seriously, aren’t they just the best?  (For instructions, click here)

InstagramCapture_d2ec9fe6-ac84-4b92-8625-d2f905d44c61Only mine didn’t look so cute. In fact, it was suggested that I make them for next year’s Halloween – something about them channeling Freddy Krueger.

I accepted the truth – Chocolate dipped pretzel snowmen were beyond my abilities.  I moved on to cookies.  No – I didn’t open a recipe book.  I don’t have the patience for that. Instead, I purchased those giant rolls of cookie dough.

I pulled out the cookie cutters, choosing the candy cane shaped ones and explained my plan.  No rolling out the dough – nope.  Instead, I made little logs and dropped them into the cutters, lightly pressing them to fill the canes.  Easy-peasy…

Only not so much…

That batch of cookies were interesting to say the least.  Hubs said he’d never seen candy canes look quite like mine.  Needless to say, I’ve accepted that some people (me) are baking challenged.  And that’s okay because Hubs has promised to man the kitchen next year.

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Finding Christmas in a Store

Grinch

She stood in front of me, her groceries moving towards the scanner, one child in the buggy, the other standing beside it.

Hotdogs, chicken pot pies – nothing extravagant – not for this family.

She focused on the monitor like a hawk watching prey and that is what caught my attention.  Because I can remember watching prices – adding them in my head – making sure I had enough money.

“That’ll be $70.68,” the cashier said.

The young woman swiped her card.

The cashier frowned.  “Hmmm.  Declined.”

The young woman checked her phone, her finger sliding across the screen.

“Try swiping your card again,” the cashier encouraged.

Looking up, she shook her head.  “I need to put some things back.”

“It might be a malfunction,” the cashier insisted.

“No,” the young woman answered.  “I checked my balance.  There’s just over $50.00.” She glanced back at her phone.  “I had $97.00 when I left home.  My husband must have used his debit card.”

 

“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “I’ll pay the balance if that’s okay…”

The young woman was appreciative and I was thankful –  thankful for the blessings I’ve been given, thankful for being able to share those blessings (if only in a small way), and so grateful that in the hustle and bustle of a busy afternoon – I found the Christmas spirit in my local grocery store.

 

 

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Memories

I can’t hear John Conlee singing Rose Colored Glasses that I don’t think of my Uncle Frank.  That song carries me back to the early 80’s when CMT was new.  I sat on the sectional in his living room – listening to John sing as my family sat at the dinner table.  I can see my uncle sitting there. He was loud and somewhat irreverent and oh so funny.  He wore British Sterling and smelled like a million bucks.

He loved listening to Floyd Cramer and on Christmas Eve – after dinner had been served – he’d pop in a CD.  Some of us would find a comfy spot and talk; others danced.  It was wonderful.

I miss him.

My father misses him.  Somehow, that makes the missing a little worse.

And during this Christmas Season, we will recall the the epic Christmas Eve Roman Candle Fight between my dad and uncle.  We’ll laugh and joke around and we’ll listen to old songs and remember.