#Giveaway – Virtual Book Tours: Don’t Pack Your Cyberbags Until You Read This By Dorothy Thompson

I want to thank Caridad for having me here today in celebration of Pump Up Your Book’s 5th Anniversary! To start off I’d like to introduce myself. For those who don’t know me, I’m CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book publicity for authors. Our specialty is virtual book tours. The reason why we focus on virtual book tours is because there is no other formula in the world that can get your more online exposure than an old fashioned blog tour. Online exposure is very important because you want to sell your book to the people using the search engines daily.

For my guest post today I thought I would focus on what you should consider before embarking on your own virtual book tour. So I give you my tips on what to do before you pack your cyber-bags. If you can answer yes to all these, you are ready.

• Do you know which audiences you want to target?
• Are you aware that the broader the scope of readers you want to target, the better the tour?
• Have you narrowed your key search words down to the most important and have figured out ways to use them in your interviews and guest posts?
• Have you compiled a list of potential blog stops for your tour along with email addresses if you are putting your tour together on your own?
• Are you making sure these particular blogs are updated frequently and have a full set of archives to make them search engine friendly?
• Can you provide author copies (unless the publisher takes care of it) to reviewers in time for them to receive the book, read the book and post the review by the given date both of you have agreed on?
• Do you have a professional author photo and can you provide your blog hosts with a jpg copy?
• Do you have a landing page (website or blog) where people can go to learn more about you and your book?
• Does your website or blog have clear enough directions on how to buy your book on the first page and are you providing a cover to entice them?
• Does your website/blog have contact information in case people want to get in touch with you?
• Are you keeping your blog updated with fresh content to keep it search engine friendly?
• Do you know how to craft a bio written in third person that includes your book’s title and website/blog url?
• Does your bio ramble or can you say most of what you have to say in one to three paragraphs?
• Are you prepared to learn more about you and your book than you did before the tour took place?
• Are you prepared for the workload that is involved when planning your tour – e.g. having to write several guest posts and fill out an umpteen amount of interviews keeping each interview fresh, different and non-boring?
• Do you have a few guest posts already written for when blog hosts ask for them?
• If not, can you come up with a few ideas beforehand so that when asked for a guest post at the last minute, you’re not pulling your hair out?
• Do you know what kind of guest posts bring in more reaction from the readers?
• Do you know what kind of guest posts bring in more sales?
• Do you know how to use the social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to promote your tour stops on a daily basis?
• Are you set up in Google Alerts to alert you on how well your publicity efforts are taking you?
• Do you know how to set up press releases to announce your tour or know of someone who can do it for you?
• Have you built up on your communication and organizational skills so you don’t become unglued?
• Have you built up your contact list (your followers)?
• Have you prepared yourself for negative reviews in case they happen and are you willing to accept them as honest criticism and learn from them?
• Are you willing to participate in your virtual book tour by leaving a comment at your “stops”?
• Are you willing to thank your tour host after they so kindly posted your interview, guest post, review, etc.?
• Are you prepared to SELL BOOKS?
If you have answered no to any of these, reconsider fixing those problems before you embark on an international virtual book tour. It’s way better to be prepared and ready than winging it. ;o)
Thank you so much for hosting me, Caridad, and thank you for being part of our 5 year celebration of online book publicity! Visit us at www.pumpupyourbook and ask about our brand new Platinum Kindle Giveaway Tour!

~ ~ ~ GIVEAWAY ~ ~ ~

Dorothy Thompson and Pump Up Your Book are giving away prizes at every stop throughout their month-long publicity tour and I am happy to let you know you can win a prize on this blog, too!

You can win a FREE 10 blog virtual book tour! Just leave a comment on this blog by midnight PST on Friday, April 27, for a chance to win!