How to Choose Hosts for Your Virtual Book Tour

A virtual book tour revolves around the blogs that participate in this promotional tool. However, you may think you have no control over what blog stops you make. That’s not true. In fact, one of the most important decisions you can make prior to beginning your virtual book tour involves choosing the type of blogs where you and your book will appear.

Market First

Your primary consideration when planning your blog tour should be hitting your target audience. If the blogs on which you appear don’t have readers interested in your book, you’re wasting your time.

I knew this but made the mistake of not focusing on this with a recent virtual book tour. I hired a company to help me, and many of the blogs they used for the tour were not in my target market. Therefore, my results were minimal, which means my book did not sell many copies during that time or make the bestseller list.

Don’t be closed minded about this, though. You might discover additional markets in which your book will sell well. Think outside the box, and consider branching out if possible.

Traffic Second

A secondary consideration should be how much traffic a blog garners. You don’t want to spend time on interviews and posts produced for blogs that get little to no readers per day. If you do, your effort, again, won’t get produce much return in terms of book sales.

It’s best to try and hit the most popular blogs if you can. In fact, marketing expert John Kremer recommend only focusing your attention on these. It’s true that you can accomplish much more in less time—and with less effort—if you and your book are featured on the most highly trafficked blogs in your niche.

Subject Third

If you can find blog specific to your subject matter, that’s super! If they are also well trafficked, even better! Now you will surely target your market and get a huge bang for your buck. These are idea blogs to seek out for your virtual book tour.

That said, you may want to consider if there are topical blogs that might have readers who would benefit from your book. If so, contact those bloggers and make a case for their participation in your tour.

Reviewers Fourth

And then there are reviewers… Although I often refer to those blogging books as “book bloggers,” more commonly book bloggers are known as those who blog about books—those who review them.

This is an important blogging contingent to consider and to contact. You want your book reviewed on their blogs as well as on Amazon. Many of them will do both. And most will publicize their reviews on social media.

Genre Fifth

Don’t forget that there are some bloggers who cover fiction, nonfiction, scifi, children’s books, YA, romance, or self-publishing. So look for those that fit your book, and include them in your virtual book tour as well.

How to Find Bloggers for Your Virtual Book Tour

In D’Vorah Lansky’s guest post, she mentioned a few ways to find guest blog stops, such as by approaching bloggers you know and getting acquainted with bloggers in your niche. Here are a few websites that provide great resources as well:

www.Google.com/blogsearch
www.Technorati.com
www.BlogCatalog.com
www.Blogarama.com

You also can do searches on Google. Just look for blogs, podcasts and radio shows related to your book’s topic, market or genre.

Here are two more great resources:
D’vorah Lansky’s Virtual Book Tour Boot Camp
Dana Lynn Smith’s Virtual Book Tour Magic ebook
John Kremer’s Blogpalooza