Say thank you to modern technology! Today, authors no longer must schlep their books cross-country on promotional book tours. Instead, they can take part in virtual book tours without having to travel even one foot.
Here’s how our Virtual Book Tours work at Outskirts Press:
Outskirts Press will announce your upcoming Virtual Book Tour to the blogosphere and solicit interest from bloggers. We will then forward you every inquiry we receive in response to the announcement about your tour. We will also send you a Virtual Book Tour Packet, which includes all of the materials you need to follow up with the bloggers quickly and easily in order to schedule your “appearance” on their blog, website, or social network. In most cases your appearance may include a book review and/or an author interview.
While on virtual tour, you’ll be spotlighted on our blog, which is cross-promoted publicly to our many followers on Facebook, Google +, and Twitter. Plus, your virtual book tour will be blasted to Outskirts Press’ entire social network, including our popular YouTube channel, where your very own Book Tour Video will be uploaded for viewing.
Top 5 Benefits of a Virtual Book Tour:
- It’s faster, less expensive, and more convenient to “tour” from in front of your computer than from town to town in your car. (That’s 3 benefits right there, and there are still 4 more to go!)
- It’s an opportunity to engage with readers. Your appearance on blogs may generate reader comments, which you are encouraged to respond to.
- More book sales and book reviews. The whole point of going on a virtual book tour is to generate book sales, but you may discover an added benefit- the resulting book reviews, which will, in turn, become MORE book sales, and so on and so forth.
- Virtual Book Tours last “forever.” On a “real” book tour, it’s over the minute you get home. But a virtual book tour is archived and searchable online forever, available for search engines (and your readers) to discover days, months, or even years later. And due to the power of POD and distribution-on-demand, your book will still be available for sale when those orders come in.
- Word of mouth. While the initial “tour” may be a whirlwind, you may discover an additional benefit due to word-of-mouth. Bloggers know each other, which can turn into more “appearances” down the road; and readers know each other (just ask members of GoodReads), which may turn into additional sales and reviews down the road, even if those secondary readers didn’t see you “on tour.”
Speaking of road, it used to be a long, hard road to put together a Virtual Book Tour on your own. But Outskirts Press makes it a snap. And this week we are offering an additional 10% savings! Simply enter promo code 10PctVBT during check-out before this discount expires on August 26th. Don’t miss out on this affordable, exciting marketing opportunity.