Now, I know what you're thinking... "What's a 'Virtual Book Tour'?"
Good question. In my industry (publishing) it used to be that publishers would send big-name authors on book tours where they would travel from city to city signing their books at bookstores and making guest appearances on local TV and radio. A couple of problems with that: first, it was very expensive. Second, only the top authors got such expensive trips.
One solution? The "Virtual Book Tour" also known as the "Blog Book Tour." With the advent of the blogosphere and many people online these days, many authors are making the rounds to different blogs.
Each day during the tour a different blog hosts the author. What happens after that? Ya got me. I dunno. I've heard of 'em but I haven't done one of 'em. (Not that I'm doing one now...but my interview last September with Carole Whang Schutter will be included starting January 17th.)
- Does each blog host ask a different question of the author?
- Is a part of an interview posted on each blog?
- Is this an interactive conversation with the author continuing from blog to blog through the month?
I'm not really sure how this works, but we can all find out together...starting tomorrow, January 2, 2008, because that's when the blog book tour with Carole Whang Schutter begins. I have received her schedule of appearances and I will post it below. I won't be having any new chats with Ms. Schutter, however you can see that the tour will link to each part of my interview with her!
So...if you want to follow this book tour as I do, plan to log on to each of the following blogs on (or after) the date listed...and we'll all see how this thing works together.
Here's the schedule:
Jan 2 http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com (interview)
Jan 3 http://sharpens.blogspot.com/2007/09/carole-whang-schutter-september-dawn.html (Internet radio interview)
Jan 4 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TWLAuthorTalks (Q&A session)
Jan 7 http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f8518cd7ff4ec204377c (God Tube interview)
Jan 8 http://www.inspiredauthor.com (interview)
Jan 9 http://beyondthebooks.wordpress.com/ (interview)
Jan 10 http://members.families.com/tristipie/blog (interview)
Jan 11 http://www.fictionscribe.com/ (interview)
Jan 14 http://virtualwordsmith.blogspot.com/ (review)
Jan 15 http://www.thewriterslife.blogspot.com and http://www.blogtalkradio.com/movieaddictheadquarters (podcast)
Jan 16 http://virtualwordsmith.blogspot.com/ (interview)
Jan 17 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/interview-with-carole-whang-schutter.html Part 1 of 9 (interview) and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marilynpeake/ (Golden Goblet newsletter interview)
Jan 18 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/interview-with-carole-whang-schutter_07.html Part 2 of 9 and http://www.j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/ (review)
Jan 21 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/interview-with-carole-whang-schutter_11.html Part 3 of 9 and http://rebecca2007.wordpress.com (interview)
Jan 22 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/interview-with-carole-whang-schutter_13.html Part 4 of 9 http://www.podcastpickle.com/cast/17842 (Internet radio interview)
Jan 23 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/part-5-interview-with-carole-whang.html Part 5 of 9 and http://www.buzzthebook.blogspot.com (spotlight)
Jan 24 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/part-5-interview-with-carole-whang_20.html Part 6 of 9 and http://www.storycrafters.blogspot.com (guest post)
Jan 25 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/part-7-interview-with-carole-whang.html Part 7 of 9 and http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com (interview)
Jan 28 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/part-8-interview-with-carole-whang.html Part 8 of 9
Jan 29 http://buttsaboutit.blogspot.com/2007/09/final-part-9-interview-with-carole.html Part 9 of 9 and http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com/ (review)
Jan 30 http://bethgoddard.blogspot.com/ (interview)
Jan 31 http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=5961 (interview with Christopher Cain)
1 comment:
Thanks for bringing this up Dianne. I have to admit I am totally biased when it comes to virtual book tours. My clients are great, the blogs hosts much appreciated, and finding excellent new books and helping authors get the news out about them is the best part.
Different companies approach things different ways. Some have a regular slate of blog hosts that any author who signs up with them appears on. We have a small--but growing--group of regular blog hosts, but we also look for genre or topic specific blogs to add to that group, and we do our best to have at least one podcast for each tour.
Carole's virtual book tour is a bit unique in the fact that she already had done a lot of interviews, so there was a ton of great stuff out there to highlight--like your interview here. I combined new stops with some of the older stops to make sure that Carole had a blog stop every day of January.
I'm proud of what I did with this tour, and Carole has not only been working her tail off to answer all these interview questions, she has even found a few additional blog stops she was interested in that we added to the tour at the last minute.
Thanks for the opportunity to highlight Carole's work. Blog hosts like you are what makes my job such a delight.
Cheryl
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