Last week I was pleased to host Dana Lynn Smith (The Savvy Book Marketer) on her virtual book tour to promote her new writers' guide Virtual Book Tour Magic.If you missed Dana's guest post, you can click through here to read it (will open in a new window). As promised in that post, here is my review of the guide itself...
Virtual Book Tour Magic is provided in the form of a downloadable, 73-page PDF, with three extra bonus items. My first impression was that it lives up to and even exceeds the standard of Dana's other writers' guides (listed at the foot of this post).
The text uses a clean, sharp, readable font, accompanied by screengrab illustrations where appropriate. As with Dana's other manuals, I was pleased to see that the table of contents is fully hyperlinked, not just to the main chapter headings, but to the section headings as well. It's a pity that not all e-books adhere to this format.
Virtual Book Tour Magic takes readers step by step through planning and executing a VBT (as I'll call it from now on). Not unnaturally, it begins with an explanation of what these events are.
I thought I would find this all very familiar, but actually I learned some interesting things, including the fact that there are (at least) five different types of VBT. Dana also sets out in this chapter some compelling reasons why all authors should consider organizing VBTs to promote their titles.
The guide goes on to explain how to plan your VBT, and how to research and recruit the best tour hosts. This very important information is set out in a concise and systematic way, with plenty of bullet-point lists to aid readability.
Dana goes on to discuss communicating effectively with tour hosts and how to produce killer content for your tour (articles, interviews, and so on). She also discusses how you can build buzz around the tour with contests, giveaways and special offers. I found this chapter particularly interesting, especially the section where she talks about running a Twitter contest. This is definitely something I plan to do myself before too long, whether as part of a VBT or not!
There is also a chapter about promoting your tour, which again I found enlightening. Having been a blog host on several of Dana's own VBTs, it's interesting to see how much work goes into promoting a tour (as well as planning and running it) from the organizer's perspective.
Virtual Book Tour Magic concludes by looking briefly at post-tour activities, the potential pitfalls of running a VBT, and the alternative option of hiring someone to organize your VBT for you. There is also, as you might expect, a section of useful resources, both free and paid for.
Overall, I was highly impressed with Virtual Book Tour Magic, which (as I mentioned earlier) more than maintains the high standard of previous authors' guides by Dana Lynn Smith (pictured).
It does also, I think, demonstrate that organizing a VBT is not a project to be undetaken lightly. If you're going to do one, however - and as Dana says, the potential rewards in terms of raising awareness of your book are massive - following the guide's step-by-step advice should ensure you avoid the pitfalls and organize a successful, relatively stress-free, and ultimately profitable tour.
For more information about Virtual Book Tour Magic (and to order a copy) just click through any of the links in this review. You can also read my reviews of other guides by Dana by clicking on the appropriate title in the list below:
If you have any comments or questions for Dana (or me), as ever, please feel free to leave them below!
No comments:
Post a Comment