Blog Tour Tips for Authors, Part Two: Guest Post by Kimber Leigh Wheaton

We're back with Kimber Leigh Wheaton giving us tips on blog tours for authors. If you missed the first installment, you can read it HERE. 

So you have your list, you have your tour dates, and you're ready to send a request to bloggers. How do they sign up? You can have them reply to your email, but I prefer setting up a form through Google Docs. It's quick and easy. Google walks you right through the process if you've never done it before. The best part—they keep track of the responses 

which you can view on a nice spreadsheet. Don't know what to include on your sign-up form? The sign-up for my Tortured Souls blog tour is live. Feel free to check out my link for ideas.

Make sure your participants have everything they need well in advance, and that they understand any deadlines if they need to send you interview questions, guest post topics, etc. Assume a blogger needs any material from you at least seventy-two hours in advance. It's also fine to send a personalized email the day before a blogger's scheduled post as a reminder. Make sure to visit every participant's blog and thank them in the comments for posting on tour day.

These book bloggers receive tons of requests. How do you make yours stand out? Make your email request very professional. Use your book photo, include the blurb and book links. Spell out exactly what you are looking for from the blogger. If setting up a blog tour, list the dates (hopefully in a nice banner you design on PicMonkey). Many bloggers are happy to post a spotlight if you provide the html, so be sure to offer this as an option.

Offer incentives. For my sale blast, I set up a giveaway with a $25 Amazon gift card prize and allowed each participant to have a slot on the Rafflecopter with their Twitter or Facebook page. For a blog tour, I would recommend holding a host only giveaway for a $25 Amazon gift card (go $50 or $100 if you really want to woo bloggers). The blogger will need to enter their post link on the Rafflecopter form to ensure their participation. Also offer a tour-wide giveaway that the bloggers can add to the tour post. Giveaways drive traffic to blogs and are a big incentive for blogs to participate. Consider another Amazon gift card, as well as copies of your book or other swag.

This is a topic I could go on and on about for hours. But this post is already too long. So if you have any questions, pop over to my author blog: Kimber Leigh Writes. You'll find my contact info there and can send me an email if you like. I love connecting with other authors and am happy to help out if I can.

Thanks so much for all of your useful tips, Kimber! :)

~Kimber Leigh Wheaton (@Cymberle) is a YA/NA author with a soft spot for sweet romance. She is married to her soul mate, has a teenage son, and shares her home with three dogs, four cats, and lots of dragons. No, she doesn’t live on a farm, she just loves animals. Kimber Leigh is addicted to romance, videogames, superheroes, villains, and chocolate—not necessarily in that order. (If she has to choose, she’ll take a chocolate covered superhero!) She currently lives in San Antonio, TX but has been somewhat a rolling stone in life, having resided in several different cities and states.