Juiced On Writing

This is the third part of a brief series of posts on hosting a blog book tour, from the blog host’s perspective. In Part 1 I looked at my own experiences, and the benefits of hosting such virtual book tours. In Part 2 I provided some steps for planning and hosting the event. In this post I will provide a simple list of methods to have fun with the author. The final Part 4 will provide some promotional ideas for the blog host.

Part 3 : Fun Ways to Host a Book Tour on Your Blog

15 Fun Ways to Provide a Hosted Book Event on Your Blog

Okay, most authors nowadays come prepared on their book tours, having joined up onto support groups, created media / promotional packs, and perhaps even a series of vetted Q&As on the book and themselves. They may even give you an agenda of what they want to do on your blog.

But it’s your blog, right? And it benefits both you and the author and your readers to add something personal to the tour. Dependent on your own blog themes and the book itself, consider some of the following for spicing up a book blog tour stopover on your blog.

1. Change your theme or header for the day (or better yet, week) – include the book cover, or author image on your graphics, change the theme colour for your blog to fit the cover.
2. Ask your readers in advance for questions they want to put to the author. Vet these for appropriateness, once you understand the author and book a little more.
3. Challenge the author to a competition. If their book is about cats, for instance, test their cat knowledge. They chose your blog because it is appropriate to their subject matter (I hope) so apply your own knowledge. Winner supplies a prize to the readers of the blog.
4. Challenge readers to win the prizes with a competition.
5. Ask the author for tips to be shared on writing their book, perhaps how to research, how they first went about getting published, or sharing something personal with your readers.
6. Do something creative on the blog. Perhaps challenge the author to a drawing contest, or to create a poem, or suggest a music theme song for their book (yes, even a non-fiction book!). If it’s fiction, ask them who they’d like to play their main character if made into a hollywood movie.
7. In pre-promotions (see Part 4 of this blog series for more ideas on how to promote the tour) consider a series of teaser posts – perhaps a part image of the cover of the book, or some unique facts about the subject or genre of the book. Don’t give too much away, other than the date of the event or some ‘coming soon…’ text.
8. Blog book tours are done from home – unless you happen to be stuck in an internet cafe at an airport or something. There’s a chance that one of you – either the author or yourself – may even be in pajamas at the time. Utilise this, make it a PJ party, or slumber / sleepover party if appropriate to the book theme.
9. If the book is of a more serious nature (as will your blog be, I suspect) then utilise this – create supporting business graphics, charts, flow-charts, maps and processes. Consider offering a review of the book in this way.
10. If it’s a fictional work, utilise the theme or genre for your challenges. If the book is on Zombies, for instance, then think of ways to use this. I, for example, might consider having a Zombie interview the author, trying to convince the author that they got zombies ‘all wrong’. Then again, perhaps a complementary post on historical notes on Zombies may be all that is required. The author may already have some of these prepared beforehand.
11. Use a fictional character to interview the author. Have the author speak to his/her own main character (you know they did this while writing the book).
12. If you’re good at technology (and your author is also) then consider offering an interview in audio format. Record the interview via Skype or similar. And…shiver…maybe even a videocast between yourselves? Either an interview, or the author might do a reading of a passage in the book.
13. In fact, with Skypecast, a free service that allows up to 100 participants, you can offer your blog audience an interactive event where they sit on a skypecast call and listen and speak with the author on the spot. You can host it, but pre-plan and promote beforehand.
14. One good thing about real life book tours is that the audience often can purchase the book and have it signed by the author at the time, perhaps with a dedication. This can be re-created virtually with a little effort. The author can either be asked to provide some signed copies of the book to give away for contests, or even offer to dedicate and sign the book for one or two readers from a distance. If you’re going completely virtual, then have them do this and scan in their signature and dedication to print out and paste into the book.
15. Host your part of the book tour on a virtual world – I’m on Second Life. In Second Life, your author and you can participate in a live reading and interview session. If your audience has avatars they too can attend. If not, then you may be able to video the meeting, and offer this up onto YouTube and onto your blog in this way. There are now various free and good recording programs to help in doing this. I use an old copy of CamStudio.

While devising such fun ways to host your author on your blog, always be mindful of the author and your time also. And if you come up with a truly unique hosted experience, you will be after ways to promote the blog book tour both before and after the tour day. I will give you some ideas for this in the final Part 4 of this series, tomorrow.

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