The Influence of a Book Tour

Once you get your book written, professionally edited, and have an amazing cover slapped on it, you’re only halfway there. You have to market your book so that readers can find it and fall in love. But if you’re like me when I first started publishing, all of my money went to editing and the cover. I had little to no funds for marketing. That’s when I discovered the beauty of book tours and blogging. Ten years later, book blogging has become all about influencers.

Many Book Tour companies have a stable of influencers, and they’ll let you have access to them -for a fee. If you’re balling on a budget, you can do the leg work of finding influencers on your own by DIYing it. Here’s the steps I recommend for you to DIY a book tour.

1. Build a MEDIA KIT

Honestly, this wasn’t the first thing I did. I realized I needed it as responses started rolling in with blogger/influencer requesting the same materials over and again. But I recommend it be the first thing you do.

A media kit is everything a blogger/influencer could possibly want or need in order to host you on their webpage. Include in your Media Kit the following:

• Your book blurb. I included different lengths of my blurb, including the full blurb that’s up on Amazon. A shorter three sentence blurb. And a one sentence blurb. 

• Book excerpts. Choose one to two scenes that you feel would get readers engaged in your story. I recommend the excerpt should start somewhere in the middle of the scene and end before the scene is over at a high point of tension. If you choose well, this tactic would naturally lead a reader to push the ‘buy now’ link so they can find out what happens next. 

• Author biography. Be sure to include the bio you’ve written for yourself and posted on your website. I found that some blogger/influencers preferred a one sentence bio, called a tagline. So, I paired my long bio down and included two options in my kit.

• Links. Be sure to include your store purchase links, your website url, and all social media links and handles. In my ebook, I have fancy graphic links. I assumed the blogger/influencers would do something graphical with my link, but few did. Instead they just left the entire URL up under my name. I didn’t like that, but I had to realize that many of these blogger/influencers weren’t graphic artists or any more tech savvy than your average person. Moving forward, I’ll need to think of a better way to list these links.

• Images. Attach images separately, as well as in the body of the kit. If you have a lot of images, make them available upon request.

That was a lot of information, but I suggest you get started on that before contacting blogger/influencers. Many get back to you straight away and begin making requests.

2. Find blogger/influencers

Once your media kit is assembled, you need to start finding book lovers to shout about your books. What I did was go onto which ever platform -Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook- and search for blogger/influencers by bookish and genre hashtags. I would also spend a little time on their profiles to make sure they were a fit, and to see if there was any specific details I could use when I pitched my books to them. I often would look at twenty blogger/influencers a day -which adds up. Superstar author Anna Huang used this strategy to amass over 1000 influencers which catapulted her book into the stratosphere!

3. Make CONTACT

Once I had my list of vetted blogger/influencers in my genre, I began to contact them. Be aware that some of these blogger/influencers prefer that you DM them on their platform of choice, email them, or fill out a form. They might also say that they’re not currently accepting new books.

Here’s an example of what I sent:

I saw here on Instagram that you love Sweet Romance books that feature feel-good, small town romances that are full of heart, enduring friendships, and true love. This summer I'm launching a series of short and sweet, small town military romance novellas. There will be six novellas in the Honor's Valley Ranch Romances released weekly from July to August. These shorts can be read in a day during the commute, on a lunch break, or as a nightcap to send you off to dreamland with a full heart. 

The review copies of Book 1 are ready and I would love to send you a digital ARC if you're interested in trying this 16K word clean romance. Just shoot me an email at author@shanaejohnson.com or reply to this DM with your email address and I will deliver the ebook via Bookfunnel.

Thank you for considering!

❤️Shanae

4. Keep RECORDS

It looks bad to contact the same person over and again. Or to forget that you agreed to give this blogger/influencer that post this day. I kept a spreadsheet in Google Docs so that I had access to it at all times.

5. Be SOCIAL

If the blogger/influencer tags you, make sure to like or thank them or somehow engage to show your appreciation!

6. Send THANK YOU NOTES

But the most important thing I did was mind my manners. I wrote a personalized thank you note to each blogger/influencer. I told them how they affected my sales rank that day. That was a big hit and endeared me to them!