Class Starts Soon

Class cancelled due to lack of enrollment - we must have 20 students. Next class is in April and sign-up is at the classroom link below.

 Our next blog book tours class begins on February 1, 2011 and costs $20, minimum of 20 students or the class cancels, maximum of 50 students. The course runs four weeks and daily participation is important, for you and for the entire group. Much of the learning occurs through interaction between blogs, and learning to "cyber-schmooze". Plan to spend one hour per day. Now is the time to sign up!

Click on the link to join the group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blogbooktours

Please share with your author friends as well as publishers.

When to learn about blog book tours

If you have a book coming out in two or three months (or even later), you should learn how to plan your blog book tour now. That's assuming you want to launch a virtual tour right at book release to capitalize on all the buzz around your new book.

It's a lot of added work to plan a blog book tour. What you don't want to do is learn how to plan a tour right in the midst of all your other promotional efforts. What I suggest is learning how to plan the tour early on, doing all the preparation you can in advance (which includes getting to know potential blog hosts), and then launching a blog book tour on the heels of the book release.

Don't have a blog book tour while you're engaged in live public appearances. You won't be able to do your blog book tour justice. We cover these points and more in our blog book tours class which begins February 1 and lasts all month. If you have a book coming out in Spring or Summer, you might want to do your learning and start preparations now. Click here for more information and sign-up.

Blog Book Tours Class Begins Soon

Just a reminder to authors and publishers that the blog book tours class begins February 1. It lasts four weeks and topics covered include:

• Critiquing and improving your own blog (you must have a blog to join this class)
• Finding good and relevant blog hosts
• Responsibilities to your blog host
• What to expect from your host - and what you don't have to put up with
• Using social networking to promote your blog book tour
• Crafting your blog stops
• Wrapping up the tour

This is an intense month, and you must participate - that's part of the cost of this course. However, you will learn how to create and manage your own tour. I recommend every author try this once. If you decide after that to hire a service, you'll know what to expect from a provider. You'll also know how much time is involved to put together a good tour. It's a winning situation all around. Click here for cost and to sign up. We'll take 20-50 students this go-round.

Permalink Habits

I nag the BBT students about this incessantly - every day of your tour, change the host blog link to the permalink of that unique post. Do it before the day is over and tomorrow's post supercedes it. This is a habit that many authors don't develop early on - but if you don't do it, you'll be sorry when someone asks for the link later, or you want to reference some magnificent quote that fell from your pen in the interview.  Here's what I'm talking about. Today's stop on the Your Fantastic Elastic Brain is here:

http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com

But the direct link to that post is here:

http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/2011/01/creating-book.html

See how Blogger tacks on the date and post title?

I always go to bit.ly to create a shortened URL like this:

http://bit.ly/fqaloJ

I can use this shortened link more easily when promoting at various social networks where a long URL is a bad thing (like Twitter where you're limited to 140 characters), and often I even customize it, though bit.ly has been a bit cantankerous the past two days. I would have liked http://bit.ly/BBTHel to make the link more memorable, but no luck.

Now here's the complete tour schedule and you can see by clicking all the links over at the blog (not here), that each one goes to it's exact post, not just the blog host's main page. It's a good idea to have a separate tab on your blog that shows your tour schedules like this. Here's a snip from Little Pickle Press.

Make sense?

Don't forget the next blog book tours class starts February 1. Cost is $20 each for up to 50 students with special rates for publishers with more than ten authors. Sign-up is here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blogbooktours

You'll learn lots more than this from the resident drill sergeant - for one whole month of book camp. You can do it!

Typing Tip of the Day

I'm promoting the latest Little Pickle Press blog book tour all week, and my hand is so sore from typing Little Pickle Press that I finally *duh* created a shortened URL that can be used from now on.

http://bit.ly/lppblog

Gee, what a brilliant idea straight from MY fantastic elastic brain to yours. See the post below to understand what I'm babbling about. Then go shorten your own blog URL.

The Blog Book Tour Daily Routine

This morning the blog book tour for Your Fantastic Elastic Brain kicked off - beautifully, seamlessly - thanks to the first host at Walking Nature Home. So my job as tour chaperone is to first leave a comment on her lovely blog. Then I test the links on her post, which takes me over to the publisher's blog.

Little Pickle Press has a corresponding blog post that directs people back to the host blog. It also has it's own grand prize drawing and readers have to leave a comment to be eligible. I'll leave a comment, as will other members of the LPP team, as this makes the blog and post more sticky to search engines.

With both of these blogs, I'll go to bit.ly and create shortened URLs that I can use on other social networks.

Next I go to Facebook and post a blurb and link to send my friends to the host blog.

Then I go to Twitter and do the same.

I also share on the Yahoo!Groups I belong to if it's allowed.

I now have the basic social networking for this tour stop in place. I'll promote the above links throughout the day, especially on Facebook and Twitter.

Also important is to ask your friends to promote. The easiest way to do this is have them Like and Share your status on Facebook, and to retweet on Twitter. If you don't know what any of that means, you don't have to do it. :) If you do, try it out by going to my Facebook page and my Twitter account. See how easy and painless that was? If only ten people do this, you have incrementally increased your book and blog exposure by thousands of readers.

You can help all your friends promote their books with this simple and easy method! It takes only a couple of minutes once the routine becomes habit.

In With the New... Class!

Now that we're well into January, let me remind you that there is a new Blog Book Tours class for authors scheduled to start February 1, if we get at least 20 students. Less than that and we cancel. The cost for the class is only $20 but that doesn't mean you won't pay in other ways.

This course runs one month and I'm a drill sergeant. Daily attendance is mandatory simply because experience tells me a strong group participation enhances the experience and learning for everyone. You know how that was in school. What made your classes most interesting? I'll bet lively participation was a big part of it, and so I insist we have it.

Maximum number of students is 50 - about 35 is best. Get over there and sign up now! You MUST have a blog and know how to use it to participate - we do not teach blogging rudiments - we teach how to use your blog and host blogs to organize a good blog book tour.

Blog Book Tours Class Sign-up