All About Virtual Book Tours–Part 1

This week we have Dorothy Thompson and Cheryl C. Malandrinos of Pump Up Your Book Promotion, a company that sets up virtual book tours for authors. The concept of virtual book tours–or a blog tour as some call them–is relatively new and just beginning to take shape. Sometimes they mean one thing, other times something else. I think what has been developed by Dorothy and her group is one of the most interesting takes on this new way of promoting books.

For several months now I have been a member of a Yahoo e-mail group for writers started by Dorothy and I don’t think you’ll ever find anyone who is more enthusiastic about promoting authors and books. I’ve watched as she started and developed Pump Up Your Book Promotion into something quite impressive, with a client list that has included screenwriters, New York Times bestselling authors, self-published authors and others.

I had initially planned to have only Cheryl Malandrinos here today. Dorothy Thompson, the founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion, was in the midst of moving. At the last minute I also heard from Dorothy, and the two of them are so forthcoming that I realized I’ve got a ton of information here and I decided to divide the interview into two parts.

Here for you now is Part 1 of “All About Virtual Book Tours.” I’ll run Part 2 in two to three weeks.

Connie Briscoe: When and why did you decide to start organizing virtual book tours for authors?

Dorothy Thompson: Hi Connie and thanks for having us. I started Pump Up Your Book Promotion in April 2007. We’re approaching our first anniversary in another couple of months, and I’m quite excited at how successful it has become. We started out with one tour coordinator–moi–and now there are five of us: Cheryl Malandrinos, Rebecca Camerena, Jean Lauzier, our newest addition, Jaime McDougall and myself.

Why did I start Pump Up? I had self-published an ebook called The Complete Guide to Selling and Promoting Your Self-Published eBook because I had found a formula that greatly increased web visibility. One of my past clients phoned me and asked if I could do to her book what I had discussed in the ebook. What she basically was asking was, “Could you be my publicist?” I wasn’t a publicist. I was an author who wasn’t published traditionally and if I wanted my book to sell, I had to find ways to do it. As my book wasn’t in the bookstores at that time, I had to focus on the Internet.

I agreed to do this for her and the rest is history. It was incredible and I found that virtual book tours were the perfect solution to bricks and mortar book tours, but the key is getting that high visibility during your tour which basically involves a lot of networking prior to setting up your tour, which I had already established. I stress networking to all my new clients and the time to start networking is before your book comes off the printing press.

Cheryl Malandrinos: I hosted Dorothy’s clients for months before joining the staff of Pump Up Your Book Promotion in October 2007. As for the reason, that’s easy-I love promoting good books.

CB: Tell us a little about what a virtual book tour is at Pump Up Your Book Promotion.

Cheryl Malandrinos: A virtual book tour is when an author travels around the blogosphere for a set amount of time–with our clients it’s a month. The author promotes her book by giving interviews, getting book reviews, and providing guest articles. Pump Up Your Book Promotion handles finding the blog hosts and acts as a liaison between the blog host and the author.

Dorothy Thompson: That’s the simple answer. The harder answer is that it takes an incredible amount of work on the author’s part to make it successful. You just don’t sit back and watch it in action. You become very involved as it’s progressing throughout the month or however amount of time you set one up for. I am finding that the authors who are out there plugging their virtual book tour on a daily basis are having greater results than the ones who aren’t.

CB: Can you give us more detail about what exactly the author is expected to do?

Cheryl Malandrinos: While Pump Up Your Book Promotion does a lot of the legwork and research in finding blog hosts and shuffling requests back and forth, it is still up to the author to complete interviews, mail out review copies (if there isn’t a publicist handling this), and write guest articles. In addition, once the virtual book tour starts, it is encouraged-though not required-that the author stops by the blog she is on that day, thanks the host, and offers to answer any questions for readers. It is also important that the author promotes her virtual book tour before the tour starts, and while it is going on, to encourage a higher level of participation.

Dorothy Thompson: I also recommend they have a blog in which they blog about their upcoming tour and then mention their stops on a daily basis. They must know how to network, as I have mentioned. Join egroups. Form friends through their blog. Basically you have to be very visible on the Internet prior to and during your tour. All this I explain to them so that they know what to do and what is expected of them.

However, a few authors don’t even know how to blog, and we help them set one up if the situation arises. If they decide not to blog at all, we show them other ways they can promote their tour stops that are more effective than starting a new blog with no visibility.

CB: How effective have virtual book tours been for your clients? Do book sales improve when an author is on a virtual book tour?

Dorothy Thompson: Most definitely book sales improve. Let me explain. When you are appearing on approximately 20 blogs and websites over a period of 20 - 30 days, that web exposure is phenomenal. Sure you can do this yourself. In fact, all authors should make a point to set up an interview or guest post every single day if possible. Can you imagine the impact? Some authors I have found don’t have time to do this and that’s why they hire companies such as us to get them moving.

Cheryl Malandrinos: The most important thing to remember with virtual book tours is that the exposure is ongoing. As long as the blog remains online a reader can discover this author’s book. So, while we strive for an immediate impact on book sales, a virtual book tour can also impact sales one, three, six months down the road. I have had clients email me and tell me they are selling books during their tours, so what we are doing is effective.

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(“All About Virtual Book Tours,” Part 2)

Pump Up Your Book Promotion Website

Photo captions: Top, Dorothy Thompson; Bottom, Cheryl Malandrinos and daughters