All About Virtual Book Tours–Part 2

This week, we continue the two part series about virtual book tours with Dorothy Thompson and Cheryl C. Malandrinos of Pump Up Your Book Promotion, a company that sets up virtual book tours for authors. Part 1 of “All About Virtual Book Tours” appeared a few weeks ago and it was one of this sites most popular posts. And it’s no wonder. Pump Up Your Book Promotion has a client list that includes New York Times bestselling authors, self-published authors, screenwriters and others.

So here as promised, “All About Virtual Book Tours,” Part 2–

Connie Briscoe: How much traffic do the sites that you select for an author’s book tour normally get on average?

Dorothy Thompson: What we do when we approach a blogger is to make sure several things are in place. Is the blog updated frequently? If it is, there is a good chance they are established in the search engines. If I see a full set of archives dating back to 2005, that’s a plus. Understanding how blogs work in regards to the search engines helps me find the best stops I can for my clients.

Cheryl Malandrinos: There isn’t really an average amount of traffic because each tour is individualized to meet the needs of the client. At times, clients will suggest blogs that they want to have as part of their tours. These aren’t always the highest traveled blogs, but they might belong to a friend or be a perfect genre or topic match, so we use them. We always search for the best blogs to host our clients and have found many wonderful places for them to visit.

CB: What types of books seem to do best on a virtual book tour?

Cheryl Malandrinos: My client list has included authors from a variety of genres: science-fiction, paranormal romance, Christian fiction, time travel romance, young adult fiction, historical fiction, and memoir. I haven’t had a client come back to me and say, “I didn’t sell any books.” But from my client list the two that reported the most significant sales to me were time travel romance and historical fiction.

Dorothy Thompson: To be honest, the books that do better on virtual book tours are the ones that have 100% participation. In other words, the authors are putting themselves into the tour by promoting in all the venues they have, to coincide with all the venues we have. Together they become a powerful marketing campaign.

But I do want to mention something about subject matter. What I do when I start setting up a tour is look over the author’s application carefully. What’s the hook? What is it about this author that I can use to bring to everyone’s attention? While it might look like all we do is set up authors on blogs and websites, we’ve actually got a game plan for each author.

I have an author touring right now whose book is about Sept. 11 but not only is it fictional, it’s written from the terrorists’ point of view. The way I understand it is this author was turned down by New York publishers because of the subject material. I started reading the book and was amazed at not only the writing, but also how drawn I was into the book because I was seeing the “other side’s” point of view. I said, “That’s it. That’s my hook.”

CB: Who are some of the authors you’ve had on tour?

Dorothy Thompson: We’ve had everything from New York Times bestsellers–Jane Green and Kathleen Willey for example–to ebook authors, small press authors, subsidy authors and self-published authors. We believe that all authors deserve a fair chance at book publicity and that’s why we offer three different plans to choose from according to the author’s financial situation.

Cheryl Malandrinos: They are all special in many ways and I won’t forget any of them. Some of my past clients were award-winning science fiction author Darrell Bain, multi-published author Angela Benson, screenwriter and author Carole Whang Schutter, and young adult author Judy Gregerson.

CB: What other promotional vehicles do you offer to authors?

Dorothy Thompson: Right now, we’re focusing on the virtual book tour. We were offering book trailers, but it got to be too time-consuming. We do offer it with our gold package plan, but it’s like a race for time trying to get those completed as it is. I do recommend Reader Views if you want a professional book trailer as I know the owner personally and know she does expert work.

With that said, we do offer article syndication, press release syndication and book banners made to order. We also offer authors a chance to submit to our in-house blogs, Beyond the Books if they would like to be interviewed and The Story Behind the Book if they would like to tell us their back story. Both offers are completely free.

Cheryl Malandrinos: Podcasts were added to the tours last year, and we started a monthly newsletter in January. And to be honest, I never stop promoting my clients’ work. Before, during and after tours I will mention a client’s work in situations where it is appropriate. We also have two book review sites: Pump Up Your Book Promotion’s Galleria of Books, where we post reviews of books that have toured with us, and The Book Rack, which is open to anyone looking for a review.

Pump Up Your Book Promotion Website

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