So… I scheduled a blog tour for The Vampire’s Gallery a while ago. I’ve learned a few things:
1: A month is too bloody long. (On #NALitChat it was suggested three weeks max, two better).
2: Filling out eight or so interviews doesn’t seem like ton of work but it is. After a while I ran out of what I hoped were endearing/clever things to say.
3: You need to promote it. If Twitter leaves you feeling all thumbs and FB BURN IT WITH FIRE you might be better off spending your money on something else. May I suggest gin? New Amsterdam has that nice “physically assaulted by a pine tree” flavor I go for in my gin.
I know it sounds all doom and gloom. The good things? I got an awesome review, thanks to Courtney at Optimistic Mommy. The people at Sizzling PR are super responsive. Like, if you have good social network, go talk to them. If I had to do it again, I’d wait until everything was published before scheduling, and then do, at max, a two week tour. I would go with someone else to. The reality is, I don’t think the blogs I was scheduled at received a lot of traffic, and so my book didn’t get a lot of traction. I was going to give away some prizes too, but that all seemed to fall through the cracks.
Antoinette M-- 