#6 The Online World Tour

You always have to be prepared to try something different if you want to reach a different audience. So with book sales transitioning more and more to online sources and an author's profile becoming more easily recognizable from their webpage than the once traditional cardboard display in the front window of a book store, I reached out into the wide world of web with my latest novel Last Wish of Summer in a concentrated period of online promotion known as an online book tour. So what was the end result? I had a year's worth of web traffic visit my website in a six week period. So it seems reasonable to say that it was very successful indeed.

2012 Reading Addiction Online Book Tour

• Bound 2 Astound - August 18, 2012
• YA Book Addict - August 19, 2012
• Literature Lovers' Labyrinth - August 20, 2012
• My Seryniti - August 22, 2012
• A Chick Who Reads - August 23, 2012
• Addicted to Books - August 24, 2012
• Kimmie's Bookshelf - August 25, 2012
• Andi's Young Adult Books - August 26, 2012
• A Dream Within a Dream - August 27, 2012
• Hardcover Feedback - August 29, 2012
• My Reading Addiction - August 29, 2012
• The Book Faery Reviews - August 30, 2012
• Froze8's Blog - September 1, 2012
• My Devotional Thoughts - September 3, 2012
• Book Haven Extraordinaire - September 4, 2012
• My Cozie Corner - September 6, 2012
• Sweeping the USA - September 7, 2012
• Memories Overtaking Me - September 8, 2012
• Whoopeeyoo! - September 9, 2012
• Getting Your Read On - September 10, 2012
• New Age Mama - September 11, 2012
• Laura Deluca - September 11, 2012
• Walking on Bookshelves - September 12, 2012
• Taking it one page at a time - September 13, 2012
• Melissa's Eclectic Bookshelf - September 14, 2012
• Books and Needlepoint - September 15, 2012

As an author, the thought alone of coordinating an online book tour seemed daunting. I mean where do you start? I didn't have the time nor the contacts at my fingertips to organize such a thing, so I brought in the professionals. I chose Reading Addiction Blog Tours to organize and promote my tour. I was happy with what they had done with other author's tours, their fees seemed reasonable and I was prepared to wait until there was an available opening. Do be prepared however if you are thinking of following my lead, their tour scheduled is usually booked solid for months in advance, (perhaps a sign of how popular online book tours have become). Many of the tour stops included a review of my book, and most of these were also posted on Amazon.com or Goodreads etc. Reviews are always helpful to readers who are wanting to learn more about your work, and these reviews were, at most times, provided by professional reviewers, or at the very least by serious readers capable of devouring at least one full sized novel per week. So their feedback was honest in mentioning what grabbed their attention, and what didn't.

It will be interesting to see what comes from all this added interest in Last Wish of Summer in the months after the Book Tour is complete, long after readers have finished visiting my website to see what all the fuss was about. One thing that I do know however, is that for the duration of the Last Wish of Summer Virtual Book Tour, I succeeded in reaching a wider audience than I previously had with my first two novels. And that is enough to know that an online tour is now an important promotional tool for any author.