Virtual book tours anyone?

With Don and Puma eagerly anticipating their publishing launches I wondered if they would let us know - if possible - what sort of publicity their publishers plan and if a virtual book tour is part of it?

What is a virtual book tour? Seems very popular right now. Quite a few writers I know do it.

First you find book blogs that might be interested in your book, then you
contact them and send them copies of the book. If they decide to
participate, they usually email you questions to answer, interview
style to post on an agreed date. You can start with the big book blogs like Bookslut or Bluestalking Reader

You can also find blogs that relate to your topic and might also be interested. E-mail them to see if they'd like to be part of a tour, If yes, you give them a tour date and ask them to e-mail you their questions.

Both you and the blogs do promotion.

Comments please. Does this virtual book tour sound like a useful PR tool?

Thank you for that...

I've learned one thing already from visiting the site. Get a decent professional photographer to take a series of pictures and use them.

Dunno!

I don't think I want to pay and be in a list on a blog for a tour.

The kind of virtual tour I'd like to do is what a couple of novelist friends do. They link their blogs and websites with as many other writers and book reviewers as they can. They link with writers of the same genre or interest areas, and do a sort of virtual tour like that. I gather that a date would be set for one person's day and that author's interviews/chats/rants were on all the sites that day. Some authors offered signed books and similar goodies as prizes for visitors.

As far as sales go these authors have Amazon and their own website sale buttons linked to the tour and they reckon they do get a jump in sales after one of these 'tours'. And no, sorry Don and Doogs, no one can supply me with figures.

Remember these book group things:
www.librarything, www.goodreads.com, www.shelfari, www.aNobii, www.bookjetty.com?
Maybe you can link to one of those for a virtual interview.

list of places for reviews

This is the HNS newsletter list of places which do reviews:

Bookpage: http://www.bookpage.com/
Bookreporter: http://www.bookreporter.com/index.asp
Boston Globe Books: http://www.boston.com/ae/books/
Christian Science Monitor Books: http://tinyurl.com/ek7ae
Globe & Mail Books: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/
Guardian Review: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/
Independent Reviews: http://snipurl.com/1azeo
Montreal Gazette Books: http://tinyurl.com/2ztfka
National Public Radio: http://tinyurl.com/f42wc
New York Times Books: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html
Observer book reviews: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/
San Francisco Chronicle Books: http://sfgate.com/eguide/books/
Soldier magazine: http://www.soldiermagazine.co.uk/reviews/books.htm
Telegraph Main Books Page: http://tinyurl.com/eywp
The Times: http://www.timesonl ine.co.uk/section/ 0,,923,00.html
Washington Post Bookworld: http://tinyurl.com/dxs8y

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