Will a Blog Book Tour Sell Books?

Authors often ask if a blog book tour will sell books. How will they know?

The short answer: you won't. In all fairness, how will you know if your live tour and any other promotion is selling your books? Yes, if you are present at a book signing and fans buy, you'll know about those immediate sales. You could set up the same scenario by buying some books at cost from your publisher, and being the sales point for your blog book tour. Then you'd know.

Still, the tangential sales won't be reflected. Maybe the reader will return to the bookstore after payday. Maybe the blog book tour stops were intriguing enough that a reader adds the title to their amazon.com wishlist. How will you know? Especially since your royalty check won't arrive many months down the road. You likely won't see amazon.com sales reflected for 18 months. So it's almost impossible to relate any of your promotions, online and live, to your cash flow when it finally arrives.

The bottom line: every bit of promotion you do raises your name profile and that's really the goal.

Next we'll talk about other statistics worth tracking to gauge success.

Buy Buttons

About thirty of our students have spiffied up their blogs in preparation for their blog book tours, and are now suffering through peer critiques. Actually, it's not that bad. Most of the blogs look really good (you can visit them by clicking on the links at right), and the tweaking is only minor. Here's one little addition to your blog that is enormously important - the buy button. Some of our class members haven't paid quite enough attention to it, and it's a common flaw.

What is a buy button? It's the live link on your website or blog that shoots the reader to a sales point for your book. That could be your own shopping cart, your specific amazon.com book page, the book page at your publisher's site, or all the sales locations for your book. The more options your reader has, the more chances you'll have a seamless sale. Do you have easy-to-find links and buying prompts on your sites? Do you include a link in every post that mentions your book? Make it easy on your reader.

It's that "seamless sale" aspect that is vitally important. If you have a sales point that isn't operating smoothly, you will lose sales and possibly even irritate your fan. Don't do it. No excuses here. Find a way to solve the problem, no matter what it takes. You get one chance to make a good impression. It's an old adage, but it's true. Strangers have no sympathy for sob stories - they want perfection and are thinking of their own convenience. You have to supply that before you sell one book. Service sells your book before great writing.

So to recap: Have a sales link - a buy button - at your websites and blogs, and make sure it works without a hitch each and every time. Give your readers every opportunity to buy that book. Selling, and selling lots, should be part of your personal success equation. Is it part of your motivation? Then set it up so your fans can help you achieve that goal.