By Brooke Thompson
Congratulations! You did it. You published your children’s book. Now it is time for the next step: promotions. Whether you go down the traditional or self-publishing route, an important aspect of book publishing is marketing.
If you want your children and young adult books to be a success, you need to be able to market them, i.e. get your book out there to entice potential readers. And if this is your first time publishing as an indie author, finding ways to market your books for youth might seem daunting as there is a never-ending rabbit hole of methods to do it.
Not to mention, most marketing methods can be pretty costly. While you could hire a publicist to take care of promotional aspects, that can get very expensive. What if there is an easier and cheaper way of getting exposure?
Have you ever considered doing a book blog tour? Book blog tours allow published authors a chance to market their books for youth without leaving their house and breaking the bank.
Read more to find out the benefits of book blog tours.
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Table of Contents
What is a Book Blog Tour?
For those unaware of what a book blog tour is, they are where you submit your book to a website that will then send your book out to a series of reviewers for a fee. Some of these websites even specialize in niche genres, such as horror, fantasy, mystery, etc. This aspect is useful if your children’s book caters to a specific audience.
Book blog tours can last anywhere from a week to a month and include a set amount of “stops” (or blogs that review your book). At these stops, the website will either post its review on the book, an interview with the author, or even have the author write a guest post.
Book blog tours can come with different prices and packages, each varying on the number of days/weeks, the number of stops, and even the amount of banners for your YA or children’s book.
Additionally, there are other packages outside of book blog tours that include cover reveals, review queries, and book blitzes.
Cover reveals are basically what it sounds like―you are revealing the cover of your book. Review queries are a less extensive book blog tour. You give the website your book and they write a review on it. It only stays on their blog and does not include stops.
On the other hand, book blitzes are similar to book blog tours. They don’t really do stops but rather post reviews on multiple websites, such as Amazon and Goodreads.
WATCH WHY BOOK BLOG TOURS FOR YOUR CHILDREN’S BOOK
You may also like: How to Write a Dazzling Blurb for Your Children’s Book
What Are the Benefits of a Book Blog Tour?
Book blog tours offer many benefits for their authors. Here are five benefits to how a book blog tour is an effective marketing strategy for your children’s book.
1. A cheap way of marketing your book
As stated numerous times above, they provide a more economical way for authors to market their books. Instead of spending hundreds on a publicist or a marketing team, book blog tours offer prices that, depending on the website, range from $40 to $150.
If you look at some of the packages, they will often talk about the mailing list being anywhere between 500 to 1000+ recipients who could potentially review your book. You cannot go wrong with this amount of publicity for your YA and children’s books, and for such a meager fee at that.
2. They will keep your book fresh in the minds of readers
Whether you choose to do a book blog tour or a book blitz, all the posts made to these different websites and blogs are a great way to attract new readers.
The marketing strategy here is that by seeing your book featured on multiple channels, potential readers will remember the title and be sure to purchase it the next time they are at a bookstore or shopping online.
3. They help make your book stand out
Depending on the genre, book markets can get saturated by the same story. This is especially true for young adult fiction books. Remember the paranormal teen romance or the dystopian era of teen fiction a few years ago? An over-saturated market in a particular genre can cause many readers to discard potentially great books, due to the similarities in the plot.
However, by positive and favorable reviews on your book may have an impact on a potential reader’s decision on whether the book is worthy of their time. When a reviewer highlights what makes the story great or different from other stories, their reviews offer a fresh, nuanced take that can garner more readers.
4. Bloggers have to give out positive reviews
Unlike review queries, book blog tours are required to give positive reviews about your book.
They do stipulate on some websites that if the respective reviewer did not like your book, they can either drop it and give the “stop” to someone else, or are obligated to find an alternative way of posting the book in a positive light.
5. These tours do not require travel
Part of the reason why book blog tours are awesome is that you do not have to leave your home to participate in them. All the traveling is done with a click of your mouse!
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Places to Get a Book Blog Tour
If you are interested in doing a book blog tour, here are a few resources to help you get started.
1.YA Bound Book Blog Tours
This group offers a lot on their website in terms of book blog tours. Their packages vary between 15 stops lasting five days for $75 to 40 stops lasting two weeks for $200. They also offer book blitzes, review queries, cover reveals, and even trailer reveals.
If you write young adult novels, they are definitely worth looking into for book blog tours.
2. Xpresso Book Tours
This group accepts all genres and offers a lot on their website. You can post your book into a net galley, which is where your book is featured on a website for 1 to 3 months and can connect you to libraries, book groups, and other resources.
Like YA Bound Book Blog Tours, Xpresso Book Tours also offers packages on the amount of stops for your book. These packages have cute names, like the Shooting Star Package, Rock the Block, and Rock the Stars.
Their book blog tour packages range from their $120 Rock the Block Package where you get 15 stops and a week-long tour, to their $280 Rock the Stars Package where you get 40 stops and a month-long tour.
3. The Children’s Book Review
Their book blog tour is titled “The Awareness Tour,” where they specialize in young children and teen literature.
This group is made up of a network of parents, teachers, and librarians. While they do not provide pricing on their website, they do have customizable packages that allow for optimal marketing for your book. These include interviews, guest posts, banner ads, and book trailers.
4. Enchanted Book Promotions
Like Xpresso Book Tours, Enchanted Book Promotions also accepts all genres of writing, including children’s and young adult literature. Their book tour packages range from their $95 Frog Tour Package where you get 5-10 stops and a five-day tour, to their $345 Queen Book Tour where you get 25+ stops and can choose between having a week-long to a month-long tour.
If you want to go with something a little cheaper, Enchanted Book Promotions also offer One Day Packages, which include cover reveals for $35, book trailers featured on 10+ blogs for $50, and even a Facebook Release Event for $150.
5. Reading Addiction Book Tours
Reading Addiction Book Tours accept all genres of literature and has a lot to offer on their website. Their book tour packages range from their $40 Minor Addiction Package, which includes a 2-week book tour with 10 stops, to their $150 Mega Addiction, which is a 2-month book tour with 40 stops.
Unlike the four other blogs, they offer a Public Relations (or PR) service for your book. The prices vary depending on how much coverage you want for your title.
The cheapest package is their $75 New Release Blast Package where they will feature your book on 20+ blogs, post about your book on their social media, and even hold a press release for it. The most expensive package is their $350 Full Scale Marketing Plan, which includes (but is not limited to) a press release, a five-week-long book tour, and a review query.
What is very neat about their press release is that you can also customize your package or add on other packages to optimize the press release of your youth book.
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Conclusion
If you’re looking for an economical way to market your books for youth, book blog tours are definitely the way to go.
They serve as an amazing resource to not only promote your children and young adult books but also allow you to gain exposure without leaving your home or breaking the bank.
On many of these websites, there are author testimonials claiming they saw an increase in online traffic, and some even reported a boost in their books’ sales after they did a book tour. So, what do you think?
