I’m sure you all remember the post I did before I embarked on my blog tour called, “Why it Might be Your Fault Your Blog Tour Sucked”. That was in July and I mentioned that my first blog tour was about to begin and I was so excited. Well, here it is October and I have a few stops this month and then I’m through. And you know what…I’m glad!

I gave a lot of helpful advice last time and I utilized that advice for my own tour. I figured that revisiting this topic after my tour would help others even more. It’s not important to just give advice when talking about promotional things unless you follow-up and report findings, results, etc.

So let’s get started with what I learned and my thoughts about blog tours now.

Blog Tours are Exhausting:

You would not believe how much energy a blog tour takes out of you. You think since it consists of you sitting at your computer and typing posts, that it would be smooth as silk right? I am so tired. I cannot tell you how tired this blog tour has made me.  Putting it together, gathering the material for the blogs, and popping in and out during the visits, becomes extremely tiring. I know you’re probably saying, “Oh poor baby.” But I’m not whining just to whine. Believe me, handling a large blog tour by yourself (along with other things you have to do outside of the tour) is not an easy task. Don’t forget, my blog tour began in August and ends in October and I visited about two or more blogs each week and I realized quickly how draining a blog tour can be. I was well prepared and turned in my posts weeks ahead of time and still felt bogged down during the tour. So for those who think a blog tour is easy…not so much.

They are Boring:

I know this might sound weird, but after a while I got bored with the tour. I can’t explain it but the more visits I did, the less interested I was in the tour. This has nothing to do with the blogs I visited, they were great. I appreciate every host I had and they pulled out the welcome mat for me when I arrived. But after the first four or five stops, I’d grown tired. It went from something I looked forward to, to something I dreaded doing. It’s good that I had my posts done ahead of time. It would’ve been awkward to get bored in the middle of a tour and still have to submit material. Good luck being creative when bored!

People Don’t Participate:

Sigh. I’m glad to say that I’m not the only author seeing this. Authors are mentioning how less and less people comment on blogs or even peek into the content. I knew that with blogs it can be a hit and miss sometimes, but I was not prepared for the complete silence I got from some of my stops. I did all I could to provide interesting topics and giveaway questions that would get visitors involved and still on most of the stops, nothing. I might as well have thrown up the same exact post for every stop. I can’t tell you how many of my hosts apologized to me for the lack of participation. In my other post I mentioned the importance of offering a giveaway to participants. Well from what I see that doesn’t matter. I offered free copies of my book and still only a few takers. I also participated at every stop and promoted the tour. Still some places garnered crickets. On the flipside there were a few blogs I visited that had excellent traffic and I picked up some new fans from those. I believe the lack of participation is what got me bored with the tour.  When you show up somewhere and feel like you’re talking only to yourself, how can you be excited? But hey I guess it’s better than doing a book signing in a store and no one shows up. Oh…been there and done that too. Sigh.

My Opinion of Blog Tours Now:

I still think they are a good promotional option if you find them worth the effort. That’s the question. Is the effort worth it to you? I have no idea if I will see any real investment from this down the line, but I did garner some new readers and newsletter subscribers. More people know of me than before so that’s always a good thing. I got some exposure from it even if it didn’t go like I’d hoped. Honestly I can’t say if I’ll ever do a blog tour again. I was very unimpressed. It was a lot of work for a small reward. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate any new reader I’ve picked up, but the time and effort I put into this tour was too exhausting for me to do it again without a better turnout. It would be a waste of my time to do another tour for it to turn out like this one. I’ll still continue to do guest spots on blogs, but I don’t even wanna hear the term “blog tour” any time soon! I can see now why some authors pay tour organizers. It’s a lot of work to organize your own tour. But, I don’t know if either way is worth it for me. I welcome others to try it though.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news on this. My last post got so many authors excited about trying blog tours, so I hate to stomp on that excitement. I don’t mean to do that. Once again, I’m just sharing my own thoughts and experiences. I suggest authors try blog tours for themselves if they are really interested. They might have a better experience than I did. But honestly, from what I see, blogs are just not the ticket anymore. People barely participate on most of them and the most popular blogs are very difficult to get on. If you can score a popular blog, go for it. But blog tour or not, I don’t think blogs have the power with readers (unless you’re writing YA or NA) they once did. Seems like it’s getting harder and harder to find effective promo options these days so I recommend just writing books as your main source of promotion. That’s what I do. I advise writers to buckle down and get new work released regularly. You’ll get way more from that than a blog tour.  Also group promo with other authors is always a good thing. Cross promotion can do wonders. I now run two blogs where I feature books and interview authors, and I gain promotional opportunities as well as new contacts.

Check out my new blogs. One highlights romantic serials and series and the other highlights romantic suspense.

http://romanticserials.wordpress.com/

http://romspense.wordpress.com/

I’ll give my blog tour a 5/10 score. If it wasn’t so exhausting then I might rate the experience higher but it was just too much work put into it for the outcome I received.

Well that’s my update!

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