Blog Tours explained

A recent discussion on the WOM-PO listserv centered on 'blog tours'-- what they are, how they work, and who does them. Blog tours seem like the ultimate win-win proposition -- a chance for an author to promote her work, a chance for the readers to get a sense of the author and her approach to poetry, and an opportunity to link together the blogger and the interviewee in a thoughtful conversation.

Especially for small press publishers and for authors trying to promote their own work, this provides a very sensible approach.

Diane Lockward, who is currently participating in a tour (as the interviewer) via her blog, Blogalicious, provides a good explanation of how blog tours work, along with some real-life lessons on the finer points:

"The poet with a new book invites a handful of bloggers whose blogs she knows to participate in an ongoing series of interviews. Her publisher posts the links to and dates of each interview. The publisher also sends a complimentary review copy to each participant. Each participant is asked to compose 3-4 questions and send them to the poet prior to the date of her scheduled posting. Right now I'm reading the book and forming some possible questions. My date is April 8. On that date I will post the questions and the poet's responses on my blog. I'm about in the middle of the tour.

One problem that I'll mention so that others might figure out a way to work around it: A few of the bloggers become over-zealous and ask more than the 3-4 questions. Yesterday's blogger had seven questions, each with multiple parts. Another blogger scheduled to go after me has already called dibs on a particular poem and form. That was on my list of possible questions and now must be eliminated. So if I were running one of these I would ask the participants not to exceed the requested number of questions and would stipulate that calling dibs is not allowed.

I see this as a very viable way of promoting a book, one which might be combined with audios and videos. This seems a sensible way of reaching a wider readership and most likely readers you might not encounter elsewhere."