The Virtual Tour

When I first began writing I envisioned publishing my book and going on signing tours around the country. Granted this was nearly 12 years ago, when such a thing was a common occurrence. But as technology has evolved, so has the concept of publicity, and subsequently book tours. Thus my first tour is virtual.

It is a strange experience as I go from blogger site to blogger site to leave comments and replies to people’s posts as oppose to thanking them in person. Once more, the comments are mostly about how nice the cover looks. I doubt many, if any, will even bother to pick up a copy (be it physical or electronic).

My question, is how many of those people will actually read the book? Chances are few if any. Some of the bloggers have tried to help by including excerpts, but again, there is a ton out there and people have a limited amount of time, so I honestly don’t blame them.

My editor actually told me that it’ll be not until the 3rd or 4th book in a particular series that people will actually start paying attention to me.

In the meantime, I will continue to to travel the blog sites thanking those who took the time to leave a comment. Because honestly they didn’t have to. I wish there could be more engagement in some of the comments, but again people have a limited amount of time.

You have to start somewhere, and “nice cover” is a good place, especially considering what an incredible job my team did in designing it. For some, it’ll translate into “nice book”, and “where can I find more like it?” And that’s how you build an audience.

For those interested in following the tour.