Increasing
Your Author Platform
As an author building your platform is one of the most
important things you must do, especially if you are a first time author. I tell my clients to budget for marketing and
promoting. There is nothing worse than an author saying…. “I don’t have money to market my book.” Believe me as a published
author and workshop facilitator, I have heard it all. If you want people to
take you serious as an author, you must be able to invest in your book by marketing
and promoting it. That mean you must spend money.
With the internet, your online presence has a very
broad reach. If you built it successfully, it can spread great awareness of you
as an author and gain you fans, followers, leads, customers and anything else
you could ever want for your book and or services.
Your online presence could consist of a website, blog,
social media profiles, article writing and or becoming a columnist for a
magazine. Building an online present is about been seen in as many places as
one can.
I must tell you it requires work. Actually writing the
book is the easiest part an author can do. The marketing and promoting is
almost a full time job. Consistency is one of the keys to gaining attention to
your work.
One of the ways in which you, as an author can gain
exposure and build your online present is with a Virtual Book Tour. As the
owner of Write Now Literary Virtual Book
Tours, I have helped many authors gain exposure, connect with host of radio
shows and build a reader base for life.
Remember
this is an investment in you.
What
is a Virtual Book Tour?
A virtual book tour features authors promoting their books
by making guest appearances during a set time frame on blogs, podcasts, radio
shows, social networks, or other venues. These tours are sometimes called book
blog tours or virtual author tours, or abbreviated as VBT.
The locations where the author is making appearances
are called tour stops, and the blog owners or interviewers are called tour
hosts.
Tours are often done as part of the launch of a new
book, but they can be successful any time after the book is published. They are
just as effective for fiction and nonfiction books — only the venues and the
type of content will vary.
Why
Authors Should Do a Virtual Book Tour
The purpose of a virtual book tour is to enhance the
author's platform and reputation through increased online exposure, drive traffic
to the author's website and to build relationships with key influencers.
What
are the benefits of doing a VBT?
Ø Virtual tours are
generally less expensive and time consuming than travelling.
Ø Authors can reach
far more people and a more targeted audience with a virtual tour.
Ø The virtual tour
provides quality, lasting links to the author's website. These links have
search engine optimization value and may continue to provide new visitors to
the author’s website for months or years to come.
What
makes a successful tour?
Well the success of a tour depends on who you ask and
what the goals are for having a book tour. If an author is looking just for
sales, then they might be disappointed with the results. I can’t guarantee book
sales, but I can guarantee an author will get the exposure.
An effective virtual book tour can be composed of a
number of different kinds of “content,”
including: Guest blog posts, book excerpts, book reviews, interviews, podcast
or radio appearance, book giveaways, trailers, Facebook chats, and social media
contests.
What
we do at WNL?
Our job is to create buzz for your book and get you the
publicity you need though bloggers and radio interviews. As an author, I know the importance of
publicity and marketing. Throughout the years, I have made great connections
and friendships with authors and bloggers who will help me promote you.
Testimonial
to our services.
“Three words to describe Paulette Harper and WLN
tours. Efficient, fast and stress free. Well that’s four words, but you get my
drift. I told her what I needed and she gave me the perfect product—a book
blast. She didn’t try to sell me what I didn’t need. And the results were great.
If you are an author looking for a stress free (yeah there goes that word
again) exposure you want to know Paulette Harper.”
Unoma Nwankwor,
Amazon, Best-Selling Author,When You Let
Go & Owner KevStel Group LLC
The exposure: Before the tour, I would look up my book
and maybe see one or two references on the first page. Ever since the tour,
I’ve taken up several spots via the first three pages of Google. This is a
direct result of the tour. Images as well as blog interviews showed up. This
was extremely important for me for SEO purposes.
Parker J. Cole, Radio personality, Amazon Best-Selling
Author, of Many Strange Women.
Paulette
Harper is a Bestselling, Award Winning Author of
Inspirational, fiction, and children’s books. She’s the owner of WNL Literary
Author Services. With over 7 years of
marketing and promoting experience, Paulette has built a reputation as the “go”
to person when it comes to promoting, marketing and coaching authors. Using her
skills and expertise she can also facilitate writing workshops.
In 2010, with a passion to help authors succeed in
marketing their books, she launched Write Now Literary. The company offers many
options for authors to increase their visibility, while building their authors
platform. WNL specializes in Virtual
Book Tours, Facebook Chats, Radio Tours and Book Blast.
