I wrote the following in response to a blogger who asked: I am not sure what this ‘blog tour’ is and what will happen if I join. Could you please explain?

I have explained what a bog tour is in the left sidebar in a page titled What the Heck is a Blog Tour, Anyway? But I wrote this morning to answer the second part of the question: What will happen if I join?

If you join the KidzBookBuzz Children’s Book Blog Tour, the only thing that happens immediately is that I put a link to your blog in my right sidebar under the heading Tour Stops. You would then be an official blogger with out blog tour. But you are not required to ever take a book you don’t want. A couple of months before a tour is scheduled, I will send out a call to all bloggers asking them if they want to get in on the tour. For instance, we’re doing the fourth Ember book (The Diamond of Darkhold) at the end of September. That means by the end of July I’ll issue a call to Bloggers. I’ll say something like “Jeanne DuPrau’s publisher has offered fifty books for a tour September 29-Oct 1. First come, first served.” Then the first fifty bloggers who respond will get the fifty free books. That doesn’t mean that other bloggers can’t participate in the tour–it just means if they want to read the book they have to buy it or get it from the library or something. The next thing I’ll do is send a similar announcement to the list saying “Jeanne DuPrua has agreed to do seven interviews (or however many she has time for) first come, first served.” And the first seven will get the interviews.

Now, we will often have books with unknown, or lesser-known, authors. I’m hoping that all the bloggers don’t just volunteer for the popular authors but will also give the unknown authors a chance. I’m committed to getting known authors on the tour as a perk for the bloggers who don’t get paid in cash. But I’m also committed to calling attention to lesser-known authors who deserve notice.

I review every book before I offer it to the bloggers. I don’t want to have lousy books on the tour because that’s not good for the bloggers who want good content to attract their readers, nor is it good for the authors who are going to get shredded. So my goal is to only offer books that have some merit. But I may like a book you hate. Or you may not want to do a book with a Christian character or a Jewish character of a gay character. Whatever. You decide. No one makes you take a book and when you do take a book you are not required to give it a good review. In fact, we beg you to review honestly. If you don’t like the book, say so. Because if the bloggers are not honest no one will respect our reviews and our blog tour will fail.