Children’s Book Blog Tour

So what did the bloggers gain from the first tour? Well, for one thing, when we promote children’s book authors, we also promote our own blogs.

This week my visitors doubled. Both the unique hits and the page views doubled on both of my children’s book blogs. Are these visitors who will come back when the tour is over? Quite possibly.

If people like to read reviews before they buy a book, and they find a site like Through the Looking Glass Reviews through this blog tour, it’s likely they’ll bookmark it and go check it out the next time they are looking for a review. If they discover Maw Books Blog and they find they like her comfortable, homey style, they’ll go back. If they want to chit chat about Christian themes in literature, or if they want to know how a homeschool family might use a book in lessons, they’ll check out A Christian Worldview of Fiction, or Homeschool Buzz. If kids want peer reviews they’ll go to Book Review Maniac, or Teen Scene’s By the Book Reviews. Or, if they are homeschooled kids they may gravitate more toward Fireside Musings or 01 Charger. Contemplative people will be drawn to Bellezza, while people wanting the informed, cutting edge, down and dirty review of one reads a dizzying amount of children’s and YA fiction and who can judge well, will keep an eye on Becky’s Book Reviews. And I could go on and on. A Mom Speaks, Small World Reads, and A Childhood of Dreams will connect with mothers. Southern librarian-types, particularly, will want to read what Maggie Reads. The Friendly Book Nook will attract an assortment of readers to match the tastes of their assorted reviewers, and my own All About Children’s Books might pick up visitors who share my rather strong opinions on morality and literature (Ha!).

Besides all of that, the blog tours are the gifts that keep on giving. If you Google Mary Ann Rodman, five of the top ten sites are posts from this tour. The same thing happens when you Google Jimmy’s Stars. This is great. You’re gaining exposure with every review and interview you do. That fresh content on your blog is sitting on the search engines inviting people to come over and visit you.

Another great benefit is that by doing the tours we are influencing culture. No, the publishers are not watching our little tour and changing their publishing line-ups because of what we’ve said here. But these posts are the beginning of something. They are like the pebble dropped into the lake, creating ripples. What we say on our tour will influence others. your regular readers are regular readers because they agree with your take on things. If you raved about Jimmy’s Stars, they’ll probably pick it up. If you were somewhat unexcited by it, they probably won’t bother. And that–what your readers do–is the thing that will affect the publishers. Sales–or lack thereof. That’s what the publishers care about. I think we will affect sales.

Time will tell.

This I know: the bigger our audience, the more influence we will have. That’s why I’d like to get more bloggers on the list and it’s also why I’d like to see you all get bigger audiences for yourselves. And there are ways to do that. Ways to maximize our exposure. I’ll be talking about those ways in the coming weeks. For now there is one most important way to grow you audience. Becky, from Becky’s Book Reviews, knows this. Her site is our biggest. Why? I think it’s because she constantly puts up fresh content. That is the best way to grow an audience and keep them coming back. Give them new stuff every day.