Ideas for Posts
- Author interviews
- Book reviews
- Discussion of themes
- Illustration contests
- Poetry contests
- Photo contests
- Writing tips using the tour book as template
- Science projects
- Links to historical sites that have to do with the tour book
- Links to geographical sites that have to do with the tour book
The goal for posts is to give your audience something useful and/or entertaining. What else will make them come to your blog out of the hundreds of thousands available to them?
A great way to get the readers coming back to your blog again and again is to make your posts interactive–offering the book (since you’ve already read it) as a contest prize, for instance.
Use a comfortable voice
Don’t try to get fancy. Speak in a voice you’re comfortable with. Your readers are coming to you because they want to hear what you have to say. Pretend you’re talking to your best friend, telling him about the book you just read and why you liked it or didn’t like it.
Don’t give away spoilers
When you write reviews of the books, please don’t give away spoilers. Introduce the main character and tell your readers what her problem is, but please don’t tell them how she solved the problem. Don’t give a full book report, instead give a little hook to make the reader want to read the book and find out how it all ends.
Be honest
None of us like to rip authors who have spent months writing and editing their books. But if you aren’t honest, you lose your credibility with readers. This hurts you, the blog tour, and ultimately the authors whose feelings you are trying to spare.
If you hate a book we don’t want you to slam it and we don’t want you to lie. If you hate a book feel free to opt out of the tour that week.
But if you like a book but see a few things that could be improved, feel free to mention this. Don’t give a three-star book a five-star review.
This helps the authors on the tour, in the long run. Because your readers will appreciate your honesty and buy the books you recommend.
And you don’t need to be afraid of hurting the authors’ feelings. They sign up for the blog tour believing in their books and they know the risks they take. Its the same risk they took sending their manuscripts out to publishers in the first place. They’ve been through lots of rejection to get their book published and they know that they can’t please all the people all the time. They can handle it if you don’t love their books. So go ahead and write about their books. They want you to get the buzz going.
Great Discussion on Bloggers and Book Reviews:
Great tips on writing for the Web:
- Be concise, write short articles, and use lists and subheads
- Read here to learn where your reader looks first and how he scans
- Ten Tips on Writing for the Web
- Don’t squish content into bullet points unless it fits easily