I’m in the process of planning Stitch’s upcoming blog tour, and I just wanted to say that I am flat-out floored by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm in the book blogging community.
I started late last week emailing YA book bloggers that I had come across online and I have to say, my expectations were low. After spending hours searching for potential blogs to review Stitch, I was a little discouraged by the number of great blogs I saw that were not open to reviewing self-published books, and even though I ended up with a list of around 100 blogs that I thought would be good candidates, I wasn’t very hopeful about my chances of getting any of these people to actually read my book.
After all, I am a new author, completely unknown in the writing world (at least beyond my network of business writing clients), and since I’m self-published, I don’t even have the backing of a reputable publisher or agent to lend me any credibility. Yes, my book is good and my synopsis is fairly intriguing and I’ve got a pretty cover (at least in my opinion!), but when it comes down to it, from the perspective of a blogger I’m basically a completely random stranger begging you to spare some of your incredibly limited time to read my potentially crappy book.
So you can imagine my surprise when it took all of 4 DAYS to completely book a 30-day tour with one (and sometimes even two!) bloggers per day.
Did I mention that I love book bloggers?
I started out by emailing 30 people off my list to see if they would be interested in participating in the tour. I was really excited when 4 or 5 people that I’d emailed responded within only a few hours (some of them minutes) saying they’d like to be a part of it. A few people even very kindly suggested some other bloggers I should contact and gave permission for me to drop their names (thank you!). And then one person (and as much as I’d love to give her a HUGE public shout-out for being awesome and the coolest person ever, I’m deliberately withholding her name for privacy since I feel like if I put it out there, she would get flooded with requests from other authors… Sorry guys! Not my place to share) was kind enough to offer to forward my request on to 200 OF HER BLOGGER FRIENDS. All I can say is, O.M.G.
Within 72 hours, I had 37 different people lined up (and miraculously, there were only a handful of conflicting date requests) and my blog tour schedule was filled. As a result, I’m now planning to extend it by a month to accommodate all the new requests that are coming in (and I still need to email all the other people on my original list!).
But even beyond the sheer numbers – which way surpassed my expectations – was all the enthusiasm and excitement for my book. In case you’ve never met one, book bloggers are INCREDIBLY NICE – just like, the nicest people in the entire world. Every single person I emailed was SO sweet and so flexible with their schedules (even though I know most of them are jam-packed), and everyone was just generally willing to do whatever I needed to help me out. It was amazing. Just, amazing.
And even better were all the compliments! I’m tickled! Here’s a little sampling:
Your book sounds fantastic! I’m really excited to read it.
Hoping you have a few open spots left because I’d love to participate! Dystopian is my favorite genre and Stich sounds good, so I jumped at the chance :)
This sounds like an awesome title and I can’t wait to present it to my followers.
I love the summary for your book and would absolutely without a doubt love to review it!
That synopsis has me suitably intrigued, I would love to participate in your blog tour.
The synopsis pulled me in but the cover grabbed me! I absolutely love the cover and I am a sucker for YA and Post-Apocalyptic… I am extremely booked up but I can’t pass this book up so I will fit you in lol.
And these wonderful people haven’t even read the book yet!! I’m just praying that Stitch lives up to their expectations…
I guess we’ll find out soon! Check back for more information about the blog tour coming in a few days…