Why Do You Return to a Blog? by Christine Duncan

Since I've been on this virtual tour, I feel as though I have become an expert of sorts about blogs. I have learned quite a bit about blogging and promoting. So when I saw a discussion question on Crimespace this week asking people why they return to blogs I thought I would be able to nail the answers.
It's never quite that simple though, is it? The answers on Crimespace ranged from people who can't be bothered to read blogs to those who said they read to find a new mystery to read. Hmm, so I guess I can only answer for myself.
I return to blogs that give me useful information. For instance, this week, I was reading my publisher's list and found a link to Amber Polo's blog. The theme of the post? Want a booksigning at your library? I read it, the info was great and I will be back.
I return to blogs that are interesting and funny and maybe about mystery but maybe not. Like the Femme Fatales
Now I did start to read Donna Andrew's books because of that blog, but not because anyone was there saying read my book. She was interesting and sometimes funny--but mainly very real, and I enjoyed reading her stuff so I looked for the books.
I return to blogs to see what others are doing which is, in a way, why I like Crimespace. It's the back and forth of the community that makes it interesting. The blog I like for that is Miss Snark's first victim She runs a periodic contest for people hoping to get an agent. Blog readers get to submit a portion of their manuscript. Everyone who subs also critiques and everyone's stuff is seen by an (anonymous) agent. At the end, the agent is revealed and the winner is invited to submit to the agent. I like the feedback although I have only submitted my stuff once. I learn from other people's work too.
That's me though. I like blogs. Now as for chats--I'm doing one at Writer's Chatroom on Sunday at 7:00--maybe I'll get a handle on why people do those then. And maybe I'll ask them why they read blogs.
So why do you return to blogs? Tell me! I really want to know.

Christine Duncan is the author of the Kaye Berreano mystery series.

Promotional Overload

Ever done a blog book tour? I know a lot of you are familiar with Dani and BlogBookTours, including her wonderful Yahoo listserv group on which she is now running classes every three months. Or is it four months? If I wasn't so tired from my latest jaunt into the cyberworld of promotion (or the promotional world of cyberland?), I'd do some fact-checking. But whatever the specifics are, Dani is the queen...no, the empress...NO, Dani is the goddess of blog book tours and I worship at her shrine!

ANYway, I have done two cyber tours for my murder mystery MURDER FOR HIRE, one solo and the other with Jess Lourey, author of the very funny MURDER BY THE MONTH series. Both were hard work; lots of posts to write and interview questions to answer, but definitely manageable. And the one with Jess was a lot easier because we shared the work.

Why I thought this would mean organizing and running a tour for eleven romance authors (myself included) for Ravenous Romance would be easy is beyond my comprehension. I guess I figured if there were eleven of us, it would mean that much LESS work for me. Except I was the organizer. And none of these other authors had ever done a blog book tour before and had no real concept of what it was.

Without boring you with the myriad of frustrations I experienced during the last two months, I'll just give you a brief idea of what I had to accomplish with this tour. There needed to be 13 stops: an intro, eleven stops that showcased one author per day, yet also involved all 11 authors, and a final stop to wrap things up. I had to find and contact all the host blogs, explain what we were doing, and figure out dates for each post while matching authors with the appropriate blogs. I came up with a format that included a question of the day that would be answered at length by the showcased author, with short Reader's Digest answers from everyone else. I had to send out questionnaires to the authors, nag them to get the questionnaires back in time for me to cut and paste all the answers into 11 separate posts, add the last paragraph telling people where the next day's stop would be and talk about the giveaways for each post. These had to go BACK to the showcased authors for their intros and anything else they wanted to add, including their book excerpts. Lists of urls and hyperlinks were sent to all the hosts, along with the schedules. Reminders were sent out, more nagging to authors to get the final posts back so I could proof them and send them on to the various hosts.

I was the first blog host and spent hours putting in everyone's book cover jpegs and as many hyperlinks as would help promote the authors, Ravenous Romance and all of the hosts. I checked links obsessively to make sure everything would be perfect for our first day. And it was - over 95 comments for our first stop. After that... well, let's just say no matter how carefully you plan something like this, there will still be things to go wrong and all you can do is damage control as best you can.

One host, a very reliable friend of mine, had the time wrong so the post wasn't up in the morning and I couldn't get a hold of her. I hastily put the post up at my blog, contacted another person on her blog, and he got the post up and running at the planned site. Another host was gone a large portion of the day and had the comment moderation on, so none of the comments showed up for a few hours. Yet another had the wrong link for the showcased author's website and was also gone for a large part of the day. Y'know...glitches.

I, of course, took them all as personal failures and emitted stressons all over the place. My long suffering boyfriend was on hand to dispense soothing words, backrubs and wine. All in all, I spent two months putting this tour together and then baby-sitting all the stops, even while on a mini-vacation. I have not gotten anything substantial in the way of writing done during this time.

Was it worth it? Yes. The authors have seen a rise in their sales, we had an average of 60 comments per stop (over 160 at one stop), and it's been a blast. Doing a tour for my next mystery novel will be a snap in comparison.

Would I do another multiple author tour again? Ask me in a few months when I've recovered from this one!

Deadlines and Procrastination by Chester Campbell

I can sympathize with the plight Dana described last Sunday regarding her efforts to coordinate a blog book tour for a bunch of romance authors. I'm working on one for only yours truly, but it has become a real time-consumer. If you're new to the breed, here's what is involved. First you need a blog of your own. I participate in three other group blogs like Make Mine Mystery, but until a couple of months ago, I didn't have one of my own.

It's tough enough to keep up with when I'm scheduled on various blogs, but with my own, it means writing something every day or two. In getting ready for the tour, I was encouraged to post something everyday. I did that for a month, sweating down to a pint-sized figure of my former self (just kidding, I haven't lost a pound). Since then I've attempted to compose something scintillating at least three days a week, something that would attract the attention of the casual reader.

My problem now is that I'm currently immersed in getting ready for the blog tour, which starts next Wednesday. I'll appear as a guest on 15 sites between April 15 and May 1. So far I have finished only six of the posts. Not a good feeling less than a week before the starting gun fires.

Not to worry. I cut my teeth in the writing business as a newspaper reporter. I work best in the face of deadlines. My wife, bless her understanding soul, puts it a little differently. She says I procrastinate. What could be further from the truth? I finished doing my taxes a few days ago. Haven't sent it in yet, but I've still got five days.

When writing a novel, the ideas seem to pour out through my fingers in an unending stream. I've done a lot of thinking beforehand, and the general idea of the book keeps me on track. For the tour, I set up a daily schedule with a subject to be covered in each day's post. They're all related to my new book, The Surest Poison, but some are tailored to the particular blog site. One wants an interview, another wants something on promotion. When I start writing those, I have a pretty good idea of where I'm heading. My tour schedule is posted here.

It's my other committed posts that keep popping up on a regular basis where I've begun to wrack my brain for subjects. After stewing around a bit for something to write about on my Mystery Mania blog two days ago, I came up with the title "You gotta Noah 'bout the Ark." I then proceeded to tap out a humorous piece comparing the building of Noah's Ark to pursuing the fiction writer's "story arc." It brought a few laughs.

The bottom line is that all this wrestling in the blogosphere, plus my other efforts to promote the new book, has left me no time to get busy on my next project, a fifth book in the Greg McKenzie series. Maybe if I live till May 1 I'll find an opportunity to write "Chapter 1" and start creating a new mystery. Anyone like to join me?

It's a Mystery...

...that my head is still attached to the rest of me.

Apologies for late posting - I'd posted last week and failed to notice that today was the first Sunday of the month. I suspect I missed a board meeting about guest posts, since I just realized all the posts last week WERE guest posters. Which means...oh, heck, it means I'm overworked, confused and need to take more gingko biloba herbs for my poor smoking brain pan...

Being a writer is a tricky thing (or 'tricksy', if you're Gollum) in that there are so many things attached to the job other than writing. This isn't even taking into consideration day jobs, which so many writers, published or not, have to maintain to do things like pay their rent. If you've been a regular visitor to this blog or any other blog on writing, you've no doubt read about the trials and tribulations of publicity and marketing, which has become more and more of a 'do it yourself' thing over the years. Nowadays, unless you're Stephen King, Dan Brown or any of the other airport bookstore rack authors, you will have to put massive amounts of time into pushing your own work, even with a larger publisher. It's just the way things are.

Some writers thrive on the marketing side of things - I personally love speaking engagements and library panels. I don't mind the online social networking - sites like Facebook and Twitter, not to mention the blogosphere, make the job a lot easier if you can resist the maelstrom-like time suck that can happen. One 25 Random Things About Me tag or meme is an hour or two of my day that I choose to spend writing, thank you. In theory I'm all over things like that because it's fun to learn things about my friends and fellow authors. In reality, I don't have time.

The last month I've been setting up a blog book tour for 11 authors from Ravenous Romance (I'm one of the authors) to help publicize Ravenous, a relatively new e-publisher, and my fellow authors who've bravely joined me on this whirlwind visit through cyberspace. I thought it would be relatively simple, having done two of my own blog tours for Murder for Hire.

Hah. Hah hah. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! Yes, this is the sort of laughter that rises into a maniacal scream.

Time suck anyone?

Without boring you with the tedious details, I have put in a good 20 hours of my free time setting up this tour and if I ever make noises about doing something like this again, please feel free to whack me upside the head. I think overall the work will be worth it and I don't think anyone's done a blog book tour with so many authors at one time. Maybe something for the Guinness Book of World Records. If I have any hair left after tearing so much of it out trying to coordinate this, I'll look at it as a good thing. If not, let me me an object lesson to any of you planning your own tours. Ultimately, it's a good example of the time marketing and publicity can take if you're trying to do it right.

Okay, and if you're mildly insane.