Review-Only Virtual Tours: Are You Paying for Reviews?

I have to tell you that the whole time the sock puppet controversy was raging, I was cringing inside. The reason? I’ve paid for reviews. Kind of. Oh, not through some fly-by-night “good reviews guaranteed!” outfit. Instead, I’ve bought a couple of review-only blog tours.

I talked last week about virtual blog tours. If you missed that post, you can read it here. One of the flavors of tours that most outfits offer is the review-only tour, in which the operator recruits a number of bloggers to read and review your book. The tour operator asks you to provide a copy of your book, or a coupon or gift card so the reviewer can buy a copy, as well as the usual stuff: blurb, cover image, author picture, and buy links. If the reviewer hates your book, he or she can use the other materials to put together a book feature to run instead of a scathing review. Most of the time, bloggers will post their reviews not only on their blog, but also on Amazon and/or Goodreads, which of course helps your rating. Continue reading “Review-Only Virtual Tours: Are You Paying for Reviews?”

Blog Touring

So if KDP Select isn’t the cash cow for indies that it used to be, what’s left? One option is to get yourself and your name out there on as many book blogging sites as possible. I’m not talking about asking bloggers to review your work (although you certainly can). What I’m talking about is offering yourself as a guest blogger or interview subject. It will help you gain that all-important name recognition, or so the theory goes, and (eventually) that should translate into book sales. Continue reading “Blog Touring”