Teacher-Authors: What’s Happening on my Writer’s Blog

My virtual book tour to introduce my latest prehistoric fiction, Badlands, Book 2 of the trilogy, Savage Land, has finally ended. I am thrilled with the wonderful support from so many readers and authors! It was much more complicated than any prior book launch and not without mistakes on my part (some of you know what I’m talking about). But I met lots of new readers and writers and remain convinced that blog hops are a great way to introduce new books.

I launched my first Indie book, To Hunt a Sub, via a blog hop because I didn’t know what else to do. It worked well enough (there’s a learning curve) that I used the same approach for each of my subsequent books.

If you’re thinking of doing the same, take note:

• It requires an active blog (opening a blog for purposes of a blog hop doesn’t work well–I’ve seen it tried)
• It requires aggressive participation in hosts’ posts by interacting with visitors 
• It requires that you pay lots of attention to visitors and commenters on your own blog posts leading up to the launch

Why a blog rather than Facebook or an online event? I really have no success with any social media other than blogs. I can’t think of the last time I had a new subscriber to my FB or Twitter account.

• If the goal was to get noticed, it worked. I received awards for the Top New Release in Biographical Fiction and later, in Classic Historical Fiction. Those lasted a few days, each

• I also received over 35 reviews, many attributable to the blog hosts, others to KU exposure. There were some spirit-lifting comments like this one that absolutely made it all worth it:

Jacqui Murray does a masterful job of blending prehistoric history with real life events. The emerging human civilization with its daily challenges of finding food and shelter against a wild and unpredictable environment is amazing. … A fantastic thriller. –Grace Blair

• The activity on Book 2 of the trilogy benefitted Book 1–Endangered Species–also, giving it now over 100 reviews and a better Amazon ranking.
• The attention also translated into business for the other books in the Man vs. Nature series. At least one now has over 1,000 reviews and several over 700.
• I shortened the book launch to eleven days, spotlighting my hosts in preparation more than in the past. I think that brought more traffic to their posts but required more prep. Bravo to me I only forgot to turn comments off once!
• In several cases, I connected my book launch article to the host’s theme (such as Dan Antion’s Thursday Doors) to make it more interesting to my host audience. That worked so well (IMHO) that I am going to try it more often in the future.

These changes made this blog hop the most successful ever, but if you’re thinking of following this blueprint, be forewarned:

• Preparation took a lot longer than I expected. Spit shining the launch, the articles, social media, marketing materials, outlet updates, and more was busy! I kept a ToDo list that seemed never to run out. Sigh. I see the value to subbing out this work to professional blog tour folks, but am afraid I’d lose the personal touch.
• This approach relies 100% on blogs. I have yet to find a good template that includes writers who rely on other social media platforms.
• One time the post wasn’t up, one other it went up slowly, but I think that was a time zone sort of issue.
• I had lots of comments–kudos to my wonderful hosts–which meant lots of replies required, visits to reader blogs, and follow-up. I often tracked five posts with comments in a day because people (me included) often take a few days to visit blog posts. This extended activity is actually good. The Internet Gods saw it as continual chatter about my book which should equate to higher ranking in searches. This did take 2-3 hours a day by midway through the tour to keep up. Time well spent.

To all those who helped me (in alpha order)–

Dan Antion

Alex Cavanaugh

Colleen Chesebro

Liesbet Collaert

Sandra Cox

Sally Cronin

Lynette d-Arty-Cross

Liz Gauffreau

Chris Graham

Miriam Hurdle

Anneli Purchase

–image credit Deposit Photos

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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.