Your Blog Tour: Creating Success for Your Memoir
When I found out that my book The Power of Memoir was going to be published by Jossey Bass, I was, of course, thrilled, and began to look at all the ways I needed to get the word out about my book. Everyone has been talking about the “blog tour” so I started to research how to do it.
Should I, or could I, find the blogs where I wanted to post—or would it be better to hire someone to do it for me? How hard is it to find the right audience for my book? How do I keep track of the blogs and the dates? These are just some of my questions. My research lead me repeatedly to the Women on Writing site, where I learned how WOW could take care of all these details, and allow me to do what I did best—which was to write.
WOW! I love that the acronym for Women on Writing is WOW—as that is what we want people to say about our books, our blogs, and what we have to share with the world. Jodi did the research for my blog tour, and signed me up for the various open dates. I wrote about 28 new blog posts in 32 days—whew!
I forced myself to write brand new information about questions that a blog’s audience would have. Many people wanted to know what to do about the painful, darker stories when writing a memoir; others wondered what it was like to write my own memoir. Some wanted information about the structure and skills needed to write a memoir, and others wanted to know where to begin.
All of the questions were terrific, and I spent a lot of time doing new writing on subjects that I’d covered in the book. For each blog I wrote from a slightly different angle, using new combinations of phrases and ideas. The blog tour forced me to write in new styles for each audience. It was great training to be a journalist!
I’m pleased to say that Jodi is going to join me for the National Association of Memoir Writers Free Telesummit this Friday, October 15. We are going to talk about blog tours—what they are, how a blog tour can promote you as an author, and how it all works.
It will be great to hang out with Jodi again, like meeting an old friend, though of course, it’s virtual. Yet real. Here’s to the digital age!