Cover Reveals, Blog Tours, & Giveaways -Publicity 101

Hello, Seekerville. Sandra here to share with you her adventures into the world of self-promotion in this crazy writing business.  First off, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own.  I’m simply not that tech savvy.  When I read about Amber Stokes on one of our Seekerville blogs I knew she was an answer to my prayers.

When I was ready to take the plunge and put out one of my old titles, I contacted Amber and that is when the fun began.  I was immersed into such an adventurous new world, I wanted to share it with all of you. 

Amber Stokes from Editing Through the Seasons has agreed to join us at times today and share what techniques she used to publicize LOVE’S MIRACLES. What makes this exciting is that Amber is going through the same process for the release of her debut novel BLEEDING HEART. So let’s see what  Amber has to say and let her share her publicizing secrets.

1. The first thing Amber did was schedule a cover reveal. Amber, can you explain what a cover reveal is and the purpose of it?

Hello, Sandra and Seekerville! So excited to be back again – thanks for having me! *grin* 

Cover reveals are the best! Everyone loves the excitement of a new cover, right? A cover reveal is like a mini blog tour – short and specific. No interviews, no reviews…nothing like that. It’s just a 1-day blast (generally) designed to build excitement for a book’s upcoming release by revealing the cover for the first time online.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

~ If a cover has been spotted online (e.g. on a retailer site, Goodreads, etc.), it’s already been “revealed.” You could certainly still do a cover tour, but the “flair” and excitement of a cover reveal is in the “newness” of the cover. You’re giving the blog readers a chance to be the first to see a new cover, and that’s always fun stuff!

I think a cover reveal is a great publicity option for self-pubbers, especially, because they are their own publisher (and sometimes their own publicist). Indie authors have a little more control over the marketing timeline than authors with traditional publishers – that’s my understanding, anyway!

~ Cover reveals should feature a great cover. The point of a cover reveal is to get readers buzzing about a book and its release, and readers LOVE to talk about an awesome cover! (Believe me – as a blogger and book reviewer, I know!) Quality cover design is crucial to a cover reveal and every other aspect of book marketing.

~ Cover reveals need to come before a book’s release – but not too long before. The key is to create buzz with the cover reveal and then maintain it as much as possible until the release date and blog tour.

For Sandra’s Love’s Miracles, we did a cover reveal the first day of May and then the blog tour the last couple weeks of May.

For Bleeding Heart, I did a cover reveal the 3^rd of June, with the book’s official release date being August 1^st.

 I probably stretched mine a bit, but if you could keep the cover reveal and the book release date within a couple of months of each other, I think that’s ideal.

~ A few other tricks of the trade…

·      Gather a list of influencers early on, and hang onto the names of those who help with the cover reveal. Odds are that many of the bloggers willing to participate in the cover reveal will also be willing to participate in the blog tour (more on that soon!).

·      Giveaways are a great tool for catching someone’s interest in your cover reveal (and, hopefully, the book itself!) and for enticing people to help you spread the word.

·      While cover reveals are fairly simple, you should be sure to provide bloggers with the book’s description, an author bio, links, etc., so that readers will know what the book is about and where to learn more about you and your book. I think it’s also a nice idea to include the cover designer – after all, they should get some credit and publicity for the great job they did! (Assuming you hired someone to design the cover – like the amazing Lena Goldfinch, who designed Sandra’s cover and mine!)

2. Amber also scheduled a blog tour.  Can you share with us how you set that up?

To clarify the difference between a blog tour and a cover reveal, the blog tour comes when the book is available for purchase as a way to spread the word about the book’s release – and it usually lasts longer and involves more than the cover reveal. However, each blog tour is unique because each book is unique! They can be as complex or as simple as you want them to be. J

The fairly obvious things about a blog tour is that you need bloggers. I’ve been blogging for over three years and have built up a presence on various social media sites, so I’ve had the privilege of making some great blog contacts. When it comes time to set up a blog tour, I check first with my blogging friends, then work outward – which could mean visiting various sites they follow and looking up other blogs that might fit with the genre I’m promoting, if necessary. Posting the call on Goodreads, Twitter, and other social media sites can help, too! For me, it’s nice to have the author suggest contacts, as well. And if you’ve already done a cover reveal, you’ve already got a list of people who have some sort of interest in your book. Hang onto that list!

As I noted above, blog tours should be unique. I absolutely adore themes – LOVE them! So I try to find a theme when putting together blog tours.

For the Love’s Miracles tour, we centered it around Memorial Day to tie in with the book’s premise of a romance between a Vietnam veteran and a psychologist. We also ran a freebie promotion for the Kindle version through the Memorial Day weekend, and we did a themed giveaway that included a daisy bookmark (to tie in with the symbolism on the cover) and a tote sold by Green Beans Coffee, a company that runs the Cup of Joe for a Joe program for soldiers (which I believe I learned about on Seekerville, actually!).

I just finished up a tour for our very own May the K9 Spy, which included a scavenger hunt to go along with the detective/spy theme, as well as freebie promotions and a reviewers rewards drawing.

And the Songstone blog tour is almost over (a blog tour for my cover designer), which includes a sweet summer giveaway with themed prizes. We tried to push the island and summer themes to go with the season.

What else? There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that goes along with a blog tour. There’s all the communication with the bloggers, making sure they have review copies, responses to their interview questions, book and giveaway information they need for their posts, etc. There’s the promotion on social media sites (I use Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest, mostly), the blog buttons for bloggers to share, picking a winner(s), contacting the winner(s), wrapping everything up… Yep, when a blog tour’s going on, you can expect to spend a lot of time online!

If you’re a blogger who loves book marketing, there’s no reason why you can’t set up your own blog tour – but remember to keep organized, always be courteous to participating bloggers, don’t skimp on cross-promotion, and have fun! If this all sounds like a little too much to think about, there are plenty of bloggers and businesses you can hire to help you with the behind-the-scenes aspects. And if you’re traditionally published, your publisher will probably work with you on your book promotion. But no matter whether you set up a blog tour yourself or someone else sets it up for you, I believe it’s worth the time to get involved. Respond to comments, share a blogger’s post on Twitter or Facebook, etc. Connect with readers, because why else are you publishing a book if not to have people read it? *grin*

3. During the cover reveal and blog tour, readers were given the opportunity to enter a contest . Amber used Rafflecopter.  Can you explain what Rafflecopter is and why it is so valuable? 

Rafflecopter is a site that allows you to create a giveaway form and share it on your blog – or with all the bloggers on your tour! It’s extremely valuable and one of the latest trends in blog-tour promotion. The awesome thing is that you can use it for FREE! Yes, you can pay for an upgrade that will allow you to have some cooler options, like including a picture of the prize(s) in your form. However, I’ve been using the free version with no problem, and I’ve found some ways to get around the loss of certain options. (All of this is not to say that you shouldn’t support the site by upgrading – I think it’s a great tool, and I’m sure the upgrade is sweet! But when you’ve got to pay back student loans, well, free is always nice. *wink*)

Here’s the lowdown…

~ Sign in and start planning a giveaway. Add a prize or as many prizes as you want. My suggestion, though? Keep it simple. You can get all kinds of complicated by saying 1 winner gets this and another gets that, and this is only for U.S. winners while this one’s open internationally. You’re cert ainly free to do all of that, but try to keep it clear. There’s a spot to add “Terms & Conditions” at the bottom, but who really reads those? Make it clear on the form. For example, for my cover reveal of Bleeding Heart, I gave away a set of bleeding heart note cards and some teardrop earrings. When creating the form, I added both of the prizes and a line above them (by “adding a prize,” but really just writing in the line). Here’s how it read:

For 1 U.S. Resident:

Bleeding Heart Note Cards (4-pack)

Pink and Clear Teardrop Earrings

So the terms are clear and the prizes are described. Little room for confusion, even if the blogger doesn’t explain the terms in their blog post (which is always good to do, too).

~ Then it’s time for the fun part – adding the entry options! This is where you can get new followers on Twitter, “likes” on Facebook, and comments on the blog posts. Some of the cool options listed regarding Pinterest and surveys can’t be used unless you have the upgrade. But note this… There’s a button that says, “Invent Your Own Option!” You can use this button to ask people to follow a board on Pinterest, add your book on Goodreads, etc. All you have to do is include a link to the page you want them to go, write some simple instructions, and ask them to share their user name so you can verify their entry! It’s as simple as that. Create as many options as you like – readers like lots of chances to enter, and authors like building up their social media platforms. Win-win!

~ All that’s left is to set the dates (you can’t change the times from midnight, though, unless you upgrade) and then grab the code! You can embed the code in your own blog post, and then share the link the site gives you with other bloggers. That link will take the bloggers to a page where they can grab the code, too, and that way all the entries from all the blog posts go in the same drawing. Pretty
sweet, huh?



a Rafflecopter giveaway

4. What other strategies did you use for LOVE’S MIRACLES and BLEEDING HEART?

Well, we’ve covered a lot of the big things! If you’re self-publishing, coordinating a freebie or bargain promotion with blog tours and such is a great way to cross-promote. But mostly, here are the big things I’ve learned:

~ Be creative! Make your tours fun and easy to promote with an over-arching theme. Discover your brand and incorporate it! And don’t be afraid to explore options with different social media sites. You can do Twitter chats, Pinterest wars, and lots of other fun things to go along with your blog tour.

~ Be organized! Create documents to keep track of those involved in your tours – you might want the names later on, and you’ll certainly want to know who’s doing what. Mark down the interviews you’ve sent, the dates you’ve given to certain bloggers, etc. There’s a lot to keep in mind with book marketing, so don’t let the complexities get the better of you and thereby make you look unprofessional to those involved in your tours. Those bloggers are also your readers!

~ Be involved! Reach out to readers. Interact with those who leave comments. Make the most of your blog tours by promoting them wherever you can online – without being annoying (it’s a balance, I realize). Be authentic, and shine on!

Amber Stokes has a Bachelor of Science degree in English and a passion for the written word - from blogging to writing poetry, short stories, and novels. After her brief time at college in Oregon, she is now back home among the redwoods of Northern California, living life one day at a time and pursuing her passion via freelance editing and self-publishing her debut novel, Bleeding Heart.

You can connect with Amber on her personal blog (Seasons of Humility), the group blog she contributes to (The Borrowed Book), Twitter, Pinterest, Goodreads, Shelfari, and LinkedIn. Want to hire Amber for editing or publicity work? Visit www.editingthroughtheseasons.com for more info!

And here’s the blurb for Amber’s debut novel, Bleeding Heart – now available in Kindle format!

“Five bleeding hearts. One profound journey.

Summer 1886

Sally Clay’s livelihood has been snatched away, but in its place arises an opportunity to escape from her sordid past and an unrelenting, unwanted suitor. Boarding a train with a heartsick rancher and an enigmatic miner, she leaves Virginia City behind and heads to Northern California, waiting for the chance to make right what went wrong three long years before.

But the road to revenge is far from smooth. Sally soon learns that the jagged pieces of a broken heart can far too easily wound the hearts of others – and hers isn’t the only heart that’s broken. Tragedy and fear dog her steps as she flees from the redwood forests to the high desert and back again. Will her bleeding heart ever find a way and a place to heal?

A desperate soiled dove. Three men who come to care for her. One man determined to claim her.

All on a journey that will show them what true love really involves.

Inspirational Historical Romance”

We’d love to hear about your book-marketing experiences or your favorite way to promote books!  And be sure and try the rafflecopter to enter in for a giveaway. By the way, the rafflecopter won't be over in time for the winner to be announced in this weekend edition so we'll announce the winner of the rafflecopter in the August 10th weekend edition.  In tomorrow's weekend edition we will announce the winner of a drawing from the puppy dish.  (hey Ruthy can use her cat dish, I can use the puppy dish)  Winner will be able to choose one of my books--Kindle or paperback.   

For snacks today I will be serving treats from Oregon where we are camped.  Fresh blueberries, raspberries and marionberries.  You can order milkshakes made with the berry of your choice, berry cobblers, berry pies, berry muffins and scones.  This is berry nice don't you think?    (I know-corny but that's me)

Have a blessed day everyone.