Talking Virtual Tours with Dorothy Thompson

I've recently rediscovered something amazing about myself: that I can be productive when I'm trapped upright in front of a computer for eight hours a day. My "enforced" captivity has led me to do a great deal of research in the last couple of weeks as well as interview a number of authors and industry people who work with the internet. Questions, I've found, are much easier to think up and type between phone calls than actual columns and I've gotten a chance to chat with a number of interesting people.

And Dorothy Thompson is one of those interesting people.

Ms. Thompson approached me about hosting interviews with three authors she's been working with: Shel Horowitz, whom you've already read about; and Sandi Kahn Shelton, who you'll read about on May 15th when she stops by to talk about her book, A Piece of Normal. I'd done a virtual tour before as part of the Dirty Sugar Cookies blog extravaganza, but I'd just filed the whole concept away in the back of my mind. It was in between email exchanges it occurred to me that Dorothy was capitalizing on the ever expanding power of the internet for writers, and it would be interesting to find out how she got into the field of virtual tours and how she goes about setting one up.

Bookseller Chick: Thanks for joining me here today. I want to know more about your company. How did you get started in the business of helping others market their books and how long have you been doing it?

Dorothy Thompson: Thank you for having me! I’ve been learning how to promote books over the Internet for about six or seven years now, partly because I was interested in finding out ways to use the Internet to market my books, but also because I knew that online marketing was going to be the new age of promoting. Being a small press author, I was a little frustrated with how I was supposed to get my books into book stores, using consignment and practically begging to stock me. So, I took to the Internet and, so far, I’ve found out that you can market your book right from the comfort of your home and virtual book tours is only one way of doing it.

In my ebook, A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook, I show authors what I’ve found out to be the ultimate experience in online marketing and ways to get your book into top placements in the search engines. Don’t let the title fool you. This works for any kind of published author. For your marketing plan to work, it’s a combination of things you must do and virtual book tours are one of them.

I had heard about virtual book tours and wanted to try it out with my ebook, sort of as a guinea pig, and because I used the methods outlined in the ebook to promote the ebook, my virtual book tour was a success. It’s a lot of work, but it’ll pay off. The main thing you want to do before you even begin a virtual book tour is to zero in on your key search words and use them in every bit of promotional literature you send out. That’s the secret to getting your book into the first page of the search engines for your key search words. For instance, one of my set of key search words (and you should do this with as many groups of key search words as you can) was "promote your self-published ebook". Even today, it’s #1 out of 90,700 without the quotes and #1 out of 985 with the quotes. And anyone can do it.

It was then that I decided to start my own virtual book tours business and I call it Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Tours after my blog, Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion because I wanted to help others do what I did so that they can sell their books, too.

B.S. Chick: I hear you (or in this case, I read you), I’m a huge fan of notes and learning from experience. So tell me, what goes in to putting together a virtual book tour?

Dorothy: The first thing I do when someone is interested in becoming a part of my tours is to send them an application which will have all their vital information so that I can get familiar with their platform and determine where I can place them. For example, there’s the basic stuff like the name of their book, etc., but what I also look for are things like do they have a print book to send to these hosts because in order to get on the high profile blogs, it’s a must. Another thing I do is ask them if there are any particular literary blogs they’d like to appear just in case one of them comes back at me and says, “Well, so-and-so appeared on such-and-such blog; why didn’t I?” There are a lot of factors involved in why some books appear on more high profile blogs and the key factor is whether they have a supply of books to send to these high profile blog hosts. However, I do try to give them the best service I can. Some of my clients have ebooks only, and that’s fine, so we start finding blogs that will take them, but concentrate on ones that are active and ones in which would give my clients some exposure.

The next thing I do is set up a tour page for them here. This is not only for them to see where their tour is taking them, but also as a guide for the blog hosts to refer to in case they want to grab the cover or the author’s picture, or just to find out more of what their books are about.

And, then we get to work.

As each contact is made, I cc the author so that the author, blog host and I stay on the same page. Some of these are interviews, some are guest blogs and some are reviews. It all depends on what the blog host wants. We’re all very flexible.

When a client signs up with me, I go beyond just the tour. I help them set up their blog so that it’s SEO-friendly, teach them about tags and get them to learn about google alerts so that they’ll see how well they are doing as their tour evolves. It’s more of a science to see what happens…we do this, then this happens. It’s fun, though. The authors are real excited and are such a pleasure to work with. I try to answer whatever questions they might have so that it’s a pleasurable experience for everyone.

B.S. Chick: Do you specialize each one to the book involved?

Dorothy: Yes, I do specialize each tour. Someone asked me that the other day. If an author writes inspirational, for example, I aim for bloggers who write the same thing. I like diversity and try not to use the same blogger in a month's time. I have four authors going out next month, and have tried not to double up on any of my bloggers, but sometimes it can't be helped. But, I do try for diversity.

B.S. Chick: You've approached me about working with a self published title and a big house title, does this represent your spread of clients?

Dorothy: Yes, I work with any author who has a published book. That's the difference between me and those other guys. I used to hate it when a high-trafficked blog would turn me down because I wasn't with a big house. I guess it's my pet peeve. It doesn't matter who you are published with. An author is an author.

B.S. Chick: Why do a virtual tour? How can this affect the success of an author's book?

Dorothy: Why do a virtual book tour? Many reasons, actually. When you do a tour in a bricks and mortar house, how many books do you sell? Let's say you've sold maybe ten. Well, that's not bad, but look at what you have to go through? There's gas, there's getting ready, there's tension. Over the Internet, you can do the same thing and the only one going through all the tension is me, lol. There's a lot involved when you have four authors going out in one month, especially since this is really the first real month that's going to test me as to whether I can do it or not. I've had blog hosts turn me down; I've had blog hosts think it's the neatest thing since Cheez Whiz.

The successes, though, are the things that really keep me going. I am so excited when I get to email an author and tell her/him that I've got them on so-and-so blog. And, the strange truth of the matter is, most of these authors wouldn't have been able to do it themselves for one reason or another. It's really strange that if you go through a third party like myself, people respond faster. But, wouldn't you? If an author emailed you, you might do it, but if a publicist emailed you, your subconscious figures that this author must be really serious if they've hired outside help, you know? And I love playing publicist. I've worn the author's shoes and I know what they feel like, so this really helps me to help other authors. I know their frustrations. I know their fears of losing a publisher if the sales aren't there. If I can make a difference, then that's all that matters to me anyway.

I do want to mention another reason for going on a virtual book tour. If you are touring bookstores, you're there maybe a couple of hours. When you do tours online, what happens is that whatever blog you are on, it doesn't matter where or with who, your tour will be archived indefinitely in the search engines as long as the blog host keeps it in their archives. This builds up your online presence which is going to work in your favor. Let's say you appear on 20 blogs for this. Well, that's 20 more links you'll have in the search engines, which raises your presence there. I've done studies on SEO and I tested it out with a couple of free ebooks that my writing group and I wrote and I managed to get the last two we did in the number one spot in the search engines in one day for our particular key search words. It's actually fun watching it happen. It doesn't happen miraculously. It takes a lot of hard work, but the end result is what is going to sell books. ;o)

B.S. Chick: Thanks, Dorothy, for stopping by and explaining why virtual tours can help an author out. So what do y'all think, are virtual tours worth it? Have you ever picked up a book after reading an author's interview or guest column on a blog?

If you have any questions for Dorothy about her business and virtual tours in general, leave it on this thread and I'll pass it along.

Dear, Dear Author: An Interview with the two Ja(y)nes

The proliferation of reader blogs even as newspaper book reviews across the country are eliminated has been a topic of great conversation lately. Should we save the book review sections or are they old fashion? Or does the increase in online critics, Fuse# 8 asks, “cheapen the notion of criticism itself or democratize it?”

The answers to the questions are as individual as the tastes of every reader. Personally I find the growing reader blog phenomena a sign that reading has not died in the face of more visual options such as online chatting, video games, and Tivo, but has instead adapted to the internet medium where readers can connect across state and country lines to find others who share similar reading tastes. It is this need to connect that reader blogs and sites build upon in an effort to gain a following. How large that following grows and how those blogs/sites maintain their growing numbers is a source of interest to me both as a reader and as a blogger. In an effort to discover what makes a successful reader blog or site, I’ve interviewed the two Ja(y)nes of Dear Author.

Combining a compelling voice, opinionated reviews and news on a wide variety of topics in the romance genre Dear Author (started in April 2006) has grown to become a well known name in the Romance community, averaging approximately 3500 visitors a day. Heading each review with the salutation Dear (fill in the author’s name), DA’s reviews follow a letter format that covers both the positive and negative points that the Ja(y)nes (or Jan, Janet or Janine) found in the book. The posted reviews are then open to reader commentary so others can share their feelings about the author or title. In addition they also post Romance news and scandals, host a book club, and offer a new feature called “My First Sale” where famous authors talk about what brought about their first book.

The main ladies of Dear Author were kind enough to sit down and my questions about their site, their growing appeal, and where the future might take them.

Bookseller Chick: What led to the creation of Dear Author? Where there any reader blogs or boards that affected the creation process?

Jane: Well, like everything else – word of mouth. LOL. Some of my online reader friends had started blogs years before mine: Keishon, Yapaway Jay, Maili and Rosario. I loved reading their opinions of books more so than the established places. I think blogging is a form of affirmation that someone is listening to you, even if they don't agree. I had read two hotly anticipated but ultimately disappointing books and these two books spurred me to create my own blog. I love the technical side of it as well and enjoy tinkering with behind the scenes.

B.S. Chick: In Laura Florand's blog interview with you, she put Dear Author at average of 1600 visitors a day. Have you seen that number climb since February or are you starting to experience a plateau effect?

Jane: We are fortunate that we keep growing. It's a bit hard to understand the stats of a website, at least to me. We've moved to a new server and the reports state that we average close to 3500 visitors each day. I don't know if the new stats program is capturing new people or we are actually getting more people. I attached a stats report for the last week of April as opposed to last week when we had an increase of visits that might not be representative. Some people have asked why we don't make our stats open and the reason for that is stats programs always contain personal IP information and I think that should be private. Further, we don't plan on ever having ads so I don't know that the stats would be useful for anyone.

B.S. Chick: I have some serious envy when it comes to your ability to update with new book content daily. How much work goes into y'all keeping up this rate?

Jane: A lot it seems. An opinion article will take almost 3 hours to write and research. Reviews, depending on my feelings, can be as easy as 30 minutes and as hard as an hour or more. It really is a labor of love. Even a simple news piece, if I include a graphic, will take 10-15 minutes.

Jayne: Yes, it does take a lot of time. I don't do op/ed pieces but book and ebook site reviews can take anywhere from half an hour to 2-3 hours each.

B.S. Chick: You've recently added several new features to the website ("My first sale," the international author series, and the Dear Author Book club) in addition to your reviews, book news, and your investigations into various ebook sellers. What made you add these to the site and how have your readers responded?

Jane: The first sale series was inspired by Ilona Andrews account of her first sale. I had read these before and they show such a breadth of human drama. Despair, Struggle, and Overwhelming Joy. It’s like a little slice of HEA. The Book News came about because I wanted to share interesting news items I’ve read about books and didn’t know where to put them so I made up a sort of side blog. I enjoy doing those news pieces.

Jayne: I love reading the first sale stories because I know so little about agents, shopping books or contracts. It's fun to learn and I enjoy hearing the excitement in the author's recollection of the sale, even years after it occurred.

Jane: The e bookstore reviews. I can’t remember how that started. Maybe Jayne remembers.

Jayne: IIRC, we started those after a piece trying to list the different ebook publishing sites. We'd both had some problems in buying ebooks from various sites for our series that ran last summer (those reviews are listed with CB (Contest Book) in front of the title). Jane, I think you had the idea to review sites to pass on what we'd learned from those experiences.

Jane: The book club is an attempt to have a more interactive experience, to make the readers feel more of a part of the blog. I don’t know how successful it has been. I think that readers like the new features as our numbers continue to grow and I guess that is the only source of affirmation that we have other than the comments.

Jayne: Since the book club only started a few months ago, it's hard to tell if it will remain popular.

B.S. Chick: Have any of the authors featured in your book club shown a spike in sales or become aware of increased word of mouth?

Jane: I don’t think so. It’s possible that it increases word of mouth but I don’t know how much we influence sales. I think the most that we can do is bring notice to a book that might not otherwise have gotten notice.

Jayne: No one's told me that we've had any influence on sales numbers.

B.S. Chick: I really love the "My first sale" columns and while I know it's greedy to ask, who do we have to look forward to in future editions of "my first sale"? How about the international author series?

Jane: We have a whole slew of authors, from ebook authors to new authors to established authors. Jenna Black, Madeline Hunter, Caroline Linden, Ryan Ruth Lanagan (an author of over 100! Books) are just a few. I hope to run a new “story” each week until the end of the year.

(Editor’s Note: This just in: Dear Author will also have a first sale column from Meg Cabot as well!)

B.S. Chick: How has the message board (if it has at all) added or changed the community dynamic of Dear Author?

Jane: I think its just another reader resource. I don’t know whether it will be useful or not but right now it doesn’t take much to monitor (for spam) and so even if it is a quiet place, it will still be there.

B. S. Chick: You've interviewed the senior editors of publishing houses and investigated ebook sellers. Are there any other areas of Romance publishing that you would like to/plan on highlighting in the future?

Jane: Actually, yes. I want to start a series with agents about that side of the business and I have contacted some cover artists about their very important role in making romances sell. We also still have interviews for editors coming from Pocket and another from Tor . Basically, I am blogging for myself. If there is a topic that I think is interesting or that I would like to know about, I explore it and hope that others share my interest. I run the blog the same way. I don’t want to register to comment and I hate having to type in a verification word. So I don’t have those barriers. I recognize that I am pretty lazy and try to make everything easy for people. So far that works.

Someday in 2007, we are going to roll out a sortable table of our reviews. I hope. LOL

B.S. Chick: In mid-March I asked my readers what they thought made a good reader blog and answers ranged from the enjoyment found in the inclusion of give aways to the strength to be found in an honest and well thought out reader opinion. Obviously Dear Author delivers on the opinion, but what else do you think has contributed to your success?

Jane: I can't really say. I think we put up new content on a regular basis. We haven't missed a day, even during the holidays. Ironically, during Thanksgiving, I thought there would be a real lull but it proved to have approximately the same traffic as any other day so when Christmas rolled around, we made sure to put up content and while traffic was lower, it wasn't dramatically slower.

Jayne: We have a variety of opinions and we really try to make the blog open to any comment. I think we have enough people to offer some diversity of opinion and style but not too many people in the blog that readers lose track of us. Someone once said that when you think of DA, you think of the Ja(y)nes (and Janine and Jan).

Thank you, Jane and Jayne.

Now it's your turn readers. Do you have any questions for the ladies of DA or insight into how their site grew so quickly? Do you know of any comparative websites in other genres?

Share your thoughts and questions in the comments if you have time.