If you’re here, you probably are wondering about how best to promote your book. Maybe you’ve already looked into a book tour with us, or maybe you’ve been going it alone. In this blog post we will give you some best practices to make the most out of your book tour.

Incentives

Incentives can be really important for book tours. Some people are happy to post and review with just a physical copy of the book, but more and more, we are seeing people asking for financial incentive to take part in a tour. Even just $10 each can make a big difference to some people. Consider including financial incentives in your planning stage. It may mean having fewer influencers taking part, but you will get quality over quantity. If you can’t stretch to financial incentives, a PR box or additional POS or Merch  can also be a great incentive for some influencers.

Leading on from this, think about what you are asking people to do. If you expect someone to read a 500 page book and write a thoughtful review with no incentive, you may find a lower uptake as that is a lot of time and work for an influencer to do with no reward. Instead try asking for a spotlight post if you can’t send out books or financial incentives. Bear in mind that a lot of influencers, especially ones with bigger followings, get sent a lot of books by authors and publishers. This is on top of the books they buy themselves. Book influencers typically have huge TBRs: an incentive can help your book jump to the top of that pile.

Who to select for your Book Tour

Once you have decided on your incentives and how many influencers you want to take part, you need to think about who you are picking.  You will see a list of influencers interested in taking part in the tour, and now comes the tricky part: who do you say yes to, and who do you say no to?

Is Bigger always Better?

First off it is worth having a think about the ways that the platforms and algorithms work. For example, on both Instagram and TikTok the larger the following an account has, the less engagement there will be on posts (when looked at as a percentage). So, do you want people with lots of followers, or do you want people who have high engagement rates on their posts?

We would suggest going for a mix here. If you are planning a 10 person tour, aim for a couple big accounts, 2-3 small accounts, and the rest in the middle. Small accounts are typically closer to their followers so tend to get proportionally more likes/comments than the big accounts. Plus small accounts tend to have fewer publishers/authors asking them for reviews, which means that they typically are able to be more accommodating on tours.

Does the account make you stop scrolling?

Secondly, have a look at the account. Of course we want people who are posting great content. On Instagram this is typically more aesthetically pleasing and eye catching, and on TikTok this is typically using a variety of styles of video. Does the account post about books in your genre? Do they post regularly? Are their posts eye catching/scroll stopping? Have a look at a couple recent posts too, do they get people engaging on their posts? However, do bear in mind that for a lot of influencers, this is a hobby, not a full time job. Don’t discount accounts that aren’t perfectly styled if they get good engagement and show passion. Engagement can be more important than a beautifully styled, aesthetic post.

Finally, think about Engagement Groups and boosted posts. These don’t show organic engagement, as you are either tagging a group (on Instagram) who all have to like and comment on your post, or paying for a Spark Ad (more on this later) and buying those views. If you are looking for people to organically engage with your book, it is worth looking for people who don’t use these. Not to say that you should discount an account who is using Engagement Groups, but don’t overwhelm your final list with these accounts.

As an additional note, on Bookinfluencers.com, influencers have an option to write a ‘pitch’ to showcase themselves and why they want to be on the tour. We would strongly suggest reading these. People who have written a pitch are already invested in the book, they have put additional time into telling you why they want to be on this tour. These might be your megafan, super supportive influencers, even before reading the book.

Running the Book Tour

So you have decided on your incentives, and chosen your influencers with a range of account sizes, styles and checked that they have good engagement. What’s next? First off, some housekeeping. Make sure you are communicating with your chosen influencers. Part of this may include negotiations for financial incentives. You should always make sure to close your deal before you mail anything out. Otherwise you may find influencers backing out after they have received the book, if they were not happy with the offer. When it comes to negotiating deals, we suggest starting by asking a creator for their fee. You can either agree or make a counter offer. If you book a full service tour with us, we will handle these negotiations for you.

Communication is Key

Let your chosen influencers know when the books have been mailed. You should also engage with their posts when they post about your book (a comment or share can go a long way!) Be sure to pay them promptly as well when the tour is over. This will keep a positive relationship, and can lead to the influencer becoming one of your mega-fans! 

You may decide to add on Spark Ads to your campaign. This is a way of boosting TikTok videos to push the algorithm to show a specific video to more people. Earlier, I mentioned looking out for this and not picking someone who relies on Spark Ads to get their views. This isn’t organic engagement, so ideally you will want people who have high organic engagement with their own followers wanting to see and interact with their content. However, you may also want to boost a video to get it in front of more people to get more impressions and eyes on your book. This is a fantastic aspect of a campaign- use Spark Ads as a way to bolster your marketing campaign. It is even more impactful when you boost  a post that organically had great reach.

Remember, we do offer Full Service Tours where we do all of this for you. We will send you a short list of people we think are suitable for your campaign for you to pick from, you will always have the final say. We will have done all of these account checks for you and will negotiate all deals too.

So what are you waiting for? Drop us an email to find out how we can work together on your next book tour!