Guest Author Kate Hart: How to Keep Up Online Without Losing Your Mind

By Kate Hart

Today’s guest author Kate Hart talks about something near and dear to my heart lately – trying to keep up with all our online madness. There are several things she mentions that I’ll be putting into practice, like trying to better sort my email and taking a close look at Google reader for keeping up with my blog reading. My days get pretty hectic and anything I can do to give myself a breather, and allow for more writing time, is a plus in my book.

Kate Hart is a history nerd YA writer, represented by Michelle Andelman of Regal Literary. She has two little boys, an oversized garden and a fairly strong Southern accent. You can find her at her website, Twitter, or YA Highway.

Take it away Kate…

Why We Did It: Redesigning the Site

A lot of work goes into creating any site, but there's even more when you do a redesign, mostly because there's so much more content to deal with. If you're facing a redesign of your own, or think you might want to freshen up your site's look one day, here's my tech-guru with a breakdown of what we did and why.

Take it away Tom...

Is Doing a Blog Tour Really Worth It?

In October 2010 I did a month-long blog tour to promote the release of Blue Fire. I did a few wrap up posts, and promised I'd get back with some more hard figures once we saw enough time pass to get good figures. It took me a tad longer than expected (blame Darkfall) but I have them now and they're not what I would have expected.

Here are the other posts for those who want to refresh or catch up with all the info.

• How to Do a Blog Tour
• Overview of Effectiveness, Part One
• Tips on Doing a Blog Tour

First, a little context... 

Since its creation in March 2009, the blog has shown an average of 13% growth per month. There were several major jumps, the two biggest being a 60% jump October 2009, which coincides with the release of The Shifter, and another of 90% in January 2010. Again, probably due to the release of the first book and all the press around that. It's also when the blog started getting linked to by some notable bloggers like Charles Tan, and later SF Signal. (and a quick shout out to say "thanks a lot for that!)

I went on the blog tour during October 2010, posting between two and four guest posts on other blogs per day. I linked to those posts here, and gave a brief description of what I'd be talking about elsewhere. Considering the large jump the book release got the first time, I expected the numbers to go up, though probably not quite as high since more folks know about me now than in 2009.

But they didn't. In fact, they went down.

There was a 20% drop in October that continued into November by another 5%. December rose again by 30%, with another 30% rise so far in January. My 2011 January numbers have been the highest since the blog's creation.

As for book sales, The Shifter got a 20% bump the first week of the tour, and a 110% bump the second (which  coincided with the release of Blue Fire), and a drop back to the regular numbers the following week. Blue Fire was pretty much the same. A bump during release week, then back to consistent sales numbers. But no sales were recorded from the links to book vendors in the blog tour posts themselves.

So, overall, the blog tour did not appear to boost book sales or increase blog traffic. It actually appears to have hurt blog traffic, and there's a good chance my numbers now would have been considerably higher had I been offering fresh content for any new folks that found me during the month.

There's no way to know for sure about book sales, and that major bump could have been because of the tour, but it's probably more likely due to the release of Blue Fire. And if the bump was due to the tour, it didn't last very long.

I can't see doing another blog tour for Darkfall. However, others have had more success, so I'm not going to give up on blog tours altogether. I think a lot of it has to do with the right book and the right audience. My target audience is in the middle school range (though older teens and adults also read it), which has a lower online readership.  J.A. Konrath did a 100-stop tour and found it a valuable experience and got very different results. Bear in mind though, that he has a much bigger readership and blog than I do, so that probably played a role as well.

For those who want to do a blog tour, I have some advice.

1. Tour on blogs different from what you blog about.
I posted on a lot of bloggers who already read me, so I was very likely reaching the same people. Had I gone to totally different readership, I might have seen better results.

2. Don't ignore your own blog during the tour.
Not everyone clicks over (I really thought they would). And since I wasn't posting on my regular blog, the traffic-driving links I usually got weren't linking to me. In fact, I had one of those regular bloggers comment that I was on hiatus and hadn't been posting anything. (It was saying why they were light on links that month. Two main resources were on tour). But I wasn't on hiatus, I was actually putting out three times the amount of content, just not on my blog. And they didn't link over to the tour posts. I found this very interesting as a study in click-throughs.

3. Decide what the end goal for the tour is.
Part of me wanted to promote the book, the other part the blog, and doing both didn't work. I would have been better off promoting the book on blogs with different readership and done more general guest post or invited bloggers from other writing sites to blog here. Bring their readers to me and see how many stay.


4. If you want to see how the tour is doing, set up your tracking software well in advance and keep track of it.
I didn't have good numbers from before the tour to compare with during the tour vs after the tour. I was able to track some things, but the specific posts and who came from where I didn't get.

So there ya go. A bit disappointing for sure, but it's good to have some numbers and another experience out there folks can look up if they're thinking about a tour. I do think there was networking value in it, as I got to meet more bloggers and anything that lets you connects with fellow writers is a good thing. And it was fun, even though it was a ton of work.

I can see me trying this again with another book aimed at a different market. MG is a tough market to reach online, so when I have a YA out there, I'll have access to more online venues and that could make a difference. If/when I try it, I'll be much better prepared to track it and will try some new things. And I'll let you guys know about it.

So, was doing a blog tour worth it? Maybe not in the way I would have hoped, but it was an invaluable learning experience and I think it'll be worth it in the long run.

Going on Tour? Just go Online With a Blog Tour

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Book tours have always been a great way to connect authors to readers, but with the travel and expense, it’s not something every writer can afford do on their own. It’s also not uncommon for publishers to only send their “bigger” authors on tour, since those are the folks who will draw the largest audience to the store, making it effective as well as cost-effective. Unless you’re one of those breakout debut bestsellers, odds are it’ll be a few books before you’re sent on tour.

My debut novel, The Shifter, came out in 2009. I did four local bookstore signings. One had about 25 people, one had around 15, one had maybe 10 and one had six. That’s actually not bad for an unknown author, but add them all up and that’s 51 people I spoke to about my book. For the second book, Blue Fire, I did 52 blog tour stops. Even if no one but the people hosting the blog tour read my posts, I was already ahead.

I Did it My Way: Tips on Doing a Blog Tour

Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Last week I wrote about my experiences on my recent blog tour, and today I have some tips and things I'd do differently next time. And yes, there will be a next time. I do think it was a valuable experience, and I'm glad to have done it. But I also think there are ways to improve my next blog tour.

Start Preparing Early

I can't stress this enough. I gave myself just over a month lead time, and by the end of the tour I was still scrambling to keep up. Replying to comments and checking back on blogs takes more time than you'd expect (especially if the blog doesn't have a subscribe or e-mail me replies button), and having all your posts done before the tour starts will save you a lot of stress later. 

Blog Tour Effectiveness, Part One: The Overview

I'm still collecting numbers, and I want to see how the post-tour 30 days goes, so the figures wrap up will be at the end of the month. For now, I have some general thoughts about the blog tour.

I bet what most folks want to know is: Was is successful? Did it sell books?

There are many ways to define success, so I'll cover a few different measurements.

Did I Enjoy Doing it?
Yes. It was hard work, but I had a lot of fun writing all the posts and chatting with folks in the comments. I've been trying to be more chatty and respond directly to more comments now, as I found I really liked doing that. I think regular blog readers liked the tour, and I think they liked having me visit their blogs. As a networking and connecting exercise I feel it was a success. I got to know some of my fellow bloggers and readers a little better and that was nice.

Did it Bring Readers to the Blog?
A major surprise to me, was that my daily hits dropped by half during the tour. I expected them to go up as new readers found me on the tour sites and came to see what I was all about, but that doesn't appear to be the case. My followers per week did triple, going from an average of 1-3 per week to 9 per week. Since the tour ended, it has dropped back down the 1-3 per week. I have seen a lot of new names in the comments, though.

I think one reason the hits dropped is because I wasn't doing a regular post, so my usual referring links weren't sending folks to me. My numbers have started climbing again as I've gotten back to regular posting, but they still aren't where they were before the tour. 

I also stopped posting on Absolute Write in October, because I was too busy keeping up with the comments on the guest posts and getting more posts done. AW is my third largest referring site to the blog, so that clearly hurt my numbers more than I expected.

Conclusion: I think it did bring in new readers, and the guest posts will continue to do so, but it wasn't a huge bump. Since I posted on sites of readers, odds are I was already reaching a lot of those readers anyway. 

What would I do differently next time: I'd make sure I did a regular post here, then linked to the tour posts. I'd also keep up with my regular forum postings. Reaching out to new sites unconnected to me would also be a good idea.

Did it Bring Readers to My Website?
I'll have more figures on this later, but there was an increase in web traffic. However, that started to drop off as the month continued. So I think as folks followed the tour, they stopped clicking the links because they already had earlier. And because my regular blog traffic slowed down, the web traffic slowed down. 

Conclusion: It did get my name out there, but it may not have kept it out there. It'll be interesting to see what the post-30-day numbers look like. 

What would I do differently next time: Not sure anything can be done differently concerning the website, except maybe create a more sales-focused intro blurb for every post. 

Did it Sell Books?
This is what everyone really wants to know, right?

The Shifter sales averaged about the same in October vs September (the paperback released Aug 31). So far, sales look about the same for November, but we'll see how the next few weeks shake out. There was a big spike in sales the second week of the tour, but that was also the first full week of the Blue Fire release, so I have no way of knowing if the tour spiked sales, or folks seeing Blue Fire on the shelves, then looking for book one did.

Blue Fire had a spike that second week, but that was also release week, so again, who knows what affected sales. Since then, it's evened out and has been steady every week. It's only been out a month, so I have no other figures to compare it to.

Blue Fire  is selling about 10% better than The Shifter (paperback) so far. So folks are picking up book one almost as much as they are book two. That does indicate new readers are discovering me, but I have no way of knowing where those readers found me. 

Conclusion: I'm waiting on website buy bottom click-through numbers, but what I've seen so far is inconclusive. If click-through numbers show a high percentage of folks that bought the book after clicking on a link in the the tour posts, then I'll know it sold books. If not, all I'll know is that folks didn't buy books from clicking on the links. I don't know if they went to the store to buy it or bought it at another online vendor. 

And this is the problem with marketing, because you really don't know what works and what doesn't. I could have had a ton of folks read a tour post and put my book on their holiday gift list, and those sales will show up in December. I just don't know. But aside from one spike that may or may not have been caused by the tour, I didn't see a huge difference in sales. 

What would I do differently next time: Being more sales focused might result in more sales. Most posts had the book info at the bottom because I didn't want to be in-your-face-pushy about it. But a marketing-type blurb intro might have done more to get folks to click over to a buy site.

I also think that targeting my tour posts to more than just writing sites could have made a difference. With a MG audience, it's hard to find online venues that reach that age group. But I could have done better reaching out to teachers and librarians, parents, more teen sites. A much wider variety of sites could have reached a wider group of readers.

I'll have more on Monday, and talk about what I'd do differently over all and what I felt worked more effectively.

Get It On(line)

It's common knowledge these days that if you're a writer, you'll need some kind of online presence. A website, a blog, Facebook, MySpace. Readers have access to so much and to compete, you need to be part of it.

But what works and what doesn't?

Honest answer, no one really knows. Just like no one knows how beneficial networking is. There's no way to track it with any certainty. There's no way to tell if reading, say this blog for example, will lead to sales of my book. But that's not why I do it. And if you're a writer trying to find your way in the online world, you shouldn't do something just for sales either. You should do what you enjoy, because keeping up with it is work, even if it's fun work.

So how do you know what you should do?

A website is a must. Not only does it get your name and information out there, it's a great resource for those interested in your book and your work -- which can also mean booksellers and librarians. Think of it as the business face of your writing career. It lets readers find you and learn more about you. It updates them on new work. A good website can take some effort (and money) to get set up, but once done, you don't have to worry too much about it on a daily basis.

A blog is a great way to interact with readers and other writers, but it's a commitment not everyone is willing to make. To keep readers coming back, you have to offer them new content on a regular basis. Coming up with things to write about can be hard. Coming up with things to write about that people care to read about is even harder.

My good buddy Juliette Wade is a linguistic anthropologist and writer, so she has a great foundation for a world-building blog. She has solid information to offer readers that could also translate into readers for her short stories and eventual book sale. (I have faith in her work) The same people who come to her for information are likely to read what she writes. A blog for her is a very good match from a marketing standpoint (even though that's not why she decided to blog either).

On the flip side, one of my daily blogs is Deepish Thoughts. I couldn't even tell you anymore how I first heard about this blog, but I'm sure it was a link on another blog I read. It has nothing to do with writing or books, and is more of a journal. But it's very well written and funny and poignant and I just flat out enjoy it. It's a perfect example of blogging for no other reason than you enjoy it.

My blogging is kind of in the middle. I have no direct link between blog and readers, but I assume there are readers out there who will be interested in writing and also be interested in my book. The majority of my future readers won't come from this blog. There's a good argument to be had that blogging is time better spent elsewhere.

Then why do I do it?

Because I enjoy it. I love sharing what I've learned with other writers because when I was starting out, other writers shared with me. I have no way to repay or even thank most of them, since so many came from online crit groups and forums, so this is what I do to say thanks. And I hope that anyone I've helped will do the same and reach out to those starting out when they take the next step on their wiring journey. I also love meeting and talking with other writers. We're a great community that supports each other, and in a business that's tough as it is, having that support is a blessing. I'm also a fan of the blogging medium. I read blogs every day and enjoy being connected to my fellow bloggers. I'm in this for me, not what it might get me. And that's a good place to blog from.

Should you do it?

Only if you enjoy it and feel you have something to share that will entertain readers and give them something they find value in. Heck, you don't really need to have something to say others will find value in if you just enjoy the act of blogging. Blogging could be a great creative outlet for you. It all depends on what you want out of it. If you blog because you think it will get you readers or to push your book, then maybe you're blogging for the wrong reason. If you blog because it satisfies something, whatever that is, it could be for you.

If you don't enjoy blogging...

Facebook and MySpace are great ways to to keep in touch with readers and writers without so much upkeep. You can post when you want, they're usually small, and you can share what's going on in your life, both personally and professionally. I enjoy my Facebook page and it's let me reconnect with friends I've lost touch with. I hope that I'll be able to interact with future readers as well since I love meeting writers I admire, and think it would be equally cool to meet readers who like me. Because isn't that why we write? To tell great stories that readers will enjoy? How lucky are we to live in a world where we can actually interact with those readers!

Do you have to do anything?

Nope. Just like writing, you should do what works for you and skip what doesn't.