Jen's Writing Journey

Welcome to the new home of Jen's Writing Journey, the blog that chronicles Jennifer Roland's writing life and provides useful information for new and seasoned writers.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or my email updates or follow me on Twitter.

Thanks for visiting!

Before my blog tour started, I posted some of the lessons I had learned about planning it. Now that it has reached its conclusion, I wanted to take a few minutes to share the lessons I learned about doing it.

1. Remember how I said to plan early? Do that, but also ensure that your hosts commit to a date early. Then follow-up to make sure they still have you on their schedule. Share the completed schedule with your hosts so they understand how they fit into the scheme ofthings and how important it is that they post you on the date they have agreed.
2. Batch write your posts. I prefer to write most of my blog posts once a week, and this is a good schedule to keep up for your blog tour. You and your hosts have agreed on the topics, so you know what you need to write. Getting it out of the way early in the week means you will have time during the week to…
3. Publicize your hosts daily. Do a daily post letting your readers know where you are, what you are talking about, and what your giveaway is. Also include links to your previous hosts so new followers can visit their blogs. The blog tour is a promotional tour for you, but it is also a way to share great blogs with your followers. You are both doing each other a favor and sharing your dedicated eyeballs with each other. If you are on Twitter, tweet about it. Post a link on Facebook or MySpace. Use your social media tools to engage your readers in their preferred location.
4. Respond to comments. The great thing about social media is the ability to interact. When people post a comment to enter the drawing, respond to them. On an active blog, you don’t need to respond to each “Enter me in the drawing” post, but if someone talks about your post topic, an interview response you gave, or their reactions to your work, take the time to respond. Think about how you would feel if an author you like took two minutes out of her day to read your comments and speak directly to you. Give your potential fans that feeling.
5. Keep in touch with your publisher. They can also help spread the word. Again, this is a win-win, because if you bring more attention to your book, you are also bringing attention to the rest of their catalog.

Have you done a blog tour? If so, please feel free to share your lessons learned. If not, feel free to ask questions. I may not know the answer myself, but one of the other readers might be able to help.

• Writing Roundup E-reads: Penetrating the Mystery of E-book PricingEver wonder why e-books are priced the way they are? Wonder no more. This article provides an interesting look at pricing models and their basis in print pricing models.IPod Touch, iPhone Join Kindle's Book ClubThe Kindle store is becoming slightly more inclusive by offering......
• Writing Roundup, December 18 The Business of Writing Craft Fiction Freelancing Platform The Business of Writing Digital ARCs Make Progress Novelist L.J. Sellers looks at the move toward digital review copies. How will that affect writers. Backlist Title Dilemma How should authors deal with their less than stellar backlist releases? Shrug and hope......
• Guest Blogging at Love Romance Passion I got the opportunity to write a guest post on feminism and romance novels, and I jumped at it. It expands some of the issues I touched on in The Argument for Love. Since I submitted this piece, yet another news story came out about the growing economic power of......
• I'm a Kreativ Blogger I got a wonderful comment on Monday's blog post from Rebecca Emerich, whose blog Living a Life of Writing has been featured in my weekly Writing Roundup quite a few times. Rebecca is a prolific blogger who maintains three distinct blogs and posts on her writing blog daily--even on the......
• Writing Roundup, May 15 [digg=http://digg.com/educational/Essential_Links_for_Writers]We're halfway through the month already. How have you done with achieving your writing goals so far? The Business of Writing Where Have All the Bookstores Gone? Obviously, you must sing this title to the tune of Paula Cole's Where Have All the Cowboys Gone. No? That's just me? Anyway,......

• Publish Blog Posts More Successfully Blogging is about more than just putting your thoughts down in words, because blogging is capable of sharing news, spreading messages, facilitating conversations and so...
• Selecting a Blog Host The following is part of Frugal Dad's weekly series, "So You Want to Be a Blogger?" which chronicles the development and optimization of a blog's...
• How to Handle Corporate Blog Comments One of the biggest issues in the corporate blogging world is whether or not you should allow readers to comment on your blog posts. There...
• 3 Tips on Avoiding Failure with Your Corporate Blog One of the main problems facing corporate blogs is that they have a high rate of failure. This can be due to many factors, but...
• Be a Blogger: Set Your Post Frequency The following is part of Frugal Dad’s weekly series, “So You Want to Be a Blogger?” which chronicles the development and optimization of a blog’s...