Spirit Shapes Blog Tour Report

Now that my blog tour of Spirit Shapes is over, I thought you might be interested in a report.

The tour was a long one, beginning on the last day of September and continuing through October 31st.

I chose blog hosts for several different reasons:

I knew the blog was popular.
I'd visited before and it was successful.
I tried some new blogs hoping that they might have followers who didn't know anything about my books or me.

My work began early, contacting blog hosts, getting dates set, and then finally writing on whatever topic they asked for. That part is fun--I am a writer after all. I answered questions in interviews the hosts sent--some had unusual questions, others some I'd answered before but found new ways to approach the question.

I wrote about setting, something that might interest a particular blog following, how to keep track of my series, where, when and how I get my story ideas, what I cook or don't cook when I'm writing, how I created the character Lorna Collins and what she had in common with the real Lorna Collins, how the industry has changed, writing advice, what I do when I'm not writing, interviewed Tempe Crabtree and I wrote about recurring supporting characters, the importance of weather, historical facts, the inspiration for Spirit Shapes.

Several bloggers reviewed Spirit Shapes.

In the spirit of the season, I also wrote about ghosts and evil spirits, things that go bump in the night, living in a haunted house, some Halloween memories, Scary Stuff that's happened along the way,  and my love of horror movies.

Mishaps:

A couple of posts disappeared into outer space. Well, I thought I'd sent them--and I always asked for the person to respond that he or she received them, but sometimes it didn't work.

I learned to always check a couple of days before to make sure the post was all set. This also taught me that some people don't set up their posts ahead of time, but wait until the last day to do them.

I didn't always have the right address for the blog. I asked ahead of time but either in my transcribing or something else, it wasn't right. A quick email to the host remedied that.

The Positive Stuff:

I had many, many different people who commented on the blogs, many multiple times.

People made interesting comments and I could tell they'd read what I wrote.

I had lots of fun and it wasn't nearly as much work or did it cost anything like a bookstore tour would have. And frankly, I'm not up to that touring stuff anymore.

And the big question I'm always asked, did it result in sales? I really won't know until I get my next royalty statement.