Touring the Blogs - A Challenge

By Chester Campbell

I'm getting ready to do a Blog Book Tour for my new Sid Chance mystery, The Surest Poison. My Musings colleague Jean Henry Mead knows all about it. She's done one. In my case, I'll be doing guest posts at a variety of blogs for fifteen days, between April 15 and May 1. I'm skipping Sundays to give everybody (including me) a rest.

It's become more of a challenge than I thought it would before starting this venture. I think most writers, when they've finished a book and have the printed copy in hand, move on to the next project and only rarely open the pages to read any of it. I know some mystery authors who say they never crack a book once it's finished.

With a Blog Book Tour, it's quite different. Not only do you find yourself going back to read passages, you do an awful lot of thinking about what's in the book and how it came about. I'm working on short articles dealing with book promotion, the setting of the story, how the plot came about, thoughts on writing about Private Eyes, dialogue, how to use electronic rights, is the mystery really about murder, writing about social issues, using sub-plots, multiple points of view, plus interviews with me and my main characters.

So far I have only four out of fifteen completed. If I wasn't the type of guy who works better under deadlines, I would be thinking panic time. It doesn't take me long to write a piece. My problem is getting past all the chaff that clutters up my daily schedule. And I use that term loosely. A schedule implies you have a list of things lined up to do.

I'm encouraged by those who've been there and done that saying the tour will help spread the word about your book. If all goes well, it should encourage people to get the book who otherwise wouldn't have known about it.

So if you happen to spot me wandering around in cyberspace over the next few weeks, looking a wee bit lost and unsure where I'm headed, give me a kindly nod and a cheery "Hi, there!" And if you spot one of my guest blogs, post a comment and get your name in the hat for free books I'll give away during the tour.

To find where I'll be, when, and what I'll be writing about, check out my Mystery Mania blog for a complete schedule of the tour. I'm looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun.