So What's a Blog Tour Anyway?

Some of you might have wondered this after I posted the links to the First Wilcard Blog Tour for Yesterday's Tomorrow.
Basically, a Blog Tour entails recruiting a number of people who will read your book and review it, then post this on their blog all on the same day. It's a marketing tactic. A way to spread the word about your book, hopefully picking up new readers along the way. Usually what happens is that once you sign on for the service, information about your book is posted to all those who review for that particular Tour, the date of the blog tour is set, and people let you know if they're interested in reading and reviewing your book. At least that's how it worked for me.

Pros -
Using First Wild Card Blogs is free.
You can choose however many people you prefer - 10 or 30 or whatever. I had about 21 people on my tour.
If you get a lot of good reviews, this is good.
Most people will also post on Amazon, Goodreads etcetera.
Your book gets exposure on a bunch of different blogs and hopefully if all those people like it, they'll tell all their friends what a great book it is and then their friends will buy it, and the next thing you know, Oprah's calling.

Cons-
If your publisher doesn't supply you with free books, you're out of pocket. You have to decide if it's worth it for you to order and ship all those books to people.
If the readers don't like your book, well then... To be fair, I've heard most people say they usually won't write a review if they didn't enjoy the book.
Even though they receive a book, not everybody will post. You're sending them a book on good faith. To be honest, I was very picky about making my list. I know some people are just out for freebies.

There are many places that offer book tours, but I have seen some where the fee for being on the book tour is quite high. Because I knew I had to pay for my books myself, I chose the free one.
Was it worth it?
Yes. I got some great reviews and I think I picked up a few new readers.
Not everybody I sent a book to posted on the tour, and that was a little disappointing, especially considering the cost. However, all in all, I would do it again.

Blog tours are just one way of putting your book into the hands of readers. I'm desperately trying to come up with more...so stay tuned! And if you have any bright ideas, please share them!