You have written a book and published it…now what? Book promotion is the biggest challenge for authors. Many authors who have little background in marketing or business find the sales end of writing a challenge. Whether your book is self-published or not, sales generation is largely up to the author. An affordable and easy way to do this is by conducting a blog tour, a planned series of reviews, interviews and guest blog posts on several book blogs. But where does an author begin? I recently sat down with book promoter, Samantha Robey, for answers.

Fix: After accepting an invitation to guest post, have a solid conversation with the blogger. Learn what his or her expectations are and what they are looking for in a guest post from you. That way there are no surprises when you submit your work.

Tell each blogger the tour’s timeframe and what your expectations are when they participate in the tour. This may include: During the tour, they need to write a review of your book that includes the book’s cover linked to your Amazon page or wherever your book is sold; and you’ll provide them with 1-3 articles that pertain to your book’s topic that they will run during the tour as “buy guest blog posts” (from you) on their blog. And in the articles you provide them, they’ll include your short bio, pic of your book (or of you), and link to your website. You’ll provide EACH of the blogs that participate the same articles and each of them can run the articles in any order they want during the tour.

Guest blogging is an advanced method of building a good network of links. Through guest blogging, you can get good exposure for your Website. There are two ways to get traffic from links through guest blogging.

Dress the part. This means be fashionable, but not don’t overdo it. Walking up to the gate in an evening gown will not help your case. Look effortlessly casual, with a strong sense of yourself. Black is the most common, of course, but bold will also work. This is after all a fashion show, show some style. Depending on the show you are attending, funkier designers call for a little more creativity. Wear heels. This is not the occasion for your comfy flats. Shoes speak volumes.

Google – You can obviously pay for traffic on Google, but it’s really hard to make a profit so I’m going to suggest you use a process called “Search engine optimization” or SEO.

Try being there for your readers constantly. Make a habit or routine for both you as well as your readers. If you feel like your blog is not something you want to continue with, keep in mind that you’re not the only one who will be disappointed.

Your guest post should not be too lengthy or too short. Restricting your blog post from 400-600 words will be of great use to readers. Do you have any more suggestions?