Before I let Angela have her say, I wanted to thank her for offering to give us all a heads up on the virtual tour hosting business. :) So thanks so much, Angela, for agreeing to share your insights with us! :)

Being a virtual book tour host is tough business.

The Top Three Gripes of a Virtual Book Tour Host - and How You Can Avoid Them by Angela WilsonNot only do I book authors for Pop Syndicate's Book Addict blog, I have to assign (beg) contributors to do some interviews, track down author photos, cover art, book trailers, excerpts and other items for the final post.

It takes an incredible amount of time and effort. For the most part, authors are extremely excited to be featured at Book Addict. They send me everything I need in one email and follow up to be sure I received that e-mail and did not need anything else.

Others, however, lack follow through. And not just the authors. Some publicists are just as bad - or worse.

I blog about the idiosyncrasies of virtual book tours at my personal blog, Market My Novel, but sometimes I feel like I'm blogging to thin air. I see the same mistakes over and over again.

So, instead of offering a tips post, today I'm going to share with you my Top Three Quirks of a VBT Host - and a few suggestions for how you can avoid VBT catastrophes and guarantee another spot at important book tour blogs.

Vanishing Act

It amazes me how the excitement of a tour stop quickly fizzles.

Some authors approach me to be on Book Addict as part of a larger online promotional tour. They are incredibly excited and ready to go right now.  But when I send them emails to confirm their dates or send the questions for their tour, they never respond. They vanish, like chimney smoke on a cold, windy winter day. This sometimes even happens after I book a date, which means I have to scramble to find a new author to fill the slot. I look like an idiot, too, since I post authors on our public Google Calendar.

I remember one publicist in particular. We sent a request to her to host an author at our blog after we received a news release that he was doing tours. We got no response. Then, more than a month later, this publicist e-mailed me and the site's Editor-in-Chief, "raring to go" on a tour.

I could tell immediately that her excitement came from a meeting they just had about the benefits of virtual book tours. (Anyone one who has worked in Corporatopia knows how these work. The excitement quickly fizzles.) I e-mailed our criteria. The agency never got back to me.

I followed up. A week after my follow up e-mail - three weeks after the initial excited query - I get another e-mail, with more subdued excitement, but still the willingness. This went on a bit, then I got the final e-mail, saying the author was not willing to type responses to our questions. This particular author wanted only audio. Obviously, they had no idea that for Search Engine Optimization, text is better, but hey, I learned something.

The entire situation was frustrating and a total waste of time. We should have had an answer within a week's time about the author's preferences and we should not have had to track down the publicist.

When you commit yourself to a tour stop, you'd better follow through. Most virtual book tour hosts will understand if something happens. At Book Addict, one thriller author had to postpone his interview indefinitely because of a death in his family. A non-fiction author was under water after a hurricane in Texas and had no access to a computer. These happened just before their tour dates, but I made due because these were simply life circumstance beyond their control - not irresponsibility.

If you don't show up - and don't have a darn good excuse for doing so - you can bet you will not be welcome at virtual book stops in the future. If you find you need to cut back, get in touch with your tour hosts as quickly as possible so they have enough time to fill your slot.

Don't forget that the blogosphere is a small place, and reviewers and virtual book tour hosts talk to each other and share information.You could easily get blacklisted at sites you never approached, simply because of talk.

APB: BOLO for Information

Many times, authors forget to send me all of their items - or their publicists doesn't have them. I have to visit various sites - Web sites, blogs, Amazon, YouTube, to grab author photos, cover art, book trailers, bios and more. The best thing authors can do for their VBT hosts (and anyone else they want to interview with) is have a Media Center at their Web site.

These one-stop shops are fabulous for reporters, interviewers, reviewers and readers. It is a place where you put all of the information needed for virtual book tours, interviews and more. It saves your VBT host time - and you time, because all you have to do is send a link, instead of dig around for all the e-mail attachments needed.

A few great examples of author Media Centers:

http://www.oliverbooth.com

http://www.jordandane.com/media.php

Here are some items you can include in your own Media Center:

▪ Photographs of yourself in JPEG
▪ Cover art in JPEG
▪ News release archive (PDF)
▪ Guest blog appearance list (PDF or links list)
▪ Book tour and virtual book tour stops (PDF or links list)
▪ Links to your social networks
▪ Biography (include one short and one long bio) (PDF)
▪ Publicist contact information
▪ Excerpts (PDF)
▪ Downloadable audio clips
▪ Videos with EMBED codes

Don't have all this stuff? Then post what you do have and continue building on that. Free blogs that allow you to create pages are excellent for Media Centers. I recommend Typepad.

You can't think of anything better than that?!

I've had authors submit really poor Q&As. One author answered each question with a one-word or one-sentence answer. I nearly pulled the tour. It was a waste of my time to post it. It is a waste of a reader's time to glance at it - and, frankly, it makes a bad impression on the readers you are trying to impress.

Think about it. If you can't come up with anything more creative than a one-word answer to a question about your book or how you get inspired, why should readers think your book will offer anything fun, different or exciting?

I don't expect a novel, but I do expect authors to take time to consider my questions - and give our readers good responses.

Trust me when I say that I get it that Q&As are tough to answer. They are time-consuming and thought-provoking. Here are a few things you can do to ease the Q&A crunch:

    •    Most Q&As will have repetitive questions, so you can keep a file of them and copy and paste those answers into the form, then tackle the unique questions after that.
    •    If answering individual Q&As is too overwhelming or time-consuming for you, consider asking hosts to post guest blogs instead. You can write up 10 guest blogs on three different topics and have them at the ready for your hot touring time. Bloggers always need fresh content, and most will be happy to post.

Trust me when I say VBT hosts remember the authors who make their jobs a little easier - and fun.

If you want your virtual book tour to be a success - and lay the groundwork for future online promotions, then avoid these Top Three Quirks to stay on your VBT host's good side.

Angela Wilson is an author and social media consultant. She offers marketing tips to authors at her blog, Market My Novel. Find out more about media centers and other topics by visiting http://www.marketmynovel.com. Read author interviews at http://www.popsyndicate.com/books.