Book Marketing Tips | Book Tours | Blogging

A New Kind of Book Tour That Works

The unique book tour by Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included (with a social media update)

For today’s world I include a new way to do Rohit’s book tour via social media (see the bottom of this story).

To promote Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Rohit Bhargava invited fellow bloggers to send him five questions about the book. As part of the offer, he promised that the best interview would win a signed copy of the book and a $100 gift certificate from Amazon. 55 bloggers took him up on his offer.

Each blogger could ask the questions that were important to them. One blogger, for example, asked for Bhargava’s elevator pitch. His response: “Faceless companies don’t work anymore. In the social media era, personality matters.”

Another asked him if he considered himself a Simon, a Randy, or a Paula (the American Idol judges). He responded, “Definitely Simon, because he’s authentic. Authenticity to me means not blowing smoke up people’s behind when you think they are stupid.”

Still another asked him if the weird little wind-up chickens on the book cover had any significance. Nope. They were simply used to help the book stand out in the business section of bookstores. As Bhargava noted, “Have you seen chickens on any other marketing books?”

In his summary of this effort (https://www.rohitbhargava.com/2008/04/pni-virtual-int.html), Bhargava hinted that next time he did something like this, he’d probably make it easier for the bloggers (and him) by having them ask only 3 questions.

The Social Media Alternative Book Tour

Now, in today’s world, the blog tour isn’t really going to work (Rohit’s tour was in 2008). So many bloggers have quit featuring any sort of guest posts. That means you must look for another way to do the event.

My alternative book tour recommendation: Ask your Facebook audience to submit questions for you to answer. Make this request five or six times over a two-week period. As part of the request, remind them what they might win: an Amazon gift certificate, a cool gift, or several free ebooks from you.

Let them know that you will be answering questions live on a specific date (the day before your publication date, a special holiday event, or something like that).

Then on that date, answer each question via live posts to Facebook, Twitter, Parler, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. (you can post to multiple social media at the same time). Do a new Q&A post every five or ten minutes.

I would do live posts for the 10 best questions and then spread out the answers to the other questions in posts over a week or two. During the live event, I’d ask people to vote on the best question and the best answer (which might be different). A few days later, I would announce the winner.

Would you like to get an inside look at 100+ trends shaping our world? Get this free download of the special ebook edition of NonObvious: 100+ Trends by Rohit Bhargava as well as his Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter featuring the most interesting stories of the week (and why they matter) by clicking here:

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