One is to make sure the person who volunteers to host actually has a blog they know how to use.
It also helps if the blog host puts the blog and all photos etc. up ahead of time and dates it for the time it's supposed to appear. Not everyone does this and sometimes he or she forgets.
I learned to send an email a day or two ahead of time to remind the person so that he or she didn't have to scramble at the last minute.
Even though I asked each person to tell me when they received my material and the did, I had a couple tell me they never heard from me.
I am not being critical because goodness knows that I screw up at times too.
A month with a blog every single day is too long. I'd planned to skip the weekends, then I ran into blog hosts who wanted to have me on a weekend. I also had someone tell me weekends get the most hits, but I'm not sure that's true.
Going on a trip while you're on a blog tour complicates things. And of course I did. I drove to Portland OR with my publisher and was on the road and in hotels for 6 days. I took along my iPad and when I could get wifi I tracked the blogs and made comments on them and promoted as best I could.
It also helps if your computer doesn't die while you're on a blog tour. Mine got infected by a virus when I downloaded what I thought were updates to Windows. The computer was in the shop for over a week--drove me a bit crazy. The tech worked on it, brought it back home, worked on it some more, then worked on it remotely. It's fixed, though there are some changes that I haven't completely gotten used to yet.
One thing that always surprised me is when I go to the blog of the day and read the post I've written (sometimes finding a typo) I've forgotten what I wrote and it's fun to read it again.
So, though I had fun, had a lot of followers along the way and one of them will have her name used for a character in my next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, I am relieved it's over. Has it resulted in sales? I have no idea. Couldn't see much difference in the Amazon ratings. I think I'll have to wait for the royalty report to see if it helped.
Will I do another blog tour? I'm not sure. There may be other things that aren't so time consuming that are more profitable. But then again, I kind of like doing them.
And here's a link to a trailer for Spirit Shapes:
.http://bookvideos.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/book-trailer-spirit-shapes-by-marilyn-meredith/
From an exhausted, Marilyn
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