In recent years, as publishing budgets have shrunk and the digital world has gained an ever-more-powerful footing, marketing and pr people have begun to redefine the book tour. While some major authors still occasionally ‘go on the road’, a new mode of publicity has begun to take over as the pr vehicle of choice – the ‘Virtual Book Tour.’

A Virtual Book Tour is one in which the “stops” are websites instead of cities, stores or other ‘real life’ venues.  Authors connect with readers online, via websites, blogs, podcasts, vlogs, teleconferences, chats, web-based articles and reviews, and Internet radio and TV, plus YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and other social networking communities.  Sometimes the author throws a ‘book party’ at his or her own website, but generally speaking he or she is visiting other people’s sites over a period of days or weeks in a structured, co-ordinated effort.  During these visits the author may be interviewed, answer questions from readers, have their book reviewed, or contribute original content in the form of an article, essay, guest blogpost, vlog or podcast.

Just as with ‘real world’ book tours, in order to be successful, the Virtual Book Tour must be a carefully organized and factor in the book’s subject matter and perceived audience.  Well before the tour begins, the highest profile and most related bloggers and website hosts are identified, queried and sent advance copies of the book, as well as media kits including press releases, author bios, photos and other pertinent materials (usually also in digital form).

It’s possible for authors to plan and set-up their own Virtual Book Tours, but as with the old-fashioned kind, tours are often most successful when a specialist is brought in to assist. Most of today’s publishers and marketing/pr agencies are well-versed in managing virtual book tours. In addition, there are some individuals and organizations who have made names for themselves exclusively in the Virtual Book Tour market. Among some of the better-known are Alex Mandossian (“VirtualBookTour Secrets.com“), Kevin Smokler (“BookTour.com”) and John Kremer (“BookMarket.com”).

Once the tour begins, it functions in many of the same ways that the ‘real world’ tour does, except that the author never leaves home – and possibly never even gets out of his or her pajamas.

“An invaluable resource!”

“A writer’s dream!”

“By far the best and most informative site I have found for writers!”

“Amazingly beneficial!”

“A valuable part of my writing life!”

Thank you so much, charter Hub members, for helping to make the Hub the truly valuable resource I dreamed it could be… a center for “all the information and resources you need for every aspect of writing, from the first word of a manuscript to the publishing house and all things in between.” The lively and vibrant discussions taking place in the Member’s Forum are inspiring, and we continue to upload new material and resources every week.  The questions you ask in advance of the teleseminars make for a rich learning experience for all, and the resources you’ve been sharing add to the wealth of information available under one roof.

Thank you for being among the first to join me in this new endeavor, for your tremendous votes of confidence and for helping to spread the word!

To read more testimonials for the new Children’s Book Hub, click here.

To join the Hub, click here.

The following is some basic information on social networking for children’s books… but the field is morphing so fast, that there are scores more opportunities in this area out there that even I don’t know about… so I hope those of you who are using these resources will take the time to comment and share what you know.

The prime social networking sites these days are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  (If you’re a YA writer, then MySpace is also worthwhile.) The real power comes from connecting these sites to each other (or to your blog), so that you need only post information in one place and it goes out to all of them. One way to do this is through Ping.fm – though you will also find ways on the sites themselves to connect with eachother.

Here’s the basic info:

1)  Facebook is the most used social network worldwide.  Users maintain a database of friends and update their personal profiles to notify friends about their activities. Users can also join special interest networks and groups, and become ‘fans’ of certain pages (such as the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.)  If you are a published author, you need to have not only a basic Facebook identity but also a Facebook fan page, in order to separate your friends from your fans. You can then link these to your Twitter account…

2) Twitter is a social networking/microblogging service, through which users send (and read) messages known as tweets. Tweets are brief updates of up to 140 characters, displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers, known as followers. ‘Tweeting’ means posting regular news updates about your activities to your followers. This can be purely social, or it can be a powerful marketing tool -  a way to build your list, and get your followers to come to your events, buy your book, etc. Bear in mind that, if you are a children’s book author, you need to be selective as to who you allow to become a follower. I have had the experience of allowing anyone to follow my tweets, then looking more closely at a follower’s icon or identity and discovering they were clearly somebody with a different agenda. You want to be sure your followers are authentically interested in children’s literature. The way to do that is to click back through to a would-be follower’s profile before you approve them as a follower. This way you can see what their information says about them.

3) LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site, in which users maintain a list of people they know and trust in business (called Connections). This list creates a network that consists of direct connections, the connections of each of their connections, and the connections of second- and third-degree connections (talk about six degrees!), which can then be used to explore news, jobs, and business opportunities. LinkedIn users can also join groups (such as “Childrens Publishing” or “SCBWI Members”) for news and networking with like-minded business colleagues.

4) Other Sites – There are a few other key sites for children’s book authors. Among them are JacketFlap, SCBWI.org, WritersDigest.com, and MediaBistro.com. Each of these sites requires the user to create a profile, and affords unique opportunities for users to connect and network with one another, posting and promoting news items.

Bear in mind that social networking is only as good as your profile on each site: how complete and detailed it is, and how often you update it. It is also time consuming.  For those of us looking for excuses to avoid writing, it’s a really good distraction. Because I manage Facebook and Twitter sites relative to my own stuff as well as the Julie Andrews Collection and Southampton Children’s Literature Conference, I have to give myself goals in terms of how many tweets or posts I make a week or a month relative to each of these things in order to avoid drowning in the details.

That said, there is no doubt that there is no better – or cheaper – way to build your list, or to market yourself, or your product, than to utilize this powerful resource.

Question: How can you turn one book into multiple sources of income, and continue to promote the original book at the same time?

Answer: Re-purpose it!

Re-purposing means converting the content from your book(s) into as many other formats as you can. Could your book make an audio book? An E-book? A web game?  Is there a possibility for a sequel? Can you turn it into a series? Can you make a picture book or graphic novel version of your novel? Can you re-purpose the same story for a younger audience, or an older audience? Can you adapt it into a song? Can you turn it into a play, or a musical? Can you create a workshop or build speaking engagements around the subject?  Can you offer teleseminars or webinars? What about a teacher’s guide? Articles for magazines or e-zines?  Is there a toy, a board game or another activity you could create? Can you make it the basis for a blog?

How many ways can you re-purpose one product?  In this way, you get paid anew for material you have already created, you offer your audiences greater value and opportunities to discover your message, and you gain more opportunities to promote the original work  – all at the same time.

Here are just some of the ways in which we have re-purposed our own books (and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface.) I hope this list might spark your own ideas as to how your story could be re-purposed as well:

The Dumpy the Dump Truck Series:

• Currently under consideration for a TV series
• Pajamas packaged with books for “Books to Bed”
• Fire safety and awareness package created for Dumpy and the Firefighters

Simeon’s Gift:

• Webgame based on the story (at www.julieandrewscollection.com)
• Teacher’s Guide
• Adapted into a musical for family audiences
• Further adapted into a symphonic performance

The Great American Mousical

• Webgame (www.julieandrewscollection.com)
• Song (“The Show Must Go On”)
• Teacher’s Guide
• Currently being adapted into a stage musical for family audiences

Raising Bookworms: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment

• Blog
• Workshops and speaking engagements
• Articles for e-zines and literacy websites
• E-book

By the way, this principle doesn’t just apply to books. Never lead a workshop or give a presentation without recording it – then get the recording transcribed. You’ve now got the material for blogposts, articles, workshops and more. Always be on the lookout for the ways in which you can parlay your existing materials into new sources of income, and new ways to reach your audience with your idea.

Even better is to have a website for yourself as an author, and one for each of your book projects. The URL (web address) for your own site should ideally be your name with “.com” after it, but if you have a common name and/or that’s taken, go for .net or .biz. (.org is OK too, though that generally suggests a not-for-profit organization). For your book projects, you ideally want “title of yourbook.com” but if that is not available, go for a close facsimile (can you substitute “2″ for “to” or “4″ for “for?) OR something that suggests what the book is about. (I purchased RaisingBookworms.com for my book, but I also got GettingKidsReading.com as an alternative web address to bring people to the site for my book.)

You can hire a website designer to create your site for you, or you can do it yourself. Nowadays there are literally dozens of easy, do-it-yourself website options. I am not especially tech savvy, but I’ve done a bit of both. It’s a question of time. Whether you build it yourself or you hire someone to build it for you, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on it – and it doesn’t have to be very complicated. Nowadays, most people are using “open-source” (meaning FREE) website building programs. Among the most popular of these is WordPress (which I have just switched over to using.) But even Google has a do-it-yourself website option. My 13 year old son often helps me with website maintenance and could build a website very easily. Most kids know more about the web than we do these days, so finding a savvy teen to help can be a very cost-effective way to go.

The basic information you need to have on your author site is this:
• Your bio (and be sure to keep it updated!)
• Detailed information about your book(s), including a photo of the cover, synopsis, 13-digit ISBN number, price, any awards, honors and reviews, and most especially a link to where to buy it (we’ll talk about affiliate programs in another post, where you can make commission off of anything sold by being referred from your site). If you have multiple books, you should also offer a printable list of all the titles/ISBN’s that a reader can easily download and take to a book store.
• A media kit, consisting of a downloadable photograph of yourself and any and all news items related to you, press releases about your books, or articles that relate to you or your book. (Articles written about you or your book show people that you have a platform and are of interest. Articles that relate to your subject matter advocate for you and demonstrate the relevance of your topic or theme.)
• A calendar that lets people know where you’ll be signing or speaking, when your next book will be out, and any other newsworthy information. Google Calendar is great – and it’s free. Once you have it, you can copy and paste the code into numerous websites and/or link to it in multiple places (like Facebook, or any other social networking sites). This way you only ever have to update one calendar, and it automatically updates it everywhere it’s posted.
• Your blog – More on this in a later post, but it is hugely helpful to have a blog… particularly if you have a niche.
• Recommended reading lists of other books in your genre that you admire. This gives you credibility as a writer and a member of the industry.
• Fun stuff, like games or downloads. For example, if you’re a picture book author, can you convert one of your illustrations into a black and white line drawing that kids can download and color in? Can you come up with a quiz related to your story? A printable bookmark? Are there some games you can come up with? For our book, The Great American Mousical, which is about mice putting on their own show in the basement of a Broadway theater, we created coloring pages from the illustrations as well as trivia quizzes and theater etiquette lessons.
• An opt-in invitation, or subscription button, where people can join your mailing list. This is worthy of an entire blog entry (which I will get to!) but for now, you want to be constantly thinking about ways to build your list, and this is a critical piece.
• News about what you’re working on and what’s coming up next.
• A ‘contact’ link, so your readers, booksellers, and members of the media can reach you easily via email.

One final point. Having a website means nothing if people can’t find it. This is where the search engines (like Google) come in. And having a really slick, lots of bells-and-whistles website doesn’t necessarily correlate with more traffic. In fact, the ones that make use of a lot of flash and embedded video technology often score at the lower end of the traffic scale. Once you have a website, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with basic search engine optimization (known as SEO in tech talk). More on that later too.

Over the years, we have designed and/or made our own bookmarks, postcards, posters, flyers, brochures, bookplates, downloadable activities, games and teachers guides. We’ve even made mp3’s, t-shirts, mugs, note pads, umbrellas and mouse pads. These giveaway items are invaluable at book signings, school presentations, book fairs and any other promotional or marketing opportunity. They help attract people to your table and speak for you long after you have moved on to the next gig. One of the best resources in this regard is Modern Postcard.com. This terrific company makes not just postcards but bookmarks, flyers, brochures and posters of all different shapes and sizes. Their printing is high quality, their costs are reasonable, and you can do it all digitally. The more you print, the less expensive it gets. And once you’ve placed your initial order, reprints/re-orders are a piece of cake.

Of course, with children’s books we want to think primarily about items that have kid appeal. How creative can you get? What can you come up with that relates to your book that you can print on and/or give away inexpensively? Think about balloons, pens, pencils, rulers, bubbles, stickers, craft items, toys, coloring books… the possibilities are endless. For these kinds of items you can use a source such as cafepress.com or zazzle.com. They will print your graphic, logo or message on any number of items that you can either buy at cost and give away at your events, or you can create your own virtual “store” that you can link to from your own website, sell the items and actually make some cash and get promotion at the same time.

Oh, we haven’t talked about creating your own website yet, have we? Stay tuned…