Blog Jog Day Sign-Ups in the Works

40 sign-ups so far for Blog Jog Day November 21st. Can we reach last years total of near 150? Sign up now to get your blog seen! Visit http://blogjogday.blogspot.com for more info.

Another Great Way to Get Hits to Your Blog!

When I first began this Blog two years ago, I would get only four or five visitors per day. I was frustrated because I wanted to share book writing tips with others and I didn’t know how. I had befriended a wonderful person online who I shared my frustration with and she told me about Entrecard. Entrecard is a free service where all I had to do was add a link to my site (see link to the right) and other related, as well as some unrelated Bloggers, click on to my Blog to earn credits towards their own advertisements on other sites. It’s all free and increased my hits to over 50 per day! Now my site is highly ranked by the search engines and I get new visitors every day.

Entrecard has been a terrific asset to my Blog and has really helped me grow. I suggest if you have a Blog or Website, try it and see if your visitor count doesn’t increase substantially. If not, you can easily remove the link (but I think you’ll be surprised!). Click on to Entrecard!

Read the Entrecard Blog at http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=1593

2'nd Blog Jog Day Coming Soon!

Our second annual Blog Jog Day will be held on Sunday, November 21!

Plug Your Blog! Potentially thousands of hits in one day! Long-term results! Permanent links! Join us for Blog Jog Day on November 21.

What is Blog Jog Day? It’s a one-day event where Bloggers are joining together for a pyramid effect promotional rally. We all post on the same day with each post leading the visitor to the next Blog, and so on full circle. That’s it! Visitors explore your Blog, and then click on to the next one bringing potentially thousands of unique visitors to your site.

How Blog Jog Day Can Benefit Bloggers
*More unique visitors to your Blog
*More subscribers
*More comments
*More inbound links
*More Followers
*More exposure and sales
*Grow your daily hits
All which look great to Google, Yahoo, Bing, and the other search engines! With popularity comes a higher Page Rank and greater exposure for your Blog!

How It Works
Bloggers can sign up at http://blogjogday.webs.com. There is a one-time $2.00 participation fee which helps support additional advertizing for Blog Jog Day.

Then follow-up with an e-mail to chipanugget@gmail.com with your Blog address. Within a few days, you will receive a post to copy and paste as a post on your Blog. It will look similar to this:
“Thank you for stopping by my Blog! Please explore all this Blog has to offer, then jog on over to (add next Blog link here). If you would like to visit a different Blog in the jog, go to http://blogjogday.blogspot.com.”

You will be allowed to personalize your Post to suit your own Blog and personality. Maybe a good opportunity for a giveaway, contest or poll on your Blog? However, we will be providing the required link to the next Blog.

I can’t guarantee massive results, but I can assure you of numerous new visitors to your site! The more of us that do it, the better the results for all of us! Last year was great!

We all have Blogs, we all have friends. What are you waiting for…get on board now!

Virtual Book Touring with Author Patricia Rockwell

Patricia Rockwell has spent most of her life teaching. From small liberal arts colleges to large regional research universities and even a brief stint in a high school; her background in education is extensive. She has taught virtually everything related to communication. Patricia was on the faculty at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for thirteen years, retiring in 2007.

Sounds of Murder, her first novel, is a cozy mystery which follows the exploits of amateur sleuth and acoustics expert Pamela Barnes, as she attempts to use her knowledge of sound to solve the murder of a university colleague strangled in the departmental computer lab.

Recently, Patricia organized her own virtual book tour and is here to chat with me about that experience.

Carol Denbow: Welcome Patricia, so glad you are here to help our visitors understand what a “virtual book tour” is and how it works to promote your books. Please start by offering us your definition of a virtual book tour.

Patricia Rockwell: Carol, my understanding is that a “virtual book tour” occurs when an authors “tour” around the blogosphere visiting different blogs and at each stop to promote their books. It takes the place of a “real” book tour in which authors would actually travel around the country from bookstore to bookstore promoting their books. The major benefit is that the “virtual” tour is less expensive and less time consuming.

Carol Denbow: You set up your recent virtual book tour yourself. How did you locate and make contact with online sites for your tour stops which would be suitable to your genre?

Patricia Rockwell: Well, for me it was a no-brainer. I have two blogs and a number of followers; a number of whom I’ve gotten to know quite well. I put a request up on both my blogs for hosts for my book tour, indicated the dates and what would be involved. I received responses from six bloggers which covered most of the dates I had planned for the tour.

Carol Denbow: When contacting potential tour stop sites, how receptive were the Webmasters to your requests?

Patricia Rockwell: Very. As I said, I posted the request on my blogs and bloggers responded to me—so I knew they were willing.

Carol Denbow: Did you set up individual interviews at each stop, post book reviews, or what?

Patricia Rockwell: I gave each blogger the choice as to what they preferred. They all chose interviews so that’s what I prepared. Some gave me prepared questions, and some let me create my own.

Carol Denbow: How did you promote your virtual book tour?

Patricia Rockwell: Mostly, I just posted about it on my blogs, mentioned it on Facebook, and tweeted on Twitter.

Carol Denbow: In your personal opinion, how hard was it and how much time did you need to invest to set up a successful tour?

Patricia Rockwell: I found it was less time-consuming than I imagined it would be. The important thing for me was to maintain a calendar of each date of the tour and know exactly what was to happen on that date and make certain I was prepared and had delivered the appropriate material to each blogger in time for the visit of the day.

Carol Denbow: Was there any monetary expense in putting together your virtual book tour?

Patricia Rockwell: No.

Carol Denbow: Where did you learn how to put your tour together and make it happen?

Patricia Rockwell: Mostly from your blog and other online sites.

Carol Denbow: In your eyes, was the tour a success and would you recommend other authors try it?

Patricia Rockwell: It’s hard to evaluate how successful it was because it’s difficult to attach book sales to one particular event. I can’t say I saw a dramatic rise in book sales from the tour, but I certainly got more press that week than I had previously.

Carol Denbow: Is there anything you would do different if you decide to do it again in the future?

Patricia Rockwell: I think I might expand beyond just the followers of my blogs—maybe investigate some book bloggers or other book sites, particularly sites oriented to my genre.

Carol Denbow: Thank you Patricia, great interview!

Patricia Rockwell’s publications are extensive; with over 20 peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals, several textbooks, and a research book on her major interest area of sarcasm published by Edwin Mellen Press. In addition, she served for eight years as Editor of the Louisiana Communication Journal.

Dr. Patricia Rockwell is presently living in Aurora, Illinois, with her husband Milt, also a retired educator; the couple has two adult children. Visit Patricia’s Blog at http://subjectivesoup.blogspot.com.

If you are interested in learning more about organizing a virtual book tour of your own, read the e-book, How to Organize a Virtual Book Tour, available at Authors Box.

On Book Marketing

While waiting on an “in-progress” special post for A Book Inside Blog, I’ve decided to offer a one-time deal to my blog visitors to help with their pre-holiday book marketing (no, it’s NOT too soon).

Now through October 31st, when you order either of my e-books, How to Organize a Virtual Book Tour or 100 Ways to Market Your Book For Free (or really cheap), I will include the other one free! Each of these books is available on my Website for $3.99, but right now you can get twice the help for the price of one book. That’s a boatload of marketing information for a very affordable price!

Also, if you have your heart set on the new e-book version of A Book Inside, How to Write, Publish, and Sell Your Story, order it and I will include one of the above titles for free as well!

To order, please visit my Website at AuthorsBox or go directly to the Webstore at http://authorsbox2.webs.com/apps/webstore/. Please specify your desired free e-book when ordering.

I wish every author out there successful holiday sales for 2010!