By now, most authors know what virtual book tours are or have at least heard of them. They are that wonderful marketing tool that should be a must in every new book campaign. With every new book I write, I make a plan before the book is published and a virtual book tour is the first promotional spot on that list.

While most of us know what they are, there are still some new authors who may have heard of them but have no idea what they entail. I’m giving you my top 10 things you need to know about virtual book tours so you know what to expect.

1. Virtual book tours are the BEST way to get the MOST online exposure for your book. Not only are you introducing your book and yourself to thousands of people, all your interviews, guest posts, and reviews are archived, which means months later, you’re still selling your book because of that tour.
2. Virtual book tours ARE a lot of work. Not only are you looking for the perfect blogs to host, but you’re acting as the middle man between you and the blogger, unless you’re using a paid service like Pump Up Your Book, which will do all the legwork for you. Even if you sign up for Pump Up Your Book, there’s still a lot of work to do to complete the tasks — completing interviews and writing guest posts — unless you choose a full review tour. Even though it requires a bit of your time to complete interviews and write guest posts, it’s well worth it.
3. You will learn more about your book than ever before. One author told me that through the interviews and guest posts she had to complete, she never learned so much about her book that it caught her off guard. Now, when she gets interviewed on radio shows and she makes TV appearances, she’s better prepared.
4. Virtual Book Tours Will Build Your Authoring Platform. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fiction or non-fiction author, virtual book tours will build your author platform using your search keywords.
5. Your reviews are guaranteed. Offline advertisers, while well-intentioned, get it all wrong. They consult a book blogger, arrange to ship the book, and that’s where it stops. The review is not guaranteed. The reviewer can publish the review at any time they see fit. With virtual book tours, your review is guaranteed by a certain date unless the reviewer jumps ship, which rarely happens. One author told me that she signed up with an offline publisher who sent out a lot of books and only one or two reviewers accepted them. That was a waste of money for the author. Books aren’t cheap these days, so setting a date by which you and the reviewer can agree guarantees that the review will be done.
6. Many reviewers now accept eBooks which save you money. Thank goodness someone was smart enough to invent a device that automatically loads a book in a few seconds (no more waiting to go to the bookstore, dude) and makes it fun to read. When Amazon dropped the price of the Kindle, sales skyrocketed and book lovers began talking about buying one. What that means is that it opened up a wonderful way to get these books to book reviewers quickly and less expensively. Have you noticed how much the books cost and how much it costs to ship them? I’m not saying that all reviewers will accept eBooks, but as time goes on, most will have an eReader and will actually prefer an eBook.
7. More website visits, more blog visits, more Twitter visits, and more Facebook fan page visits. All authors must have a website or blog and accounts on Twitter and Facebook. It doesn’t matter if you think everyone is a waste of time.. A virtual book tour will definitely get you more views everywhere, as long as your links are in your bio.
8. Going on a virtual book tour increases your Alexa ranking. What is Alexa? Alexa measures how well you’re doing on search engines. By taking a virtual book tour and including interviews and guest posts during that tour, links to your website and blog are included in each bio (or should be!). Those are inbound links that Alexa uses to measure your ranking. The more your website or blog link appears on other sites, the more valuable your site will be to them and therefore your rankings will skyrocket.
9. You will learn how to sell your book through media exposure. Not all authors take advantage of their interviews and guest posts by targeting their audience, thus drawing them to their book and/or website/blog. I’ve had many authors on the road and the ones who really take the time to make their interviews and guest posts effective sales tools stand to gain the most. The key here is to make your audience curious. One line in the case of interviews may not be enough. Of course, there are so many ways to answer “What is your book about?” But take your time and peak your audience’s curiosity so they head over to your website or your book purchase link.
10. Virtual book tours teach you how to connect well with others. There is no better way to learn to network. All these wonderful book bloggers who agree to host you are your new friends in your extended network and will be there to help you the next time you have a book to promote (unless they absolutely hate it, of course). He’ll also learn how to use social media effectively while studying how to attract people to his stops with persuasive words. Remember to speak to your audience, not to them.

There you go. In a nutshell, 10 reasons I think you should know about virtual book tours. If you have a tour coordinator instead of organizing one yourself, she will guide you to make it a fun experience for everyone. Your book will thank you.