Aarrgghh….

…blog tours. I don’t know about you but when I read someone’s blog I want to read their blog about them – their thoughts, books, opinions, life, grievances, loves and hates. I don’t want to read endless pages of authors I have never heard of telling me what their star signs are and debating if they are a panster or a plotter. No, not sexual terms. They’re terms some writers use to describe whether they fly by the seat of their pants and make a story up as they go along or if they are cautious and think out every last detail. All a bit precious really. You write. Don’t over-analyse it.

 

Where was I? Blog tours. From what I can work out an online promo company will sign authors up, undoubtedly charging them for the privilege, to have their books plastered on multiple blog pages across blogland. In some ways it’s a good lurk for those promo companies because they’re getting paid for doing very little as the blog owner, unless they’ve handed over their password – bad move = loss of control - has to do all the work.  Then blogs are inundated by page after page of writers over-analysing themselves, their books, their characters and whether their 'muse' told them to write the ending where Rex discovers he loves Lex, the bad guy with a heart of gold and imposing sneer but who really just wants love, a puppy dog and a good shagging.

Yes, get your book out there by all means but do you want to see it sitting in the midst of a continuous rolling agenda of other books on a blog? How do you know that blog has readership? How do you know your words will be read and how do you know readers won’t just go blank, as I do, scrolling through a sea of multiple author words essentially saying the same thing over and over and over? And if you’re paying for this privilege? How’s that working for you?