Virtual Book Tour Review by Christine Amsden: Bewitching Book Tours

Hello, folks!

In our continuing series from award-winning author Christine Amsden, today we feature another review of an online book tour company. Thanks again to Christine for providing us with this valuable information! Please be sure to share your support for Christine's candid and open reporting here by checking out her website and commenting below.

Aaron Paul Lazar

www.lazarbooks.com

Virtual Tour Service Review: Bewitching

I hired Bewitching Book Tours in September as part of my continuing promotion for Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective. Since Cassie Scot came out in May, this book tour was several months on from its release. Sales were good, but certainly not as strong as they had been in the first few weeks. My goal with this tour was to keep the book in the public eye until the release of its sequel, Secrets and Lies.

Price

Bewitching book tours is a low-cost tour host. Its most expensive package, which was the one I went with, is $155. It includes a month of tours and help finding radio interviews. For a month of regular tour stops you can spend $110, which is extremely competitive.

Value

This was a good value. Please keep in mind that I have no idea how to draw a line from any given promotion to sales. Too many factors come into play, and as I said above — one of my big reasons for scheduling this tour was to keep this book current until the release of book two in the series. It did that, and it didn’t cost that much to make it happen.

Look and Feel

Bewitching came up with several cute banners for me (one of them is pictures at the top). The banner links to my book’s tour page on Bewitching, which was professional, well designed, and attractive.

Giveaway

The tour included a rafflecopter giveaway of two Amazon gift cards (provided by me). Most book tours suggest using a giveaway as a strategy to attract participants, but sometimes those giveaways attract so little interest that I have to wonder if it’s really working, or if it just sounds good. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who entered this contest, especially given that it wasn’t for a super big prize (like the Kindle Fire I gave away with PUYB) and it only lasted a month. Bewitching’s giveaway renewed my faith in giveaways in general, although I have just become more exacting about how they get carried out. Bewitching, you have raised the bar.

Professionalism and Communication

On this point, I can’t say enough good things about Bewitching. I am beginning to think that this is the most important part of a good book tour. That’s mostly what they’re doing, right? Hooking up authors with interested bloggers, setting up a schedule, mailing out reminders, and keeping up with it all is almost entirely about organization and communication. Roxanne was on the ball. She replied promptly and politely to every e-mail I sent her. Plus, I have never had a tour go this smoothly — ever. There was only one no-show all month. I usually feel like I have to be on top of every stop to make sure it has even taken place! For once I just found the daily stop, posted my thank you (always thank your tour hosts), and went about my day.

Miscellaneous

My only nit-pick about this tour provider is that they do not make any promises about your book getting the top spot on a blog. That is to say, a site may post multiple promos on a day, and your book could fall anywhere in the list. For the most part, this was a non-issue. Most days my book was at the top anyway. But twice — exactly twice — my book was so far down that it felt like little more than a footnote. Once in was the fifth post, and the other time I had to click through multiple pages of posts all made on the same day — so many I lost count. Bewitching promotes your post directly on social media, but I still felt like those blogs’ followers were unlikely to see my promo.

Bottom Line

I recommend Bewitching Book Tours. I plan to rehire them, probably as another bridge tour between Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot #2) and Mind Games (Cassie Scot #2).

Check out Christine's newest book, here.

***

Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories.

Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that effects the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams. (You can learn more here.)

In addition to writing, Christine teaches workshops on writing at Savvy Authors. She also does some freelance editing work.

Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. They have two beautiful children, Drake and Celeste.