What is a Bookstagram Tour and Why Should Authors Give it Try?

Many authors struggle with questions of how best to market and sell their books and if you are one of them, you are not alone. We search for creative ways for our books to be seen, to find our readers, and to get honest reviews for our books. After the toil of completing the book, the marketing and sales part should be fun, but it’s enough to drive an author crazy.

Ever heard of a Bookstagram Tour? I hadn’t–or, at least–I hadn’t paid much attention to the idea, until I was studying how to launch my recent novel, Deadly Declarations. I asked Cindy Burnett with the Thoughts from a Page Podcast what she knew about these tours and she connected me to Suzy Approved Book Tours. I connected with Suzy–actually Suzanne–I booked a tour, and you know what? It was fun, generated attention for my novel, and resulted in a variety of photo shoots for my book cover.

In this post, I talk about how my tour worked, what I enjoyed about it, and I provide some fun images from the tour.

The Nuts and Bolts

I reached out to Suzy via email, let her know that Cindy had given me her name, and I attached my novel media sheet with details about the novel on the front side (which included an image of the book cover) and reviews on the back side. Before I go further, I recommend that authors put together a novel media sheet. Most traditional publishers do that for authors. Indie authors and small press authors can use a publicist or learn to do it. The reason is simple. Whether an author is marketing themselves to a book store, an event planner, a reader, or even a vendor for an Bookstagram tour, having a succinct but engaging promotional piece for your novel is important. Here is a link to the front page of one of my novel sheets for Deadly Declarations. EVENTsheet

Suzy got right back to me and we set up a call. By the way, I should tell you that I reached out to her in November of 2021 even though my novel was not going to be released in eBook until March 1st and in print until April 5th. Don’t be one of those authors that would like to schedule your book tour one month from the release date. Chances are the better tours will be booked and the ones that are happy to take your money on short notice will give you a book tour that feels like it was done on short notice.

The reason to reach out early is so that your tour guide–not sure if tour guide is the correct term but Suzy was clearly my guide in this new adventure–can pitch the book to Bookstagrammers in plenty of time for you to send them your book . Google defines these people known as Bookstagrammers as “Instagram users who focus on artfully staged book photos and/or reviews.” Google goes on to say they are “an integral part of the Bookish community.” Google is not wrong about this. The Bookstagrammers Suzy lined up for my tour were good photographers, they read my book, and they posted honest reviews. Enough said.

Before the Bookstagrammers could do their thing, Suzy had to pitch my book. To assist her with that, before I hung up in our first phone call, I said “let’s do this thing” and then I sent her some links within the hour. I gave her the pre-order link for the eBook that had just gone up on Amazon. I gave her access to a Google Drive folder with the following materials: complete two page sale sheet for the novel; three page promo sheet about me and my podcast; image of the front of the book cover; 3D image of the book cover; image of the back cover; image of the combined covers; WORD document with nine reviews of the novel by other authors; WORD document with the book synopsis and other details; and links to my author and podcast websites and all my social media links.

I am guessing Suzy didn’t need everything I sent her because she is good at her work. And yet, I have to believe that by giving her a professional looking set of materials she could use to formulate her pitch to her Bookstagrammers, it helped. Maybe it was one of the reasons that more Bookstagrammers signed on for my tour than is typical for the package I requested.

Within four days of sending my email to Suzy with links to my book marketing materials, Suzy sent me two emails. One was a list of the Bookstagrammers who would blog my book on Instagram. The other was a list of the mailing addresses for these Bookstagrammers that I could use to mail them printed copies of the books. I understand some Bookstagrammers will take eBooks, but print copies make for the best photographs.

My job was to put the print copies in the mail to the Bookstagrammers. I did that in early December. I added to each mailing my novel’s bookmark, a personal thank you note on my novel-themed postcard, and some podcast swag.

At my request and with Suzy’s input, she set the tour to run February 16 through April 15th. We decided to have it cover the release of the eBook and the print book.

In the next few weeks, Suzy added a few more Bookstagrammers to the list who requested to be on the tour and I knew two months before the tour began the dates that each Bookstagrammer would post about my book.

You will find there are a multitude of Bookstagram tour groups online that are happy to help authors part with their marketing funds to promote their books. As with anything, I am sure some tour groups are better than others. I am only one of Suzy’s many customers, so I can’t speak for everyone she has represented. What I can say is that my personal experience with Suzy was very positive.

I can also say that Suzy does not know I am writing this post and I receive nothing in return for giving her a shout out other than the joy of paying forward a few good words for her and the Bookstagrammers she recruited who participated in my tour.

Finally, What Is the Return?

Are you one of those authors who likes to crunch the numbers and know how many books you can sell for the money invested in a Bookstagram tour? If so, I am sorry to disappoint you. It doesn’t work that way.

I’ve learned there is a difference between marketing books and selling books. The former has more to do with author platforms and building awareness for an author’s work. The latter has to do more with things like online ads and conversions.

I will never know how many people saw the posts on my tour and decided to buy the book. I do know the tour created interest in the novel. I also believe the conversations about the book on Instagram helped, and that in addition to posting honest reviews on their own Instagram pages, most of the Bookstagrammers put reviews up on Amazon and other online sites.