The good news is that these ten steps should be taken by any writer serious about promoting him- or herself as a writer.

But there’s more.  The Blog Book Tours Yahoo Group takes the lessons from the guidebook and helps authors put them into practice.  This group is unusual in the way it does business.  It is essentially a repeating “class” for authors with books to promote.  Membership is limited to 100 for a specified period of time — and the group is renewed at each class cycle.  Group members learn together and support one another — but the Yahoo Group is not itself a platform for selling one’s book.

QUESTION:  Have any of you readers had first-hand experience with a Blog Book Tour?  Please share it.

IN RELATED NEWS…

I just picked up this info online:

BookTour, an online directory of author events, has raised $350,000 in seed capital from Amazon. The company’s chairman, Chris Anderson, is the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail.

BookTour lets authors create pages that update their fans on relevant news and events, and include biographical and other information. Authors can update their profiles whenever they like and users can search the site’s database to find out when their favorite author will be at an event near them, contact authors with questions, or invite them to speak at events.

This new online directory, which is at www.booktour.com, is in beta stages and therefore not yet ready for prime time.  As I write this, it seems to be offline, though i was able to take a look at it yesterday.  Still authors may wish to keep an eye on it.

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MediaBistro Video-on-Demand re Blogging

For $15, MediaBistro offers a brief series of videos from top-level bloggers about their online experiences. MediaBistro is evolving into one of the best sources of online training for writers. I spent hundreds of dollars to actually attend one of their workshops. How much more convenient it is to wait for the video excerpts!

More Video about Blogging — this time FREE

Blogger guru Varo Starak at Become A Blogger offers a series of TEN video tutorials about entering the blogoshere. As best as I can tell, the series really is free to view — at least, I’ve been able to look them over.

This series is truly a fine introduction to blogging how-to, especially if you decide to go with Varo’s recommendation of choosing the Word Press platform. [My blog, for example, is run under Word Press.] Varo is thorough and very clear in his explanations.

I have not yet explored his e-book about how to earn money from blogging. That’s not at the moment high among my personal priorities.

Free Twitter Guide

You’ve heard of Twitter, haven’t you? It’s the “micro-blog” facility that limits posts to 140 characters. About two months ago, I finally decided to sign up and give it a try.

It takes awhile to figure out just how it can work to your benefit. First, one has to learn just how it works. And, more important, just how it does NOT work to your benefit.

During the first 4 weeks, I wondered if Twitter was worth it. Now, at the end of my second month, I’m beginning to actualize real benefit from it. In fact, some of the information in this post came to my attention via Twitter!

You can get some insight into Twitter from the newly released free e-book about Twitter that provides a number of annotated screenshots to explain some of the power of Twitter. This e-book is far from comprehensive, and it may even be a little bit bewildering to an absolute novice. Still, it may be worth a review.

I’m curious to know if any of the readers of my blog use Twitter. If so, why? What benefit do you find in it? Please SHARE in the comments below.

By the way, you can follow my “tweets” at http://twitter.com/tomcolvin.

Book and You — a new route to publication?

I’ve debated about bringing this one to your attention. The website Book and You is most intriguing — but I’m not sure that it would ever “pay-off” for the writer. Still the concept is worth noting: online serialization of one’s book, with opportunity for direct reader feedback.

Writers can upload their work as a serialized book. Once a week, readers at the site can read that week’s offerings — and they can provide immediate feedback to what they have read. At the end of a “contest” period, the most popular, highly-rated book is published by the website owners.

What gives me pause, is that the writer they eventually publish gets only 10 percent of sales.

On the other hand, for brand new writers seeking to break into the industry and to get real feedback, this website may be worthwhile.

I recommend that you give it a trial first as a reader only. If you find the experience intriguing, then perhaps you can submit your own work.