How to Ask To Guest Blog in 20 Baby Steps

Published on: Jan 2, 2010 @ 14:11

If you have bags of confidence, or you’ve already arranged at least one on-line book tour, the mechanics of how to actually approach another blogger and ask them if you can guest on their blog probably seems like the most obvious and simple thing in the world.  This post isn’t for you.

But there are many authors for whom the idea of approaching someone, stone cold and with no other references, makes them either break out in a sweat, or scratch their heads in genuine bewilderment because they have no idea where to start, because they’re sure there’s some secret code or “proper” way to do it, that they’re going to screw up and make an idiot of themselves if they get it wrong, or because the rules aren’t written down someplace for them to consult.

Well, relax.  There are no rules.  Most of the time, simple commonsense and decency will get you through.

But just because I know that it really helps to have that idiot-proof 1-2-3 guide there sometimes, to walk you through the basics, here’s 20 baby steps to asking a blog if you can guest blog.

I’m assuming that you’ve already got your preferred guest blogs researched, analysed and sorted, and you’re already to go.  If you don’t have your target blogs lined up yet, then you need to fall back a step further.  Work your way through the initial steps of The Basic Steps of A Book Tour to build a list of preferred blogs for your tour.

1.  Keep it Friendly

The vast majority of the blogging community are maintaining their blogs for love, not money, and doing it in their spare time.  They’re devoted to reading and novels, and are willing to help out authors because of their passion for the industry.  If you come across as a prima donna, stilted or painfully professional, they’ll shut down on you.   The blogging community is built on Web 2.0 technology and is part of the social networking phenomenon.  Bloggers are social people first and foremost.  Be a person, first, and an author after that.

2.  Build your template email

You won’t be sending out just one request, so build a template email you can send out to all the blogs you would like to tour, that you can adjust for the appropriate details.  This can be a friendly request.  Here’s a standard one I use, that you’re free to adapt as you need.  I’ve added notations [e.g. (2)] that I will explain further on:

________________________________________

Subject line:  Book Tour for Your Name In Full – Name of Book - Genre from Publisher – released Publication date

________________________________________

Hi Firstname:

I’m arranging a book tour for my book, Name of Book, and I’m wondering if you’d be interested in hosting me on Name of Blog, and/or reviewing my book(3). Below are the details of the book, and there is an excerpt and blurb for it at the bottom of this email.  Name of Book is an name of genre.

I am happy to write my own posts(4), and will supply a book as a prize for a commentor(5).

I will promote the guest post ahead of time by advertising it on my own blog, with a link back to yours, by building a special book tour page and announcing it in a post, plus announcing the guest post my blog, on bulletin boards, email discussion groups, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and half a dozen other social networks.(6)

If you could check against your calendar to see if I would be a good fit for your blog and your schedule I would be grateful.(7)  I has a limited number of tour dates.(8)

Author (insert an internal document bookmark/anchor here)(9):       Author Name(10)

Bookname:           Book Name

Publisher:    Publisher Name

Genre:         Genre Name

Miniblurb:            One line summary phrase of the plot/theme.(11)

Website for more information: [use the publisher's buy page, if it's up already, or the book's page on your site if it's not.]

Release date of book:                         Release date

Start & End of Tour (preferred):         State date-end date (12)

Can you guest me?

The date I would prefer:                 Add your preferred date here (13)

What date can you book?:

Would you like to review? (14)

Full blurb and excerpt are at the bottom of this email.  Click here to jump there. (15)

Thanks for your time.

============================================================

[insert your usual email sig file here]

====================================================================
(Everything below this line can be safely deleted when you hit reply)  (16)

[insert your book's cover image here, with an internal document bookmark/anchor]

[insert your book's blurb here]

______________

Excerpt

[insert an excerpt from your book here] (17)

Jump back to details.  (18)

______________________________________________________________________

3.  And/or Reviewing.

A great many of the blog sites you’ll find of interest to you as potential book tour destinations will be book review sites.  They may be interested in reviewing your book, and by asking them in this way, you’re giving them the option to refuse if they’re feeling overwhelmed by review requests at the moment (a frequent state for many of them).  They’re usually very pleased to have guest bloggers, but resent the implication that they must review as well.  This takes the pressure off them.   And if they choose to review your book, you get a small bonus along with your tour.

4.  Write Your Own Post.

Most bloggers will interview you if you ask, but if you write your own post, they’ll be slightly more inclined to book you, because you’re taking work off their hands.  This also means you get to control the content of the post — another advantage.   By explaining this upfront, you’re saving the blogger from having to ask, and a second round of emails to sort it out.

5.  Provide a prize for readers — Always.

A prize will absolutely drive more traffic to your guest post.  Guaranteed.  It will give you something to talk about when you’re promoting the tour date.  It will incite interest.  It will give the blog owner something to promote as well.  And depending on how long the contest is run for, it will bring readers to your post for days after you’ve finished your tour date, exposing you to new readers.  Depending on how the contest is built, the readers will get to read your excerpt, maybe visit your website/blog, and get to know your name.

If possible, offer one of your backlist books as a prize, not the current title.  If you don’t have a backlist title, you’ll have to offer the current one, but it may slightly deflate your sales as people hold off buying your book in case they win it.

6.  Outline the way you will promote the tour date.

This assures the blog owner you aren’t going to leave the marketing all up to him, and that there’s a good chance you’ll bring fresh traffic to his blog because of your own marketing efforts.  This makes you a more attractive guest, in his eyes.

7.  Ask for the date.

This is where you’re actually asking if you can have the date.  Not only asking for the date, but also asking the blog owner if she thinks you’ll fit well with her readership.  This is not an idle question, either.  The blog owners know far better than you what sort of readers they attract, and they’ll go on to read the rest of your email and assess if your book fits in with those readers with your question in the forefront of their minds now.  You don’t want to waste a day of your time and theirs on a blog that, say, has readers who aren’t comfortable with erotic romance, if yours is one of the hottest in erotic paranormal romance to come out this year.  This question focuses the blog owner’s attention on her readership.

8.  Prompt for a fast response.

This is a gentle (and truthful) way of asking for a quick response.  Busy blog owners can let an email slide and get buried in the mountains of emails they get, as they decide to “think about” whether they want to book you, or not.  If you remind them that you only have x number of dates to book, and that if they don’t get back to you quickly, those dates will be gone, then they’ll be less inclined to put the email on the back burner.

9.  Internal document anchors/bookmarks.

You’ll be sending this email in HTML, because you’re including your book’s cover.  Take advantage of the HTML and build in internal document navigation shortcuts — anchors (or “bookmarks” if you’re using Word/Outlook to build the email) so the reader can jump from the book’s details down to the blurb & excerpt, and back up to the details again.  It’s a simple thing to do and makes it very convenient for the reader.  And makes you look like a seasoned professional even while you’re coming across as a genuine person.  The hidden message is that you know what you’re doing, so the blog owner will tend to subconsciously assume that you write with the same sort of mastery, too.  (Psychology is fascinating, isn’t it?)

10  Repeat all the book’s details in one place.

By repeating all the book’s details in this one place, it provides an overview in one glance and saves the blog owner from scanning across and around the email to gather the details together in their mind.  And yes, include your name again, to confirm that the book is under your name.  Or add your pen name here, if you’re writing under a pen name, and using your real  name to approach the blog owner.

11.  Create and add a mini-blurb.

You can skip this step if you want, but one line blurbs are so useful, you should consider creating them for every book you have, and using them everywhere.  They can be popped into email sig files, and all sorts of places where a full 200 word blurb can’t fit: business cards, post-it notes…  Consider how Hollywood uses one-line blurbs to promote movies, and you’ll have a perfect working example of how one-line blurbs can work for you.

12.  Start and End Dates of your Tour.

From experience, I’ve found that between five and eight dates is a good tour for a book, but those dates can spread across a whole month by the time you’re done booking them.  So pick your start date as a couple of dates after your book releases to avoid any last minute release snags, and a calendar month after that for your end date.  These are suggested dates only.  You have to suggest them to the blog owner, who otherwise has to stick a pin in the calendar, and could come up with a date three months from today, which won’t suit you at all.

13. Preferred Tour Date.

This is a refinement of (12).  You’re booking probably a minimum of five dates, possibly more, maybe many more (I’d suggest that if you’re going over ten tour dates, you book vacation time at work.  Seriously.).  If you don’t give the blog owner a specific date you’d like, again they’re going to come back with a date that suits them, and it will clash with the other blogs you’re already talking to.  By suggesting your own date first, you will be able to spread the tour dates out (at least one every two days!), and avoid double-bookings as much as possible.  The blog owner, if he agrees to book you, may come back with their own date alternatives — if they’re a popular blog, they’ll have their own booking clashes, and you’ll have to hammer out a schedule that works for both of you.  But at least you can start with a preferred date and go from there.

14.  Review confirmation.

This will let the owner refuse, politely, to review your book — or not.  If the blog you’re approaching is not a review blog, then remove this question.

15.  Another internal navigation link.

The blog owner may have decided in the first ten seconds of scanning your email that your book is not a good fit, and just wants to get to the bottom of the email, where he can trash the unnecessary stuff and respond.  Rather than clutter up the main section of the email with the blurb, excerpt and cover,  put all that heavy text and graphic data beneath your sig file, and instead add a simple link to it, that lets the interested blog owner jump down to read it.

16.  The “Trash Below” marker.

Anything heavy in text and graphics goes below this marker.  There’s a good reason for putting this line here.  If the blog owner would like to book you, then he’ll hit reply and say “yes!” and there will be a flurry of emails between you and him for the next little while, all of them based on this email you’re building.  If you have a couple of megabytes of cover images and text hanging off the bottom of it, every email you and he send each other is going to repeat that data.  By adding this line to the email, and deleting everything below it, you end up with a “lite” email of text and no images, a couple of links and about 12kb in size.  It will save a lot of headaches.

I’ve found that nearly 95% of blog owners do delete below the line when they reply.  If they don’t, you can when you get the response.

17.  Your Excerpt.

Use an excerpt that best showcases your book — but if that means it’s a PG or R-Rated excerpt, then do put the necessary warnings at the top of it.  Make sure it’s error free and nicely formatted, and not too long or short.

18.  The final internal navigation link.

This last navigation link should jump the reader back to the top of  the book’s details, where you planted your first anchor.

19.  Final Steps.

Spell check your email and tweak for formatting and presentation.   Save it!

Now insert the details and email address for your first blog and send it.

Congratulations.  You’ve just approached your first blog about your first book tour date.

20.  Rinse and Repeat.

Use the template and adjust the details for each blog you want to approach for the rest of your tour.

Simple, huh, now you know?

Just don’t rush it.   Take your time or you’ll trip over details between one blog and the next and embarrass yourself.  (Yes, I speak from experience.)   Remember, setting up a blog tour is easy.  It’s just incredibly, mind-bogglingly time-consuming, and the details can be overwhelming.

Keep good notes!  :)

First appeared on Bootstrap Bookmarketing Coop.