Talking Virtual Book Tours with Bestselling Author Hope Edelman

Hope Edelman is the author of five nonfiction books, including the bestsellers Motherless Daughters and Motherless Mothers. Her articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Glamour, Child, Seventeen, Real Simple, Parents, Writer’s Digest, and Self, and her original essays have appeared in several anthologies, including The Bitch in the House; Toddler; Blindsided by a Diaper; and Behind the Bedroom Door (2008). Her work has received a New York Times notable book of the year designation and a Pushcart Prize for creative nonfiction. She taught in the MFA program at Antioch University-LA for six years, and can be found every summer teaching at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. She lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with her husband and their two daughters.

Hope Edelman will be on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours in December and is here with us today to give her impression of virtual book tours and online book marketing.

Thank you for this interview, Hope.  Can we start out by having you tell us briefly what your new book is about?

Hope: It’s the story of taking my three-year-old daughter to Maya healers in Belize to get rid of her troubling imaginary friend, and saving my marriage and changing my world view in the process.

More and more authors are realizing the potential for sales that derives from virtual book tours.  Can you tell us your personal reasons why you chose a virtual book tour to help get the word out about your new book?

Hope: My publisher first suggested a “blog tour” to me in early 2009 and I had no idea what it was. Since then I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of reaching reachers via this medium, and when I was told I’d be sent on a blog tour in December, I was very eager to try it.

Is this the first time you have heard of them?

Hope: January was the first time, yes. But everything moves so fast in cyberspace, and is moving equally as fast in publishing, that by the time my book came out in September I was much more familiar with what “blog tour” meant and what it could do.

The Possibility of Everything by Hope Edelman (click on cover to purchase)

What do you hope to achieve through promoting your book through a virtual book tour?

Hope: Blogs seem to be an excellent way to reach niche readerships, almost like a series of small, extremely specific clubs with presidents who post their thoughts regularly. I’m hoping there are enough clubs out there whose members are interested in imaginary friends, or raising toddlers, or holistic parenting, or travel to Belize.

Do you promote online through other means?  Website?  Blog?

Hope: I have an umbrella website for all my books at www.hopeedelman.com, and a specific website for my new book at www.thepossibilityofeverything.com. I blog semi-regularly at www.455girls.blogspot.com. The posts simultaneously appear on the blog page at the book’s website through the kind of secret magic webmasters know how to perform.

Do you promote through Twitter and Facebook?  What are your links there?

Hope: I have a fan page at Facebook, and also a Facebook page for The Possibility of Everything. Anyone can follow me over at Twitter at @hopeedelman.

What are your experiences with offline booksignings?  Which do you prefer – online or offline and can you give us the reasons why?

Hope: My first book came out in 1994, so I’ve had lots of experience with offline booksignings, which I really enjoy for the human interaction with readers. Sadly, over the past four or five years it’s become increasingly harder to get people to show up for bookstore events. So much has shifted online. While I still prefer the in-person events and the kind of dynamic Q&As and organic discussions that often take place there, it’s hard to beat the convenience of the online book tour, where I can pop in and out at my leisure and can do most of it late at night after my kids go to bed. My childcare bills take a real nosedive when I tour online.

Here’s a fun question.  If money was no object, how would you promote your book?

Hope:  Billboards. Bus shelter ads. Skywriting! The sides of buses.  Seriously, why not?

Thank you for this interview, Hope.  Do you have any final words?

Hope: I’m thrilled to see book marketing making the shift to more online promotion. Authors have known for a while now that it’s the way of the future, but many of us don’t have the knowledge or the resources to do it ourselves. Thanks for making this online tour possible for me.

You can visit Hope’s official tour page here to find out where she’ll be touring in December!