Calling all Book Bloggers! Let's network! pic.twitter.com/NDTxz3kvnk
Starting in the month of December, the Masquerade Crew will be hosting a brand new Cover Wars campaign. The public votes for their favorite cover, choosing from covers listed in a poll on the Masquerade Crew site. To learn more about the campaign, check out this post. If you have a book you would like to enter into the contest, you can sign up at that link as well.
In order to extend the reach of the campaign, I would like to team up with bloggers, book bloggers in particular. I will provide some HTML code that a blogger can use by itself or in connection with a longer post. The blogger will let me know when their post is live, and I will promote it along with other campaign posts.
Think of it like a blog tour where we will be highlighting multiple authors. In addition to promoting the campaign post, I will also tweet about one other post from each blogging participant. But not just one tweet. I will promote a blogger's post many times, for the tweet will be added to my long term database. I will also provide a list of blogs participating so that everyone involved will have the chance to spread the love. If we all promote each other, we all come out ahead, authors and bloggers alike.
"My schedule is full for December," you may be saying.
There are two reasons you should sign up anyway. One, if previous Cover Wars are any indication, this will be a monthly thing. If you aren't able to blog for the campaign in December, perhaps you can in the near future. Two, I'm easy to work with. I don't have to be the only post for the day, and I don't even need to be the first post of the day. Slot me in wherever you can. To get on my list of participating blogs it will need to be up by a certain date, but you will have at least a week from the time the campaign starts.
Although it isn't required, you should also promote the campaign post. Of course, if you aren't promoting all of your posts on a regular basis, I highly recommend you start. And I would suggest tweeting more than once about a post. Not everyone who is interested will see it the first time. I've had people thank me for a tweet, and that tweet isn't just a repeat, but it's been going out for months. Social marketing is fleeing at best, often forgotten or not even seen at all. Tell your audience about a post multiple times, at different times of day, on different days of the week. You'll reach different people each time.
"Cover Wars doesn't sound interesting to me,"
you may be saying.
I have two things in response to that. One, maybe something different would be good for your blog. Stir things up a bit. Maybe your audience would get a kick out of it. And, besides, an increase in traffic would be likely, and who doesn't want more blog traffic?
Two, I plan on doing more than just Cover Wars. Signing up below doesn't mean you are signing up for Cover Wars. Right now I'm simply collecting email addresses for those that might be interested in Cover Wars... or some other future project. I'll email the group later about Cover Wars.
Cover Wars was our flagship service back in the day, right behind book promos, so it's a natural place to start. Another fun service was the scavenger hunt, which was often put together with Cover Wars. Near the end I did it as a crossword, the clues linking to an Amazon book page. Great way to encourage people to go look at a book. Plus there was usually a gift card giveaway involved.
In other words, I'm all for fun networking ideas. If you have a fun idea, I'd be happy to hear about it. And I have other ideas that I would love to explore in the near future. For example, incorporating video into my portfolio is a natural progression. I help my son with his YouTube channel, so I know my way around video editing software.
So, fill out the form below, and let's get networking.
