To celebrate the launch of my new chapter book, Princess Clown, I have been part of a BLOG TOUR. That just means I (or the person it is for) appear for a continuous run of days (9 days for me) on a range of blogsites, doing either an interview with the blog host, or a guest blog on a chosen subject, or even an interactive activity involving (in my case) a COMPETITION for child readers.

The competition is on Australian children’s author and friend, Kat Apel‘s site. The prizes are a copy of Princess Clown and the chance to have the child winner’s name used for a character in my work-in-progress.  Hopefully, when schools go back after the holidays on Monday, we will get some entries coming in.

All of the hosting blogs are owned by my writerly friends, all Australian published authors in the world of Children’s and Young Adult books. They are the best bunch of friends an author could want.

The main reason for blog-touring is publicity for your book. Lordy knows, it’s hard enough in the mind-boggling world of media, both print and online, to publicise a book written by an Australian children’s author who is not a house-hold name. Not even one’s publisher spends money on publicity for new books like they used to do!

So blog-touring helps a little – it works best if you have amiable author friends who are willing to be part of the tour, and that they have access to a wide range of interested bloggers who drop in. I will take this opportunity to thank each and every one of them for their support and the splendid efforts they have made to make Princess Clown‘s blog tour a success.

If you want to organise your own, set up a group of author friends with a Yahoo group – for the sole purpose of blog-touring. Everyone participates when one of you has a new book and each reciprocates for the other touring members. It works best when everyone is committed to the idea.

The topics we have done and will cover over the next week range from:

Tips for Writing Chapter Books – Dee White’s blog July 6
Tips for Young Writers – The Alphabet Soup blog July 7
Extracting the Story – Robyn Opie’s blog July 8
Clowning Around – Catriona Hoy’s blog July 9
What’s in a name? + KIDS’ COMPETITION – Kathryn Apel’s blog July 10
What the heck is a ‘blog-touring’? – YOU’RE ON IT July 11
Guest blog with Sandy Fussell –  July 12
The Author’s Life – an interview with Sally Murphy July 13
Interview with Claire Saxby July 14
Workshopping with younger readers – Mabel Kaplan July 15
BOOK LAUNCH Friday July 16 – also announcing the Winner of the COMPETITION on Kat’s blog and Sheryl’s kids’ blog