Avalanche of Words

Once up on a time there was an author who was getting ready for the publication of his first fantasy series. Deciding that he wanted to do everything within his power to make his series a success, he decided to do leave the city of Blog and go on a tour. The thing was, he couldn’t really find any solid information on what a blog tour involved. He’d always enjoyed reading other people’s blogs as well as writing his own, so he set out on a quest to discover the prefect blog tour.

Along the way, he learned that not all blogs are equal. Some blogs focus primarily on certain genres of books or certain age groups. Some have a very small audience of only a few readers while others have hundreds of thousands of unique visitors. Many bloggers weren’t sure he was really legit. Some didn’t respond to his e-mails. Some politely declined.

But over time, he met many new friends, found lots of great sites that he regularly visits, and signed up over one-hundred and fifty people to join his tour. Now that he had a great group of bloggers covering the US and Canada, and representing a wide range of readers, he thought about ways to make his tour stand out. A review is great, he thought. And one-hundred and fifty reviews will be even better. But how cool would it be if the readers could get to know me as well?. He knew that he liked learning more about the authors he enjoyed reading. What better way than to do interviews where bloggers could ask him questions?

This seemed like a good plan. And the bloggers appeared to agree. Soon he received his advance reader copies, ARCs, and sent them to the wonderful bloggers. At first there wasn’t much response, as people read his book. But after a week or so, he began to get e-mails. The messages were great. People didn’t hate his book! In fact most of them liked it quite a bit. Along with the reviews came interview questions. He excitedly answered each question, trying to think of answers that were both helpful and at least a little entertaining.

Soon he received more interviews, and more, and more, and more. One thing he had failed to take into consideration was how long it takes to answer 150 interviews. On average, each interview took from thirty to forty minutes to answer. Some were shorter. Some were longer. Questions ranged from what his favorite candy bar was to why there was no technology to speak of on Farworld.

The questions were great! They really gave him a lot to think about. And it was wonderful hearing how the book affected people. But even with an average response time of 30 minutes, doing 150 interviews took over seventy-five hours. At the same time, his publisher was asking for a completed manuscript of book two. And his other publisher was asking for edits on his regional mystery series.

The author tried to keep climbing the growing mountain of interviews while also writing 2-3,000 words per day. But soon he slipped and disappeared under an avalanche of words. Several miles away, the people of the Blog watched and waited. Would he ever be heard from again? Had he smothered under the weight of so many words? Had his brain been twisted by the question of which character was his favorite or how he came up with names?

Then a hand appeared at the top of the mountain of words, and the people gasped. A second hand appeared. And finally a head peeked over the surface of the pile. He WAS alive. He still had a gazillion books to send out. And he was answering questions from three days before. But there was hope that he would return to the land of Blog soon. And once there, he would post many links, tell many tales of his journey, and get all of the winner’s their books. Oh, and he would also get his second book turned in. It being easily twice as exciting as his first book.

Hey, gang. Sorry I disappeared for a while. I’m just about caught up. I’m currently answering Friday’s questions and hope to be through all of today’s questions by the end of the night. So if you haven’t missed my posts, bad luck for you, I’m back. But if you have missed them, thanks! I’ve missed you too. Also, please if you have sent me questions earlier than Friday and have not heard back, absolutely resend them.

Thanks! Scott