So you've published a book, congratulations! Now what. Well of course you'll be doing a book tour. What's a book tour? Up until the last few years, a book tour generally meant travelling around the country (or world if you're well heeled or reasonably famous) talking to groups of readers about your book. You might have visited a few of the big book festivals; reading passages, or participating in panels. You might have done the rounds of bookstores. If you were reasonably well known, the cost of this might have been paid for by your publisher, who would recoup the cost in the increased book sales that your tour would have created. If you were a relative unknown, you probably would have paid for it out of your own pocket (and with the cost of gas/petrol at the moment, maybe taking the bus), and good luck to you if you were able to get more than 4 or 5 people to come to each of your readings (you'd do better of course in your own home town, where family and friends can bolster the crowd), and if you were able to increase your book sales by 10% (most buyers being those family and friends who bolstered the crowd in your home town), you would have been lucky.

Times have changed. Nowadays even well known authors are reducing their impact on the planet, reducing the impact on their families, and touring from home. The virtual book tour is no longer cutting edge. It's simply what authors now do. A virtual book tour is a series of "visits" to websites, online radio shows, chats, blogs, videoconferences: wherever readers of your book might congregate, and during your "visit" you do a guest post, interview, answer questions, talk about your book and other related subjects, and perhaps have your book reviewed. Not only is it cheaper and easier than an "in-person" book tour, it's permanent. People can keep visit your tour stops long after you've made them, creating a promotional tool that continues to work for you (while you sleep!)

So how do you do a virtual book tour? Read on.

1. Begin by assessing who your key audience is. Think like a reader of one of your books. Where might you hang out online? Make a list of about 10 ideal sites. Think broadly. If you've got the Google searchbar you'll be able to see how they rank on a scale of 1-10, but don't limit yourself to only the top sites. If you aren't super famous, really well known book blogs like The Elegant Variation, BookSlut, or The Guardian won't welcome you with open arms, but you could still find some very targeted, relevant websites to visit. Most bloggers are busy and welcome guest blogs, as long as your work is relevant to their blog.

2. Write a personal note to each of the site owners and let them know that you a) admire their site (don't visit if you don't admire their site!) and b) would like to drop in during your viritual tour. Suggest what you could do for them -- write an editorial, do a book review, offer your book for review, do an interview -- just make sure that what you're offering fits the site.

3. Follow up; schedule, and promote your tour. Some ways to promote include setting up your own blog about your book and tour (well worth doing, especially as there are many free blogging sites around including Blogger, Wordpress and livejournal to name just three). You could also promote your tour on your book's Amazon page (by using Amazon Connect), by using Booktour.com (which has a nice 'widget' you can put on your website), and by promoting it on various social networking pages like FaceBook, MySpace, and so on.

A few final points:

- Don't be too ambitious -- keep it relatively short and well targeted -- 2 weeks is a good time frame. That way you can really focus.

- Don't discount the smaller blogs. Some of them have a loyal following -- it only takes a few buyers to make a virtual tour a successful one.

- Mix your media -- if you've got a good voice, do a few radio shows, and think outside of the box. The queen of self-promotion, MJ Rose, did a virtual book reading/signing on Second Life, complete with a pretty avatar reading her book outloud. Now that's creative, and certainly makes full use of the notion of a virtual tour.

- Before you start your tour, visit a few other tours to see what works well and what doesn't. Make a few comments too. Virtual authors love to have others comment on their tours, and you'll also be doing a little self-promotion when you do. To find other virtual book tours, just type in "virtual book tour" in Google and see what happens!

Good luck! And don't forget to let me know when you do begin your tour. I'll be sure to drop by one of your locations and give you a comment or two to see you along.