Don’t worry; this isn’t an article about how unfair the world is for Indies. For starters I don’t think that is true. E-books have brought about a democratisation for publishing; this is a huge opportunity for writers such as myself. But we have a duty to take the opportunity seriously. This means not only writing a good story, but making sure the book we sell is of the same quality as the books published by the publishers.

As an indie author I have a limited budget. That budget was better spent making sure that the book was of a quality worth publishing. So I invested in having the book edited, leaving me with a small fund for promotion. I looked into various options for promotion; one popular method is to take the book on a blog tour. My investigations discovered that this can also be an expensive option.

But it doesn’t need to be.

One of the other great aspects to being an indie author is the other authors. They are a friendly bunch and after releasing my first novel I quickly discovered how helpful they are as well. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t need to pay to put together a blog tour, I could organise it myself.

I participate in various online communities, two in particular helped me with the task. The Kindle Users Forum and Goodreads are both excellent places to connect with readers and other writers. So these are where I started. I asked if anyone wanted to take part in the blog tour.

I’ve also been conducting guest author interviews on my blog for some time, so this provided another avenue I pursued.

The response on all fronts was incredible. The book was due to come out in February. I estimated it would take a month to arrange the tour so I planned the dates for March. As it turned out I filled all the dates well before then.

The tricky part wasn’t finding blogs to take part, but making sure I had enough content to provide something different. For most of the blogs this was determined by their regular content. So reviewers received review copies. Some asked for interviews and others wanted a guest post like this one.

It’s taken quite a bit of time, and as yet I won’t know what effect it will have on sales, but I’ve met some wonderful and discovered some excellent blogs. So I’d like to thank everyone who has helped to make the tour happen. And I hope everyone enjoys the new book as well.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Brookes is an Executive Producer with a leading UK games developer. Working in games and writing are two of his life passions and considers himself fortunate to be able to indulge them both. He lives in the east of England, enjoying starry skies in the flattest part of the country. When not working or writing he can sometimes be found sleeping. Which is good as that is where many good ideas come from.

 ‘Conversations in the Abyss’ is the sequel to the 5 star rated supernatural thriller ‘The Cult of Me’

Stealing Lazarus’s miracle gifted him immortality. Combined with his natural ability of invading and controlling people’s minds this made him one of the most dangerous people on Earth.

But the miracle came with a price. His punishment was to be imprisoned within the walls of an ancient monastery and tormented by an invisible fire that burned his body perpetually. To escape the pain he retreated deep into his own mind.

There he discovers the truth of the universe and that only he can stop the coming Apocalypse.

Buy now from Amazon:

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCP08JU/

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BCP08JU/