Many people believe that once a book is sent out into the world, it’s done. Finished. On to the next project.

What most people don’t see is the hard work and dedication to little details that continue behind the scenes long after a book hits the shelves. Take a blog tour, for example. I recently organized the blog tour for Sean Davis’s newly released book, The Wax Bullet War, which received a lot of attention because of the book’s content and Sean’s great personality.

But, where does one start when organizing a blog tour? A lot of research is done beforehand, and a lot of thought is put into what your author can contribute to another person’s blog. With that in mind, you can begin by making a chart or spreadsheet (our personal favorite here at Ooligan!) that organizes the collected information (name, URL, blog’s focus, owner’s name, email address, etc.) of potential blogs to contact.

Since The Wax Bullet War is a memoir about Sean’s time spent in Iraq and afterward learning to cope with PTSD through art, our target blogs catered to the same subjects, but also included related subjects like military book review blogs. Each blog is a little different though, so every email should be personalized so that it best meets what the blog’s mission, goal, or theme is. I personally think this is the fun part, because it challenges you to be creative in your word choice, while at the same time trying to maintain sincerity so that the blogger doesn’t dismiss you.

Once replies start rolling in is when the emails really begin. You answer any questions the blog owner has, get a general idea of what they’d like your author to write about, and finally put them in direct contact with your author. Eventually you’ll follow up with each blogger, just to see how things went, if they have any further questions or concerns you can address, and to get an idea of when you can expect to see the guest post. It may sound exhausting, but it can actually be a lot of fun!

Sean wrote his guest posts while on the road for his book tour for The Wax Bullet War. His first post will be going up this week at Combat Veterans with PTSD, followed shortly after by a post at Man of la Book, and will conclude a few weeks later with an interview with David Wilk over at WritersCast. His guest posts will focus on his writing process, The Wax Bullet War, his art, and anything else that catches his fancy.

Make sure to follow Ooligan Press on Twitter for updates about Sean’s blog tour and readings near you! And don’t forget to follow Sean’s blog, either!