Is there an alternative to the blog tour?

At KT Literary:

If you’re an avid reader of a certain blog, does a guest post by an author make you check them out, or do you skip them, to hear more from the bloggers you came to the site to read? Or do you skip the sites that host blog tours regularly almost completely? What’s the middle ground? To reiterate Jenn’s question, is it all just noise?

Answers from my perspective:

• I almost always skip blog tour posts...
• ...which means that I generally don't read blogs that host a lot of blog tours.
• I do enjoy blogger-run blog tours like the Summer Blast Blog Tour: as each post focuses on a different author, the content is consistently fresh, and I don't feel like anyone is trying to sell me something. Blog tours like that are great for readers, but as the author/publishers have no control over the whens or whos or wheres, they don't really work as marketing tools.
• While they're almost always 'noise' to me, blog tours must work on some readers, right? Otherwise, no one would bother with them. Or is it the giveaways that drive the traffic?

Thoughts?

Comments

[Ellie]

I mostly take part in blog tours when I've been asked by a fellow blogger or sometimes if it's a book I want to read anyway and I can use my review for the tour post. I will read an interesting guest post by an author if it's not all "me me me" so it just depends on the type of tour it is.

[Gregory K.]

There are so many different ways to do blog tours, some no doubt more effective than others. I think they tend to work best when the host blogger is passionate about the post they're putting up... whether it's cuz the like the author, the book, or the post content. This is part of what makes the Summer/Winter Blog Blast tours feel "different," I think, but it's possible to replicate to an extent. All that said, I want to disagree with you that the Blast tours aren't a marketing tool. They are, if any blog tours are. The timing might not be with a book's launch, but if your name/book is being put in front of the eyes of readers, that's a good thing no matter when it happens.

[Clementine Bojangles]

Ugh, I think the only thing that really drives blog tours are the giveaways. I literally always skip them unless it's an author I really, really love.

[Jen Robinson]

I have always skimmed blog tours as a reader, and have never really been interested in participating as a blogger (except for very occasional SBBT/WBBT forays). I'm not sure who finds them useful, or why.

[Bonnie @ A Backwards Story]

I personally like them if it's a book I'm excited about. If I hear about a tour for an awesome book, I want to take part. I feel that tours build buzz. I was reading an author's interview on a stop with a blog I read recently and that interview alone made me want to read the book--which I'd never even heard of. As we move further into this digital world, I think we'll find more blog tours in order to interact with the authors as authors stop making as many physical tours.

[Leila]

@Gregory K.: But the Blast tours are set up and planned entirely by the bloggers involved -- they aren't responding to a request from the publisher/marketing team. So, while the bloggers are recommending books/highlighting authors, they're doing it because they're passionate about said book/author, rather than as a part of the marketing machine. (That isn't to say that being included isn't a good thing for the author -- on the contrary, I think it's a great thing! But I don't see it as advertising, whereas that's how I see the more traditional book tours.)

[Tessa]

I don't read blog tour posts, enter giveaways, or click through to online advertisements. I rarely notice billboards, either, which my car companions find hard to believe. So maybe I'm not in the target audience for these things.