Nix Musing : Guest-Posts and Blog-tours : When do I take part?

Nix note – this has been previously published. It has been reformatted and editted. Please know that this is not a dig at tour-hosts – they are small business owners offering a service and I enjoy working with quite a few of them. This is about blog-tours in general…

This week, I have had multiple emails publicising blog-tours and asking for participation. I have stopped partipating in the majority of blog tours and there is a reason why; I think a post on a blog-tour suggests that me, as the blogger, endorses that particular book.

My blog is important to me. The content I put up here represents me and, although it took me a while to realise this fact, I now do everything I can to protect the integrity of it (hence why Top Picks now takes a decade to do!)

Blog tours come in a variety of formats; promo blasts (the cover and blurb), book reviews, author interviews and excerpts seem to be the formats of choice but there have been some unusual ones that have been fun to be a part of. Whatever it is, once I put it on the blog, I am endorsing it in some way and that means something to me if no one else.

Blog tours that include reviews are even more of a minefield; most will ask you not to post a negative review as part of the tour which means that, if you do not like the book, you have to either lie or promote the book as part of the tour and then put the review up later. I very rarely participate.

My events I treat differently. I look at these as me handing my blog over to whoever is writing the post however, I’ve not done a lot of these recently because I struggle having an open sign up, because there are SO many authors I would not hand my blog over to.

So, bloggers, my question to you is this: Why do you take part in blog-tours? And, more importantly, why do you turn them down? Readers, how much do you take notice of them? And do you ever buy the book after you’ve seen a promo post?