D.S. Leach Consulting, Inc.

Just what is a Virtual Book Tour? We're finding out . . .

Not every author wishes or is able to do an expensive book tour, driving or flying around the country promoting their book at appearances and signings at bookstores and elsewhere. Out of that fact was born the "virtual book tour" (also known as "blog book tour"), which has the author and his or her book traveling from blog to blog, writing a post here and being reviewed in another post there during a defined period of time.

Our company is helping our business associates WME Books with a virtual book tour (VBT) for a book published by WME in November. This is our first foray into the "virtual book tour" and it is a work in progress, but quite exciting as we work through the process and make it work for this particular author and book. Dr. Reid's book, Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Journey to Business Success, is about reaching inside yourself to discover an inner samurai—a warrior that will guide you on your journey to entrepreneurial success. Primarily written for women entrepreneurs going through changes in their life (Susan calls them "accidental preh-hers"), the book is a mystical, informative and inspiring exploration of that concept.

The virtual book tour concept has been around for a few years and it is a great way to get an author's work in front of thousands of new potential readers and, hopefully, drivr sales of their book. By researching the book and its author, we have identified a number of bloggers who focus their writing on subjects that dovetail with that of Discovering Your Inner Samurai and asked them to participate. Soon, those who have joined the tour will be participating in one of several ways (although they are not the only ways that are possible), such as:

• Writing a review of the book and publishing it on their blog,
• Doing an interview of Dr. Reid via email or by phone and posting it in written form
• Doing a podcast interview of the author and posting it, or
• Inviting the author do a guest post on their blog about the book or its subject.

Over a number of days, we'll schedule their posts to appear and will link to them from multiple places to maximize the effect. In the left panel, you'll see a draft of a "badge" I developed for Dr. Reid's VBT. You'll see that on some of the other sites that WME maintains. Click on that and you find yourself on the VBT's page on the WME Books blog and follow the tour from there.

Friends Prepare for the Best of Brockport Dance

Greg and I are "giddy" with nervous anticipation, as less than three weeks remain before our one of our blog "clients," Friends of Brockport Dance, holds its inaugural fund-raising performance  Best of Brockport Dance (PDF of announcement) on Saturday, April 14, at 8 pm, at Hochstein School of Music & Dance.  There will be a reception for the Friends at 6:30.  You can go to the Friends of Brockport Dance site for more details about the event and how to get tickets, and for additional information about the dances and dancers you'll see.

FOBD is an exceptional client with a cause most PR-types only dream of—engaged, informed and proactive members of the Greater Rochester arts community who value the arts and education have pledged to support the efforts of the SUNY Brockport Department of Dance to establish scholarships, which the school will use to recruit the best-prepared and most-promising students. With the support of scholarships, an increasing number of SUNY Brockport dance alumni will be able to assume positions of leadership in dance performance, education, research and administration, within the Greater Rochester Area, nationally and abroad.

This inaugural fund-raising performance is just one of the ways FOBD plans to raise funds for scholarships. For additional information regarding the group's fund-raising plans, see the group's site here, and go here if you wish to join. Don't miss this opportunity to make a difference in this community.

Postscript: The Best of Brockport Dance was a great success.  While there is much more to say about it, we got it started over at the Friends of Brockport Dance blog.

Building Relationships One Link at a Time

Our friend Seth over at Cup 'O Books recently did a very kind thing for us here at D.S. Leach Consulting, he wrote a post on his blog letting his readers know about us and what we do.  But there's more to the story than the nice act of one of our friends, because why we know Seth and what he did provides an instructive lesson in what blogs can do for a business. 

As you may know, Greg is somewhat (the irony is intended) of a jazz fan; Seth is as well.  It is unlikely that their paths would have crossed, even in the small town environs of Rochester, except a few years back both Greg and Seth discovered each other while blogging the 2005 Rochester International Jazz Festival (and there was more than Seth...there was also Ken).  It's a typical situation in blogging.   You do a search to see what other people are writing about something of interest, in this case the RIJF, and find that there are others doing what you're doing.  You let others know what you've found and a network and conversation starts.  In 2006, we  met in person at one of the first shows of the RIJF and with Ken have seen a few shows around town since that one.  We have some plans about blogging the 2007 RIJF that we'll be talking about soon, I hope.  Dianna and I saw Seth and Ken again when John Nugent played recently at the Grille at the Strathallan and talked a bit about D.S. Leach Consulting.

What I'm trying to say here is that a blog (in fact several) has helped to forge a relationship in the real world by introducing two people who have common interests and now we are doing what we can to help each other out in our businesses, as well as going to hear some great jazz together.  In addition to being a teacher and writing his posts on books, reading and life in a personal and always compelling voice, Seth has a book consulting and book buying and selling business that you can link to through the Cup 'O Books site.  In the not to distant future, I hope to be interviewing Seth as part of my work with WME Books on the A-Ha! Authors Helping Authors blog (and I have my eye on one of Seth's recent posts for posting to that blog as well).  This conversation is just beginning....who knows where it will lead!

Arts and non-profit organizations: Get noticed on a budget

What does your organization spend marketing your programs or services?  How much do your efforts get your organization in return? As a feeder to drive traffic to your main website or as the site itself, a blog can be a natural engine to draw attention to your business on the web. Most importantly, for cash-strapped non-profit organizations, blogs can be created and maintained without great expense.

Earlier this month, D.S. Leach Consulting launched a site on behalf of the Friends of Brockport Dance, a new arts organization that is being founded to raise money for scholarships to support students of the Dance Department at SUNY Brockport. In the first few days after launching the site, its "hit" count—"loosely" defined as the number of page views—began growing. And this was before a lot of the "optimization" of the site to the web was completed!  We hope that this tool will help to create the community that the Friends need to succeed in their goals.

What does this mean? A blog may be a good marketing option for small businesses, arts, and other types of nonprofit organizations. It is a great way to get your message out and get it noticed.  The main requirements are time and enthusiasm, not technical proficiency. Although time is always in short supply, enthusiasm is usually available in abundance in arts and other nonprofit organizations. Most blog platforms do not require a lot of knowledge of coding HTML or other technical skills.  Blogs can maintained by more than one person, so they are natural for staff at non-profits who have different "stories" to tell or who reach out to different constituencies.  Thus, you can leverage staff and volunteers to provide you with content and links to “feed” the blog.

We can work closely with you and your organization to develop a blog/site that will attract new interest, clients and, possibly, donors to your organization's programs or events. Our partner, WME Blogs, has extensive experience building high quality blogs and helping clients to learn how to maintain them or maintain them on behalf of the client. Or, if you prefer, you may contact us directly here at D.S. Leach Consulting and we’ll see if what package will suit your organization most effectively. Please leave a comment if you have a question, or contact us through the email link in the right panel if you'd like to learn more.

Congratulations Are In Order!

One of the many great services offered by our business partner Windsor Media Enterprises is helping  individuals, businesses and organizations build blogs to promote their products or services or to achieve some other objective. Through its principals, Yvonne Divita and Tom Collins—both of whom are veteran bloggers (see here and here), having been involved since the early days of the blogosphere—WME not only builds the blog for the client, Yvonne and Tom train the client "to blog"—that is, to create and post the written content that will get the site noticed online by search engines.

It came as no great surprise to us that one such blog, the Simon School Communications Blog, which  was built by WME Blogs, has been named a finalist in the Rochester Business Journal's "Best of the Web" contest. Congratulations, Yvonne and Tom!! You go, you two!