Discussion Post | Pros and Cons of Book Tours

Hey everyone! Welcome or welcome back to my blog!

So, I’ve been doing blog tours for a while, and I like to think that I’ve gotten the hang of them by now. So, I decided to do a post on the pros and cons of blog tours!

If you want to learn more about blog tours, click here.

Let’s get into it!

PROS

1. Free Books!
   This definitely is the biggest advantage for me. I enjoy free things people! Obviously, the books are digital, but it’s still fun and everything, you know?
   
2. ARCs:
   Okay, maybe it’s just me, but I get a thrill whenever I get an ARC. Like, there’s something about the fact that I get to read it before the rest of the world is amazing for me. Since 95% blog tours give ARCs, this is a big plus!
   
3. Improves reviewing skills:
   I don’t know about other people, but I’ve definitely gotten better at articulating my thoughts, ever since I’ve started requesting ARCs and signing up for blog tours. I also pay more attention to things so, that’s another good thing!
   
4. Organization
   To add another point, your reading plans get organized as well! This is a huge help for me as I take hours to decide my next read, and on signing up for ARCs and Blog Tours, I know what the next reading month for me will look like! Admittedly, signing up for a lot of them means, I don’t end up reading more things that were on my TBR before, but in a way, it’s good during exams as I don’t waste time deciding my next read.
   
5. Discover new authors:
   Honestly, I initially signed up for blog tours only so that I could read stuff by authors I’d heard of. But now, I pick up blog tours by authors I’ve never heard of, and I try picking more of the ones by debut authors, so that I can promote the really good books as much as I can! And I’ve added a couple of authors to my auto-reads as well!
   
6. Branch out:
   Honestly, just for the sake of it, I’ve signed up for books I’d never have ordinarily read. For example, Summer’s Edge, it being horror and everything, I’d never have read it in ordinary circumstances! I’d also almost stopped reading middle grade (Yes, the horror of not nurturing my inner child!), but I do end up reading at least one middle grade a month or every two months.
   I’ve also read more diverse reads since I started signing up for blog tours!
   
7. Chance to interact with authors!
   You may even get to interact with authors, even though not directly! Just imagine, being able to ask a published author questions! I find that exciting, don’t you?
   
8. Developing Netgalley profile:
   I’ve mentioned this in my previous post as well, but developing your Netgalley profile from scratch, is difficult. Signing up for blog tours, does make the process slightly easier. What’s more, you get to read books, you probably wouldn’t be able to in normal circumstances, had you directly tried requesting it.
   For example, the eARC of the new Kasie West novel wasn’t available on Netgalley for Indians, but I got it anyway because I signed up for a blog tour!

CONS

1. Reading on a deadline:
   This can honestly be stressful. I am on track for reading stuff right now, since I renewed a bunch of ARCs I had, and a few reads in the middle were rather quick, otherwise I’d have been dead.
   On a similar note, writing a review is also a must! Now, I enjoy writing reviews, since I like to go back and read what I thought of a book, but a lot of people don’t. So, that can be stressful too!
   
2. You may end up being dishonest about your opinions:
   See, if you rate a book below 3 stars, you’re supposed to send a email to the blog tour company, stating that, and if you’ve rated the book, say, 2.5 stars, you might be too lazy or too busy to do that, and hence, just rate the book 3 stars instead.
   
3. Time-taking:
   The entire time of the blog tour thing is huge. For me, personally, there’s the two-four hours I take for reading a book (depends on length of the book), then formatting the blog tour post, writing a review on Goodreads and Netgalley, and sometimes if I’ve to do a post that’s not a review- a Top 5 reasons to read or an Interview, there’s the additional time required for that. So, that’s a 4-6 hour process, if not more! What’s more, blog tours are also the posts that gain some of the least traffic, so seeing those low stats numbers does bring your morale down. I spend about an hour or two on a normal post, sometimes less, and seeing those posts gain more traffic, rather than blog tours, hurts!
   

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And those were the pros and cons of signing up for book tours! The pros definitely outweigh the cons for me, although of course that might not be the case with everyone!

Did you find this post useful? Do you sign up for blog tours often? If yes, did you relate to it? Let me know in the comments!