Tour Guidelines

Tours With Writers In Mind

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway

What to Expect from Quill & Ink Book Tours

General Information

  • We accept all genres.
  • Our events are for single books and book series. We do not charge extra for a book series.

What’s Included in Every Event

  • Event Schedule.
  • Event Google Doc sign-up form.
  • Event Kits (HTML and create your own.)
  • Social Media Kits (X formerly Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
  • Personal event banners, teasers, and other graphics created by Quill and Ink Book Tours.
  • Static Event Page on Quill and Ink Book Tours for one year.
  • Promotion across Quill and Ink Book Tours and our social media
  • We can coordinate giveaways via Rafflecopter.
  • Review Options (We can distribute review copies to the tour hosts on your behalf.)

Event Kits and Graphics

  • An event packet, special event/tour banner, and at least one teaser image will be created by Quill and Ink Book Tours and distributed to our hosts.
  • Additional graphics are sent by the author.

Personal Static Event Page

  • We create a special static page on Quill and Ink Book Tours just for your event which includes information about the book, a Goodreads link (if available), pre-order links (if available) or buy links, author bio, social media links, and a link to the sign-up form for your tour.
  • This page remains for 1 year on our site to further market your book.

Promotion

  • We will promote your tour on Quill and Ink Book Tours website and our social media.

Tour Host Information

Tour Hosts

  • There is no limit on the number of participants for any of our events.
  • Most of our hosts are invited. We search the internet and social media to find reliable hosts and those with a high quantity of followers via a combination of outlets: Blog, social media, Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
  • Quill and Ink Book Tours have no control over whether posts are accepted on blogs and social media.
  • Once the tour starts, a team member will check each scheduled stop, and read the reviews, and comments, as we can.
  • Our team at Quill and Ink Book Tours does our best to encourage tour hosts to post on time or inform us if they are unable to post and need to reschedule.
  • There are times when posts and/or reviews are not posted or rescheduled.
  • Quill and Ink Book Tours communicate with you if a host will be delayed in posting and about any rescheduled posts.
  • We ask the authors to visit the hosts’ blog or social media site and comment. Since this is a hobby for most of our hosts, it is enjoyable to hear from the author.
  • We do not allow authors to contact tour hosts directly for any reason. If the author has a question or comment, please let us know and we will communicate with the tour host.

Event Sign-Up Forms

  • We create a Google Doc sign-up form for tour hosts to sign up for your event.
  • The event sign-up form is shared on Quill and Ink Book Tours website and our social media.
  • We will also email you the event sign-up form link so that you can share it with your friends and across your social media.
  • If you know of people who want to be part of your event, feel free to share the sign-up form with them.
  • Only tour hosts who filled out the sign-up form for your event or had contact with us directly can participate.

Event Materials

  • Materials are emailed at least 4 days before the scheduled start date.
  • Event materials include the following: Personal Tour Banner, Book Photo, Book Blurb/Synopsis, Excerpt, Buy Links, Author Photo, Author Bio, Author Social Media Links, and any additional materials you would like to add to your tour.

Event Reminder Emails for Tour Hosts

  • A reminder email is sent out to all tour hosts who signed up for your tour 2 days before the start of the tour.

Posting Times

  • Quill and Ink Book Tours ask that the posts be up no later than 8 PM (ET) on the scheduled tour date to allow for different time zones and tour hosts’ working and personal hours.  Tours are checked the next morning, and any missing posts are attended to that day.

Missed Stops

  • If a tour host misses their stop, an email is sent out to remind them to please post by the end of the day. If a tour host misses 5 stops and has no communication, they will no longer be allowed to host Quill and Ink Book Tours.
  • Quill and Ink Book Tours are not responsible for a tour host not posting on their scheduled date.

Event Information

Giveaways

  • We can coordinate giveaways via Rafflecopter.
  • We will offer the giveaway internationally unless you specify otherwise.
  • If Quill and Ink Book Tours coordinate the giveaway, we will choose the winners through Rafflecopter or Wheel of Names once the giveaway ends.
  • Please email us any images of any giveaway prizes you’d like to include, so we can add these to your event kits.
  • Quill and Ink Book Tours is not responsible for the giveaway prizes, the author is responsible for buying and distributing the prizes to the winners.
  • Giveaways can be coordinated and run by the author.
  • If you choose to do a giveaway, we ask that you provide us with the link to the giveaway (such as Rafflecopter) so that we can include it in the tour kits, along with any images or text associated with the giveaway.

Reviews

  • Reviews are very important to an author’s career and we highly suggest adding a review option to your tour or blitz.
  • Formats accepted: epub and pdf.
  • We do not charge for reviews or pay our hosts to review. Reviews are an option added to a tour. 
  • If you choose to add a review to your event/tour, please send ARCs to us at least 6 weeks before your tour date; to give the tour hosts time to read and review your book.
  • We will then send the ARCs to the tour hosts.

Negative Reviews

  • Quill and Ink Book Tours can’t guarantee that the reviewers will enjoy your book. If a host gives your book a 1- or 2-star rating, we will ask them to refrain from posting their review during the tour and send them a promo post instead.
  • They can post their reviews outside of the tour.
  • Positive and negative reviews may be posted as an honest review is asked.

Missed Reviews

  • We cannot guarantee that a tour host posts a review, they are asked to post reviews on their blog and additional review sites (i.e., Amazon, Goodreads, etc.).
Piracy
  • We take piracy very seriously and if any tour host or reviewer is found in violation of piracy laws they will no longer be allowed to host for Quill and Ink Book Tours.
  • Also, we will work with you and your legal team (if you have one) to prosecute the tour host to the full extent of the law.

Scheduling and Payment Information

Event Schedule

  • Our tours run Monday – Saturday.
  • No Tours on Sundays and major US holidays. Christmas Day, New Year’s Day.
  • We collaborate with you to create a schedule/timeline that works best for your event. For example, if you have a release coming up, we will coordinate your tour so that the start date coordinates with your book’s release date.
  • We are very flexible and will do our best to always fit your event in.
  • If you need to reschedule, we ask that you notify us at least 2 weeks before the start of your tour or at least 3 days before the start of your cover reveal/blitz.

Book Your Tour In Advance

  • Keep in mind that it works best to start planning your blog tour at least 4 weeks in advance and at least 6 weeks for tour packages.
  • Materials needed for your tour (book cover, excerpt, additional graphics, etc.), are to be sent at least 3 weeks before the start date.
  • Cover reveals, and book blitzes can be done on short notice, but we do suggest scheduling them at least 1 week before the start date.
  • Usually, the shorter the time frame to schedule your event, the fewer tour hosts will sign up.

Exclusiveness

  • We would advise that you do not book any tours or similar events simultaneously with other tour companies as that can reduce the effect of both events. This does not apply to cover reveals or blitzes.

Invoices and Payment

  • We accept payments through PayPal.
  • Invoices will be sent within 48 hours of your scheduled event through PayPal.
  • For Blog Tours the invoice must be paid at least 2 weeks before the start date.
  • For Blitzes and Cover Reveals the invoice must be paid at least 2 days before the start date.

Right to Decline

  • We reserve the right to decline events or cancel with a full refund, for any reason.

Cancellation Policy

  • Events (blog tours, cover reveals, etc.) can’t be canceled once the sign-up form is live on our site.
  • If for some reason there is no other option but to cancel, you will have to pay 50% of the full price to compensate for the work already done.

Adjustments and Changes

  • All requests for adjustments and/or changes to the information contained on the event/tour kits and emailed to the hosts must be made no less than 1 week before the start date for blog tours and no less than 3 days before the start date for cover reveals and blitzes.

Notification of Changes

  • This goes both ways; We will notify you immediately of any changes and we ask that you do the same.

We Ask the Following of our Clients

  • Keep communication open via email.
  • Share the event and sign-up sheet on your social media sites.
  • Have information available in a timely fashion.  (i.e., ARC dates, excerpts, interviews, etc.)
  • Send out all prizes to giveaway winners on time.

Need Something Not Mentioned

  • Do you want a tour to run longer or shorter than mentioned? Want an option that isn’t listed? We are very flexible and want to organize a tour that best fits your needs! Just email us at marie@quillandinkbooktours.com and we’ll work on it together! Extra costs may apply.

Quill & Ink Book Tours

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

– Cicero

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