Book Blogger Confession: Book Tours and Cover Reveals

It has been a REALLY long time since I've participated in a Book Blogger Confession.   But, I'm trying to back on track with my blogging, and today's topic caught my attention.

But first, I want to give credit to the two bloggers who host this: Karen at For What It's Worth and Pam from Midnyte Reader.

Today's question is:  Does participating in book tours/cover reveals and author guests post drive traffic to your blog? What type of problems have you encountered when hosting them? (please keep it civil - no names or calling specific people out) As a blog follower, are you ever turned off by these kinds of posts? How much publicity is too much? 

I have not participated in a book tour for a really long time, and I guess it's because I had some mixed experiences with them.   While it did drive some traffic to my blog, it felt like it was more a one-time thing, and not something that really made an increase that lasted very long.   I didn't participate to bring traffic to my blog, so I wasn't really bothered by this.    What I liked about tours was the whole participating with other people who were interested in the book.

I think the tricky part was sometimes coordinating things --- if one person was behind on things, and you were directing traffic to them, it could jam things up.   I admit that I was sometimes the one running behind schedule, and then I felt awful that I was the one creating a problem for other bloggers.    

I do like having author posts or interviews, even if those posts don't get a lot of comments --- because maybe that gives the author and their book some more attention.  I know it can be hard for authors to get the word out about their book(s) if they are new authors, or aren't with super-big publishing houses.

I've never participated in a cover reveal.  It's just not my thing, I guess.  As pretty as a cover is, my interest in the content of the book, so it's just not something I pay that much attention to (as opposed to a release date, for example).

There's a second part to today's question: As a blog follower, are you ever turned off by these kinds of posts? How much publicity is too much? 

I find it depends on the book, the author, and what's actually happening.    As I said, cover reveals don't really interest me much, so I tend to pass those up on blogs.  I do prefer blog tours that move from blog to blog, and maybe have different features; when it's all the same kind of post from bloggers on the same day, with the same information, it feels like I'm reading the same thing again and again.

What I do find to be a turnoff is when blog tour seem to focus less on the book, and more on encouraging bloggers to compete with each other.  It takes the focus off the book, which I find to be the opposite of what's supposed to happen.
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I'm looking forward to seeing what other bloggers have to say on this topic, especially those who participate in blog tours.