“How well can one apply the VBT to non-self-help and non-business books: e.g., science fiction, narrative non-fiction, biography, nature stories, etc? (All the examples on Alex Mandossian’s website are of self-help or business owners.)”

Yes, I believe a Virtual Book Tour can be effective on nearly any kind of book. Alex’s examples are geared mainly to the market he’s most interested and experienced in, i.e. business and self-help, but his principles apply to nearly any kind of book (with the caveats mentioned below.)

With his training, I myself have done Virtual Book Tours for a range of book topics, from the art of parenting boys , to whether common church practices are really pagan in origin, to what’s so great about Christianity, to how to find God in everyday life (the topic of my own VBT on Abundant Gifts). (See www.virtualbooktourexpert.com for samples of Virtual Book Tours that are NOT on business, success, etc.)

Any book on any topic that can engender questions is a candidate for a VBT.

I’ll admit, fiction is a bit of a tough nut to crack. Success with a VBT would depend on whether the author and/or publisher have a list to promote to. If they do, then a VBT could work for fiction as well.

For instance, if the publisher has a newsletter they send out to people who are interested in fiction, they could promote the VBT in that way. In fact, it could be a regular feature of the newsletter, with snippets from the interview or even a short, pre-interview audio that people can listen to right away, then sign up for the VBT. In the same way, a newsletter can promote a podcast taken from the VBT.

The issue with fiction is that there’s usually not a “hook,” a felt need that would get the reader to feel compelled to listen to the author interview. However, a VBT can work for a popular author who is promoting a new book to the current list. There are also creative ways to team up with nonfiction “experts” to talk about a subject the novel addresses.

For instance, I have an author friend, Latayne Scott, who wrote a novel about Mormonism. She also happened to write another book about the same topic (with another publisher) that was nonfiction. She could easily do a VBT featuring both books, gathering questions from people about Mormonism. During the Virtual Book Tour, she could weave in examples from her novel to illustrate her points.

In this case, the same author wrote both the fiction and nonfiction books. But if she were just a novelist, Latayne could have found an expert on Mormonism and the VBT could have dealt with the topic from a “story” and a “more factual” perspective.

About the only thing this kind of VBTs would probably not work well for children’s books or poetry.

For more about my own experience with VBTs, plus the bonuses I’m offering with Alex Mandossian’s Virtual Book Tour Secrets course, go to www.virtualbooktoursforauthors.com.