Kevin Smokler’s start up BookTour.com got a write-up in the New York Times. Here’s an excerpt:

“When you’re not in the book business you think, of course they’re going to send you around,” she said.

Chances are, unless an author is especially high-profile or promising or willing to pony up for expenses, they’re not.

Fortunately for Ms. Cohen, her memoir has made it onto at least one best-seller list even without a traditional reading and signing tour. She credits a write-up in People magazine, along with a newer publishing tool: the blog book tour, in which an author pops up on a series of blogs, usually over days or weeks, variously writing guest posts, answering questions from the host or sitting for a podcast, a video interview or a live chat. The blogs’ readers may comment and leave more questions. Ideally, they follow links to the author’s Web site and to an online retailer like Amazon.

Read the full article at the NY Times.