However none of that is all that important. The Kindle is just a very nice unit to use, and the choices and advantages of the store is sufficient so that I can imagine a lot of people eager to benefit from it. It’s particularly appealing for book lovers, and for men and women like me who travel a lot and have extended commutes: it’s quite a bit easier to carry a 10-ounce ebook reader compared to a single big hardcover book, and with a Kindle (or a Sony Reader for that matter), you are able to carry a lot of books with you. At $399 (with no fee for the wireless access), it’s not low-cost but in line with what people spend for an iPhone or the top power iPod. In fact, in many ways, the Kindle reminds me of the first-generation iPod, that was not the first portable digital music player and was less sophisticated than coming generations, but had the hardware, software, and store integration done better than any of its predecessors.

I do not anticipate Kindle ebook reader or ebooks will ever really take the place of real books – there is something just right about the physical form – but the Kindle is a surprisingly remarkable tool. It has the potential to truly jump-start the electronic book war.

When my first print book, Romancing the Soul, came out, my publisher was very supportive; however I know she felt like Octomom with all the authors she had to represent. I pitied her actually because I know it must have frustrated her as she could never do everything she wanted for all her authors and take care of a publishing business, too.

That’s when publicists come into the picture.

You either hire someone to do some publicity for you or you study online marketing and do it yourself.

I have always been a hands on kind of person. Perhaps it’s the frugal side of me, who knows, but maybe I just knew there had to be a magic key to open the door to those huge sales I wanted to be making. I had read every book promotion article there was out there and I just knew there had to be more to it. And I knew the secret had to be somewhere in that vast space they called the Internet.

Not too long after my print book was released, I studied the Internet and, eventually, a pattern was starting to evolve. If I list my book here and here and possibly here, I might see my book climb into the top rankings of the search engines which I believed was part of the equation. But might was a mighty big word.

Like all authors, I knew I had a good book which is the first step in assuring success in the sales department, but it wasn’t enough to have confidence in your book, you must take action to stand out from the pack and the secret I believed was in online book promotion. But the key, the magic key, where was it?

A few years ago, I found the answer and it happened quite accidentally. My online writing group and I self-published several e-books and I knew I wanted to use these e-books as an experiment. If my theory worked, I would have found the magic key. Whether it would open all the doors, that was debatable, but I figured I’d give it a shot and see what happens.

I had a basic formula written down. I would do A and B and see what happens, but I wanted to take it an extra step. What if I didn’t stop with A and B? What I discovered was that it wasn’t enough to do A and B, you had to do the whole alphabet if you wanted the formula to work.

This formula I speak of is a highly guarded secret, but…I do have to tell you in 24 hours all three of our self-published ebooks, and on separate occasions, ended up #1 in the search engines for their key search words. Twenty-four hours.

So what could I learn from this? By using these key search words as my selling tools, I could sell my books just by having the thousands upon thousands of Internet users find my book in the search engines. Today, there’s Twitter and Facebook and blogs, but the old system is only reinforced by this new technology.

Getting back to my story, when word spread about how I managed to get these ebooks into the first position at Google (and which I did later on with a self-published ebook I sold and still sell on my website), I had a woman phone me asking for my help. She wanted her book #1 in the search engines and told me she would pay me if I could do it for her, too.

And that was how Pump Up Your Book Promotion was born. We opened doors with one tour coordinator besides myself and now my staff has grown to five of the most wonderful people on the face of the earth – Cheryl Malandrinos, Jaime McDougall, Tracee Gleichner and Rebecca Camarena.

We started out with one author on tour and now our tours consist of anywhere between 20 – 30 authors a month.

Authors are finally learning it’s not enough to go on live booksignings. They’re learning it’s not enough to put up a website or blog and call it a day. They’re realizing it’s not enough to think for one minute their book is going to sell out of all the thousands of books on the market today. And this is where virtual book tours give them that chance.

Before I go, I would like to take a minute to thank all the book bloggers who have hosted our authors. Without you, all of this wouldn’t be possible. I bow to all of you.

If you have a question about virtual book tours or anything online book promotion related, please leave a comment. I’d be more than happy to explain anything you’d like to know.

Thank you and see you in the blogosphere!

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion.  Find out about her virtual book tour packages by visiting www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com/virtualbooktours. You can follow her at Twitter at www.twitter.com/pumpupyourbook or Facebook at www.facebook.com/thewriterslife.  Email Dorothy at thewriterslife@yahoo.com.