FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Scrapbooking's First Virtual Book Tour by Best-selling Author Angie Pedersen to Kick Off April 24th!

Angie Pedersen will embark on a 15-website tour on Sunday, April 24th, promoting her third book, The Book of US: A Guide to Scrapbooking about Relationships (EFG, Inc, 2005). Tour events include online chats, scrapbooking layout challenges, book reviews, and prizes.

Lee's Summit, MO (PRWEB) April 4, 2005 - Have you ever wanted to meet your favorite author during a book tour, but their stops were too far away for you to attend? Do you wish book tours allowed you the chance to chat with an author, ask questions, and get to know her on a more personal level? If so, then you will want to follow Angie Pedersen's upcoming Virtual Book Tour. Pedersen, author of The Book of ME three-book series on scrapbook journaling, will embark on a 15-stop "24/7" Virtual Book Tour April 24-May 8, 2005.

During a Virtual Book Tour, an author visits specific lineup of websites or weblogs, similar to a real-life book tour, where stops are made at brick-and-mortar bookstores. Each day, the author visits a different website, from the comfort of her living room. At each "stop", the author may be interviewed, make "blog" entries, answer questions from site visitors, submit their book for review, or any combination of the above. What sets a virtual tour apart from real-life tours is that once the content is posted on a website, it's archived "24/7" for later access, allowing those who couldn't visit on the appointed day to view the material at their leisure.

"This is the first virtual book tour in the scrapbooking industry," says Pedersen. "I'm proud to bring such an exciting event to the papercrafting community. I'm also thrilled I don't have to leave my house to do it! No hotel rooms or flight delays!"

Pedersen will move from site to site, participating in various festivities, such as layout challenges & contests, chats, and Q&A sessions. She will also offer free digital scrapbooking kits at select sites.

In coordinating this tour, Pedersen worked with a number of popular scrapbooking manufacturers to secure prizes for the layout contests. Memory Makers Magazine, Dow, Go West Studios, Krylon, Fancy Pants Designs, Karen Foster Designs, The Paper Loft, SEI, Imagination Project, and EFG, INC are sponsoring prizes for the tour.

TOUR ITINERARY:
Sunday, April 24th: Scrapbook-Bytes.com (New York)
Monday, April 25th: ScrapbookJungle.com (Maryland)
Tuesday, April 26th: SSReflections.com (Wisconsin)
Wednesday, April 27th: Scrapbooking.About.com (Michigan)
Thursday, April 28th: ScrapsAhoy.com (Florida)
Friday, April 29: LifetimeMoments.com (Michigan)
Saturday, April 30: Scrapability/ScrapRants blog (United Kingdom)
Sunday, May 1st: UKScrappers (United Kingdom)
Monday, May 2nd: PagesoftheHeart.net (Mississippi)
Tuesday, May 3rd: ScrapOutsidetheBox.com (Missouri)
Wednesday, May 4th: ScrappingWithStyle.com (North Carolina)
Thursday, May 5th: DigitalScrapbookPlace.com (Ohio)
Friday, May 6th: KiwiScraps.Co.NZ (New Zealand)
Saturday, May 7th: OneScrappySite.com (Missouri)
Sunday, May 8th: StoryCircle.org (Texas)

Pedersen first learned about Virtual Book Tours on author MJ Rose's weblog MJ Rose's Weblog in February, and began researching the process. "I found Kevin Smokler's Virtual Book Tour website Kevin Smokler's website, but learned that his tours focus on literary fiction and narrative non-fiction. My books are a completely different genre, specifically scrapbook journaling, so I decided to coordinate my own tour, using my contacts at various scrapbooking websites," Pedersen explained.

The response from websites was swift and enthusiastic. "Of my initial 14 pitches, six positive responses arrived in under an hour," details Pedersen. "The participating sites are based all over the United States, plus one site and one blog in the UK, and one site in New Zealand. The response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic -- everyone is really excited."

Based on the subscriber base of each website, Pedersen estimates this tour could reach as many as 80,000 people - a significant increase over the potential of 1500 reached via a brick-and-mortar tour.

About Angie Pedersen:
Angie Pedersen is an author, freelance writer, and scrapbooking instructor. Her work has appeared in Creating Keepsakes, Simple Scrapbooks, Memory Makers, Ivy Cottage Creations, Better Homes & Gardens' Scrapbooks ETC, Personal Journaling, and FamilyTree magazines. She is the author of The Book of ME: A Guide to Scrapbooking about Yourself, Growing Up ME: A Guide to Scrapbooking Childhood Stories, and The Book of US: A Guide to Scrapbooking about Relationships. She has written articles for a variety of scrapbooking websites, as well as trade magazines Memories in Store and Craftrends. Angie is also the creator and editor of two award-winning websites, ScrapYourStories.com and OneScrappySite.com. She currently makes her home in Kansas City with her husband and two children.


About The Book of US:
Critically acclaimed The Book of US: A Guide to Scrapbooking about Relationships by Angie Pedersen encourages scrapbookers to explore and document what is special about their most meaningful relationships. It is designed to help with scrapbooking about friendships, family, love relationships, groups, work teams and communities. Each chapter in the 160-page book defines the chapter theme, explains how it is part of relationship dynamics, provides examples, includes prompts to aid journaling, lists ideas for photos, memorabilia and quotations that would help illustrate the theme, and then provides additional scrapbooking resources. The Book of Us has received rave reviews: scrappers call it "must-have", "gorgeous", and "chock full of great ideas".