Vincent Zandri is an award-winning novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called “Brilliant” upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” Other novels include the bestselling, Moonlight Falls,Godchild (Bantam/Dell) and Permanence (NPI). Translated into several languages including Japanese and the Dutch, Zandri’s novels have also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Presently he is the author of the blogs, Dangerous Dispatches and Embedded in Africa for Russia Today TV (RT). He also writes for other global publications, including Culture 11, Globalia and Globalspec. Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Game and Fish Magazine and others, while his essays and short fiction have been featured in many journals including Fugue, Maryland Review and Orange Coast Magazine. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz.
His latest book is the bestselling thriller novel, The Remains.
You can visit his website at www.vincentzandri.com or his blog at www.vincentzandri.blogspot.com.
Thank you for this interview, Vincent. Can we start out by having you tell us briefly what your new book is about?
Quoting the back jacket description:
Thirty years ago, teenager Rebecca Underhill and her twin sister Molly were abducted by a man who lived in a house in the woods behind their upstate New York farm. They were held inside that house for three horrifying hours, until making their daring escape.
Vowing to keep their terrifying experience a secret in order to protect their mother and father, the girls tried to put the past behind them. And when their attacker was hunted down by police and sent to prison, they believed he was as good as dead.
Now, it’s 30 years later, and with Molly having passed away from cancer, Rebecca, a painter and art teacher, is left alone to bear the burden of a secret that has only gotten heavier and more painful with each passing year.
But when Rebecca begins receiving some strange anonymous text messages, she begins to realize that the monster who attacked her all those years ago is not dead after all. He’s back, and this time, he wants to do more than just haunt her. He wants her dead.
More and more authors are realizing the potential for sales that derives from virtual book tours. Can you tell us your personal reasons why you chose a virtual book tour to help get the word out about your new book?
In a word, exposure. Nothing is more effective than a tour that takes place over the internet. In other words, the traditional garden variety book signing can’t match it. What’s the point of standing inside one bookstore when you can be inside the homes of thousands of people at once? The virtual book tour is global and reaches readers from around the world with guest blogs, interviews, blog talk radio, reviews and so much more. Lots of people say you can’t beat the personal touch of the book signing and I agree, but so many of the interviewers allow me to interact with people who make comments. I like to be as available to people as time permits, and I can still do that with a virtual tour. And frankly, with the state of publishing quickly changing to the electronic based model, bookstores are rapidly going out of business, and the ones that remains open are fearing for their bottom line, which means minimal book orders.
Is this the first time you have heard of them?
No, this is my third virtual tour, and I plan on using PUYBs for my next four contracted books. In fact my publisher, StoneHouse and Stonegate Ink, is planning on turning all its authors onto the PUYB program.
What do you hope to achieve through promoting your book through a virtual book tour?
Like I said, maximum exposure for my work. I’d like to increase my readership on daily basis if possible and the tour allows for that. It also never goes away. Because it’s online the tour is the gift that keeps on giving.
Do you promote online through other means? Website? Blog?
Yup, I have a website, a blog, and I Twitter, Face Book, MySpace, Social O, you name it….Here’s a few addresses:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/VincentZandri
Who maintains your website?
I maintain my website but I hire someone to Twitter for me.
What are your experiences with offline booksignings? Do you have much luck selling your book through that method?
Much more luck. Everyday is an opportunity to interact with fans and would-be fans and everyday is a booksigning.
Here’s a fun question. If money were no object, how would you promote your book?
I would pass along ten million bucks to Dorothy Thompson and PUYB in order to keep her on a personal, life-time retainer in order to promote all my books!
Thank you for this interview, Vincent. Do you have any final words?
Don’t hide your head in the sand authors, and still live under the belief that you can effectively promotes your books and Ebooks by investing in a time-consuming, costly, frustrating and often futile traditional book tour. Go Virtual and tour the world from your own bedroom. There’s no better way to get the word out.
Watch the Trailer!
If you’d like to follow along with Vincent Zandri as he tours the blogosphere with more interviews, guest posts and reviews, click here!
Let's Talk Virtual Book Tours 
Good Luck with the tour and the book- it looks fantastic.