Welcome to this issue of the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival. This issue is for September, 2012, our 2nd anniversary. We welcome your submissions on topics related to writing, self-publishing, book design or marketing books.
A collection of outstanding articles recently posted to blogs, your reading here will be richly rewarded.
See the end of this post for links to submit your blog posts for the next carnival, or for participating Bloggers and Featured Bloggers to grab your sidebar badges. Thanks to everyone who participated.
Featured Posts
Stephanie Chandler (@bizauthor) presents How to Host Your Own Ebook Giveaway (Without Amazon KDP) posted at Authority Publishing. “The other downside of promoting with Amazon is that you never know who downloaded your ebook. There is no email address capture or any way for the author to communicate with readers after the promotion is over. So, I decided to launch my own campaign. Here’s how it all went down:”
Belinda Pollard (@Belinda_Pollard) presents What makes a good beta reader? posted at Small Blue Dog Publishing, saying, “Any writer needs feedback, but a good beta reader is pure gold for the self-publisher. They help provide the refining process previously supplied by the traditional publishing process.”
Lindsay Buroker (@GoblinWriter) presents How to Sell Advanced Reader Copies as a Self-Published Author posted at Lindsay Buroker — Fantasy Author, saying, “I explain what I did right and wrong with my recent eARC sale and give some tips for authors who may be thinking of trying this.”
Book Design and Production
Sarah Bolme presents Did You Forget the Subject Headings? posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, “The Back Cover design of a book is important. Many self-published books lack subject headings in their back cover design. Don’t forget this important element for your books.”
David Bergsland presents Formatting basics: making a beautiful book which is comfortable to read posted at The Skilled Workman, saying, “Often we forget how bad our readers are at actually reading. We need to help them, be kind to them, and make sure our book design and layout do not make things difficult. If we don’t, we’ll lose our readers.”
Ben Macklin presents Vook Me this is a good service…but posted at BWM Books, saying, “This is a review of the cloud-based eBook conversion and design tool Vook. A valuable option for self publishers.”
Ebooks and Ebook Readers
Qwantu Amaru presents Readers are the New Literary Agents posted at The Home of Author Qwantu Amaru, saying, “Hello, I’d love to include a blog I wrote today examining the diminishing relevance of literary agents in the face of indie publishing and the rise of ebooks. Regards, Qwantu”
David Bergsland presents Your book better not look like apoorly designed Website posted at The Skilled Workman, saying, “One of the real problems today is that ebooks are being designed primarily by hand-coding experts with no book design training or experience. We must be aware of this problem and make sure we are focused on good book design and an excellent reading experience for our readers.”
Indie Author
Laxmi Hariharan presents Does it take a controversy to create a bestseller? posted at Young Adult (Old Soul)
Rinelle Grey presents Finding Time to Write posted at Rinelle Grey
Sandra Ulbrich Almazan presents How to Create an Audiobook: Guest Hijacker Sandra Ulbrich Almazan posted at Tossing It Out, saying, “This is a guest post I wrote for Tossing It Out. My own blog is here: https://www.ulbrichalmazan.blogspot.com/”
Judith Briles presents It’s Easy to Get Lost in Publishing Terminology posted at Author U Blog, saying, “Confusion is the who’s who and the what’s what in publishing continues…it starts with the terminology …”
Sherry Siska presents Rookie Mistakes posted at WriteSherry, saying, “I wrote this blog post to highlight some of the “rookie” mistakes I made when self-publishing. My aim is to help other Rookies avoid making those same mistakes.”
KS ‘Kaz’ Augustin presents Self-publishing and the SFR writer posted at The Galaxy Express, saying, “Hi Shelley & Joel: This article is for a niche market, SFR (science-fiction romance), so am not sure if that’s too narrow a focus for the Carnival. Anyway, here it is and the comments are good too….. Kaz Augustin”
Jane Ayres presents Taking Stock posted at The Beautiful Room
Steven Saus presents The Writer’s (Lack) of Self-Confidence posted at ideatrash, saying, “I wrestled a lot with my own feelings of self-confidence (and self-doubt) at the last big convention I attended… even though there were quite a few people there who looked to me as a model of success. Between this post and one two days later (https://ideatrash.net/2012/08/the-writers-abundance-of-self-doubt.html ), I tried to tackle the insecurities that I share with pretty much all of us who try this writing and publishing gig.”
Pamela Hegarty presents What Yiddish and Edith Wharton Taught Me About the Value of Print Books posted at www.pamelahegarty.com, saying, “This is a reminder that although ebooks are a boon to readers and writers, print books have a value that is more than the sum of their words.”
Marketing and Selling Your Books
Cathy Stucker presents Dealing with Negative Reviews on Amazon posted at Selling Books, saying, “They can’t all be five stars. What should you do when you get a bad review on Amazon.com? Should you respond? Complain? Write a bunch of good reviews? Before you do anything you might regret, read this post.”
James Moushon presents eBook Marketing: Is Buying a Great Book Review Your Cup of Tea? posted at eBook Author’s Corner, saying, “i thought i would jump in on this hot topic. i think a lot of good reviewers who do a pro job are taking to much heat on this one. You are referenced in the blog with your great post.”
Steven Saus presents How to show your book covers in a blog sidebar posted at ideatrash, saying, “A simple way to have a blog sidebar with clickable links for your books – including HTML examples.”
Laura Pepper Wu presents My new book is here! Lessons learned from a pre-launch. posted at 30 Day Books, saying, “It’s been an entire year since I released a book, and a lot has changed during that time! A list of my observations, along with what you can learn from my pre-launch lessons.”
Steven Saus presents On Working For Free and (My) Hypocrisy posted at ideatrash, saying, “Amanda Palmer recently caught some flak for asking people to work for free… something that writers get asked to do as well. Is it ever worth it?”
M. Louisa Locke presents Report on my latest KDP Select Free Promotion: Getting into that Holiday Spirit posted at M. Louisa Locke’s Front Parlor
Jason Kong presents The Stephen King Guide to Marketing posted at Jane Friedman, saying, “Despite working through traditional publishing for much of his career, Stephen King deserves the lion’s share of credit for the marketing success of his books. What worked for him can work for you as well.”
Bryan Thomas Schmidt presents Things Pros Wish New Authors Knew About Publishing And Don’t posted at Bryan Thomas Schmidt dot Net, saying, “A survey of experienced authors, editors, publishers with great advice, some of it suprising”
Ben Macklin presents Turn your book into a infographic posted at BWM Books, saying, “A picture tells a thousand words. A digital picture tells a thousand words to potentially thousands of people. Why not turn your story line into a compelling visual infographic to whet people’s appetite. Examples in this article.”
Shannon @ Duolit presents What Will Smith Can Teach Us About Book Sales posted at Duolit, saying, “In the last ten years, Will Smith has made nine movies grossing at least $100 million in box office sales. What can he teach us about selling our books? Click to find out!”
Self-Publishing Success
Turndog Millionaire presents 28 Reasons Why Writers Should Collaborate – Not Compete posted at Turndog Millionaire, saying, “Show the writing world some love. Society has enough hate as it is, so let the publishing sphere be full of help and sharing.”
Sue Collier presents Create marketing magic with energized editorial and electrified titles, part four posted at Self-Publishing Resources
Phyllis Zimbler Miller presents Ebook Publishing: Look Before You Leap posted at Miller Mosaic LLC
Donald presents Predictor’s of An Author’s Success posted at The Fearless Self-Publisher, saying, “Thanks for considering our submission. PS. Your article on fonts is an AMAZING resource.”
Dave Bricker presents Why You Need a Professional Editor posted at The World’s Greatest Book, saying, “After completing the final draft of a manuscript for my fifth book, I wanted a reality check. I hired a professional editor and learned something important about self-publishing. No matter how capable you are as a writer and proofreader, you can’t accomplish your best writing entirely by yourself.”
Writing Tools and Tips
Jonny presents Smart Blog: Benefits of Writing a Notebook posted at Smart blog, saying, “This may be coming at writing from a different angle, but often keeping a writers notebook will offer writers many benefits. For example; being able to keep ideas and creating inspiration. I think you have a great website and would be very grateful if you included my article in your carnival. I wish you all the best for the future.”
Gibson Goff presents How Do You Manifest Those Freelance Writing Dreams? posted at Freelance Writing Dreams
Alexander M Zoltai presents Why Writers Must Read In Order To Become Authors posted at Notes from An Alien, saying, “Using Creative Reading To Help Your Creating Writing”
Nick Daws presents Writers: Should You Work With a Collaborator? posted at Nick Daws’ Writing Blog, saying, “This post examines the pros and cons of collaborating with other writers on projects.”
Steven Saus presents Writing the Other: Taking a Lesson from Les blanches exotiques posted at ideatrash, saying, “”Writing the Other” can be a difficult task… and you are ALWAYS writing the Other. Taking the sociological perspective – seeing the strange in the familiar – is a good way to get you started, and Les Blanches Exotiques is a good way to help get that kind of perspective.”
Well, that wraps up this issue. I hope you enjoy some of the great articles here, and let other people interested in self-publishing know about the Carnival—Use the share buttons below to Tweet it, Share it on Facebook, Plus-1 it on Google+, Link to it! The next issue is October 28, 2012 and the deadline for submissions will be October 20, 2012. Don’t miss it! Here are all the links you’ll need:
The original announcement post
Carnival of the Indies web page
Submit your article here
Bloggers, grab your official Carnival of the Indies Badges here
Follow Carnival of the Indies on Twitter
Subscribe to The Book Designer Blog
