Self-Publishing: The Carnival of the Indies Issue #99

POSTED ON Dec 23, 2018

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By Joel Friedlander

Welcome to this issue of the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival. This issue is for December, 2018. 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

C. S. Lakin presents The Writer’s Vision for 2019 posted at Live Write Thrive, saying, “Rather than have a nebulous idea of what we want to achieve as writers, it’s helpful and wise to think about the goals we want to reach. Then we want to take our vague vision and form it into something not only specific but laid out with reasonable milestones to reach at certain steps along the way. By transforming our vision into doable steps, we can measure our success, reevaluate the milestones and goals as we go along, and hone that vision into a reality with its resultant rewards.”

Dave Chesson presents How to Use Top Book Blogs to Build Your Author Brand posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Author Brand Expert Dave Chesson schools authors on how to pitch top book blogs in their genre, including his list of top blogs in all the popular categories.”

Jay Artale presents How to remove your paperback from KDP Expanded Distribution to also sell your book via IngramSpark posted at Birds of a Feather Press, saying, “What happens if you chose Expanded Distribution for your paperback through Amazon KDP and then change your mind after you’ve published? I ran into duplicate ISBN issues when I tried setting up my title through IngramSpark, and here’s how I handled expanding my distribution network, without having to set up a new book listing on Amazon or assign a new ISBN.”

Book Design and Production

Fiona Raven presents InDesign’s Book feature: the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY posted at Book Design Made Simple, saying, “The InDesign Book feature provides a great way to combine smaller InDesign files into one larger Book file. There are a lot of things we love about the Book feature. But, after using it for numerous book projects, we’ve discovered that it’s not perfect—so forewarned is forearmed!”

Sarah Bolme presents Are You Paying Attention to Details? posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, ““The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail.” ~Charles R. Swindoll. Attention to detail is important. Some people are better at details than others. Yet, Charles Swindoll nails it with this statement. If you want to have a great book, you must pay attention to the details.”

Indie Author

Alma Alexander presents Pros at Cons posted at Duchess of Fantasy.

Zara Altair presents How To Work With Your Audiobook Narrator posted at Write Time, saying, “Interview with performance artist Jonathan Waters. Tips on creating a successful collaboration for an audiobook.”

Marketing and Selling Your Books

Belinda Griffin presents How to Create an Ideal Reader Avatar to Focus Your Book Marketing posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Reader Relationships expert, Belinda Griffin, instructs authors on how to create an ideal reader avatar profile to focus their marketing efforts.”

Frances Caballo presents Author’s Guide to Email Marketing plus 3 Best Practices posted at Social Media Just for Writers, saying, “There’s a piece of advice that authors everywhere are receiving that you can’t ignore: start your email marketing list and grow it. As you can tell from the abundance of blog posts on this topic, I’m not the only one who agrees with this advice.”

Jennifer Connor presents How to rewrite romance novel blurbs that super fans of romance will actually buy! posted at Romance Rehab Writer’s Resources.

Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. presents Successful Non-Fiction Authors Don’t Confuse “Empathy” With “Sympathy” posted at Kunz On Publishing, saying, “Even though empathy and sympathy both involve your “feelings” about your readers, they refer to two distinctly different emotions. As an author, and book marketer, (and as an emotionally mature adult that is trying to help people) you must genuinely understand the difference. Here is a short discussion about the importance of empathy, and how it relates to your book sales.”

Kristina Adams presents Should You Use a Pen Name? posted at The Writer’s Cookbook.

Sarah Bolme presents 10 Daily Book Marketing Activities for 2019 posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, “It’s the time of year people start to think about New Year’s Resolutions. Even if you don’t make New Year’s resolutions, the end of a year is a great time to reflect on what you have done the previous year and what you want to improve on in the coming year. Following are 10 book marketing activities that you can do every day.”

Terry Whalin presents Move Beyond the Book posted at The Writing Life, saying, “Authors are normally focused on the book. But how can your book take you to a new level of authority? It’s what prolific author and editor Terry Whalin writes about in this article.”

Self-Publishing Success

Chris Well presents Author Media Page Essentials Part 3 – The Right Images posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Media & PR expert Chris Well wraps up his crash course on Author PR Kit Essentials with do’s & don’ts for the images you should provide on your media page.”

Sophie Anderson presents Should I Have a Print Version of My Self-Published Book? – Advantages of Print posted at Carmine Proofreading, saying, “Once you have finished your manuscript, you still need to choose what format to publish it in. This blog looks at some of the advantages of print books over ebooks.”

Tyler Doornbos presents User Experience: 6 Author Website Mistakes to Avoid posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks.com’s Web Lead, Tyler Doornbos, helps indie authors avoid the top 6 website mistakes that hinder user experience (UX) and lose customers, in the latest installment of his “Insider’s Guide to Author Websites” series.”

Writing Tools and Tips

Daphne Gray-Grant presents Why you should blog BEFORE writing your book posted at The Publication Coach, saying, “It always frustrates me when an author says that they’re three-quarters through their manuscript (or, worse, finished) and they wonder if they should START blogging. Yikes! Here’s what I say: Start blogging as soon as you can. Don’t wait until you’ve finished your book before you start building your audience. And there are a lot of other good reasons why you should start blogging from the get-go.”

David Leonhardt presents The 1 trait every ghostwriter needs posted at Always Write, saying, “Thank you.”

David Leonhardt presents Why Every Writer Is The Tardis (And Every Reader Is A Companion) posted at Loup Dargent, saying, “This one’s a little whimpsical, but if you’re looking to include some variety, I hope you’ll like it.”

Ellie Betts presents How I Failed NaNoWriMo and Why That’s Ok posted at The Writer’s Cookbook.

Holly Ostara presents How to use video writing sprints to make writing fun again posted at Books & Alchemy, saying, “Using video sprints with some of my closest writing partners has been a game-changer for me. Word counts soared and I felt more energized, too!”

Iola Goulton presents Dear Editor | How Long Should my Novel Be? posted at Christian Editing Services, saying, “How long should a novel be? That depends on genre, target reader age, and whether you’re self-publishing or seeking traditional publication.”

Louise Harnby presents Unveiling your characters: Physical description with style posted at The Parlour, saying, “Readers want to know what characters look like. Writers want to show them. Here are some tools that will help do it with subtlety rather than a sledgehammer.”

Louise Harnby presents World-building wikis for crime writers posted at The Parlour, saying, “Will your reader immerse themselves in your crime novel’s setting? Will the world you’ve built make sense, even if it’s a work of fantasy? And is it coherent? If you’re not sure, create a wiki.”

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 to Tweet it, Share it on Facebook, Link to it!

The next issue is January 27, 2019 and the deadline for submissions will be January 15, 2018. Don’t miss it!

Here are all the links you’ll need