Welcome to this issue of the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival. This issue is for October, 2012. 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
Dave Bricker presents EBook Publishing in a World of Options posted at The World’s Greatest Book. “Differences between eBook media formats are blurring. Due to a convergence of technologies around HTML5, books can be published through eReader devices, as mobile applications, or on the web. This article examines the pros and cons of each eBook format.”
Andy Conway presents How to Get You Ebook Translated for Foreign Markets posted at Andy Conway, saying, “A foreign translation of one of my novellas kind if fell into my lap and is now published, so I thought I’d write about the process and link to the best resources out there.”
Joanna Penn presents Help! My Book Isn’t Selling. 10 Questions You Need To Answer Honestly If You Want To Sell More Books. posted at The Creative Penn, saying, “If your books aren’t selling as well as you would like, answer these 10 questions honestly to see how you could improve them.”
Book Design and Production
Monique McDonell presents Interview with Lisa Kelly book cover designer posted at Monique McDonell, saying, “This is an interview I did with my book cover designer Lisa Kelly.”
Indie Author
Lenore Skomal presents 17,500 readers with a corrupted ebook file – learn from what I did wrong posted at Lenore Skomal, saying, “Screwing up the kindle version of bluff proves one thing – trust the professionals!”
Terah Edun presents Diversity in Young Adult Indie Fiction posted at Terah Edun, saying, “Young Adult fiction has long been a market without diversity. Indie authors are changing that!”
Rinelle Greu presents How Motherhood Taught Me to Accept Critiques posted at Rinelle Grey, saying, “Accepting critiques is always hard. On one hand, we want people to tell us what is wrong with our novel, yet we also don’t really want to hear it. I looked back at my early parenting experinces to help me prepare to deal with my first critique.”
Russell Phillips presents Self-Publishing: A Primer posted at Russell Phillips, saying, “This is a primer for anyone interested in self-publishing. It includes links to good sources of further information.”
Steven Saus presents Should You Publish It Yourself: Show Me The Money posted at ideatrash, saying, “I use a real-world example of comparing a small publisher’s offer and self-publishing (while hiring professionals) to see where the costs and profits are, and what decisions need to be made.”
Bob Baker presents Two Words That Can Turbo-Charge Your Life as an Author posted at Bob Baker’s Book Promotion Blog, saying, “Here’s a two-word phrase that has a pretty profound meaning. It has everything to do with achieving creative success and fulfillment. But, these words are often misunderstood by writers and authors …”
Patty Jansen presents Why the hell would I want to sell a book? posted at Must Use Bigger Elephants, saying, “Why I won’t be submitting anything to big publishers anymore.”
Marketing and selling your books
Michael Montoure presents Why Are Writers Buying Fake Reviews When Getting Real Ones Is Just Not That Hard? posted at Michael Montoure’s “Bloodletters”
Phyllis Zimbler Miller presents “Introducing Amazon Author Rank” posted at Phyllis Zimbler Miller, saying, “I think this blog post is valuable for authors because I give specific examples of books in categories. After I published this post I read an LA Times article thatt talked about what authors thought of this new feature without going into the specific explanations that I provide.”
Jane Ayres presents Backtracking: Lessons in Indie Publishing – Part 1 Marketing posted at The Beautiful Room, saying, “Despite years of being traditionally published and with a marketing background, I was still unprepared for the sheer amount of work involved in selling books when you go the indie route. This post highlights and reflects on some of the lessons learned so far and shares what I have learned with others.”
Donald presents Determining Your Book’s USP posted at The Fearless Self-Publisher, saying, “You’re not ready to market your book if you don’t know its unique selling point.”
Laxmi Hariharan presents Does it take a controversy to create a bestseller? posted at Young Adult (Old Soul)
Sarah Bolme presents Don’t Overlook Smartphones posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, “Selling Young Adult Books.”
James Moushon presents eBook Marketing: How Do You Target Your Reading Audience? posted at eBook Author’s Corner
Sylvia Liu presents Five Ways to Increase Your Blog’s Page Views posted at Sylvia Liu Land, saying, “Blogging is one of the best ways to build your platform. But how do you go about attracting readers to your blog? Here’s a big, long post stuffed with advice on how to increase your blog’s readership.”
Jane Ayres presents Lessons in Indie Publishing – Part 1 Marketing posted at The Beautiful Room, saying, “Despite years of being traditionally published and with a marketing background, I was still unprepared for the sheer amount of work involved in selling books when you go the indie route. This post highlights and reflects on some of the lessons learned so far and shares what I have learned with others.”
Laura Rae Amos presents reporting from the GMU self-publishing panel posted at Laura Rae Amos, saying, “I attended George Mason University’s Fall for the Book Festival, “Self-Publishing Panel”. There was some wonderful advice by a panel of very talented and successful self-published authors. I took notes and shared what I learned in this blog post.”
Panich Choonhanirunrit (Gof) presents Retouch Your Novels through Adaptation into the Erotic posted at BB eBooks, saying, “A blog post on how to consider your genre to what sells. Thank you, Joel and Shelley.”
Steven Saus presents The Beginning of the End of Social Media posted at ideatrash, saying, “I take a look at the two biggest social media platforms – Twitter and Facebook – and how they’ve become far less useful of late for letting your fans and readers know what’s going on.”
Dana Lynn Smith presents The Biggest Mistakes Self-Published Authors Make posted at The Savvy Book Marketer, saying, “This is a five-part series on how to avoid some of the biggest mistakes that self-published authors make.”
M. Louisa Locke presents Update on Categories and Keywords: Why authors should still care posted at M. Louisa Locke
Guy Anthony De Marco presents Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act posted at Guy Anthony De Marco, saying, “This article is a walk-through to get pirated copies of your work off of the search engines or an ISP.”
Randy Ross presents What’s My Genre? Positioning Your Book Even If It’s Not Genre Fiction posted at The Loneliest Planet, saying, “How to determine your genre, competing books, comparable authors, and market positioning.”
Yesenia Vargas presents When (And How) Should You Start Marketing Your Book? posted at Yesenia Vargas, saying, “Indie authors often remark that the most difficult part of being published is getting found by readers. By marketing your book early, you can assure that this will be less of a problem. Here are some fun, authentic ways to do that.”
Toni @ Duolit presents Writing Email Updates (Your Fans Will Actually Read) posted at Self-Publishing Team, saying, “Your mailing list is the Swiss Army Knife of your indie marketing toolbelt, but you’re probably using it all wrong! Don’t waste the potential of this awesome relationship-building tool — read on for my fun (really!) tips on writing email updates that WORK…”
Self-Publishing Success
Laura Pepper Wu presents From delivering bread at 2am, to selling 65,000 copies of his self-published books. Meet Kimanzi Constable! posted at 30 Day Books, saying, “In this interview, Kimanzi Constable talks about how he went from delivering bread at 2am, to creating a business and a living around what he loves to do; writing and speaking. He gives us insight and the specifics of how he promoted his two self-published books to sell over 65,000 copies before getting picked up by a publisher to write a third book. You can certainly use some of this advice to push your own books further and increase sales!”
Diana Jackson presents Journey into the Publishing World part 1 posted at Diana Jackson’s Muse, Views and Reviews, saying, “In the last month I have run a three part ‘warts and all’ series about my launch into setting up my own own publishing business Eventispress, because I wanted to self publish professionally. It’s early days yet. Watch this space. Many thanks for your wonderful advice along the way….”
Sue Collier presents Write and Promote Your Indie Book Quicky and Easily posted at Self-Publishing Resources
Writing Tools and Tips
Joanne presents How do you get published : Part One posted at Writer-Assist, saying, “The first in a series of posts aimed at helping a first time author get published”
Turndog Millionaire presents 5 Top TED Talks From 5 Amazing Writers posted at Turndog Millionaire, saying, “Some of the best TED Talks I’ve found. Over an hour well spent watching these videos :)”
Joanna Penn presents 9 Easily Preventable Mistakes Writers Make with Dialogue posted at The Creative Penn, saying, “Whether you love writing dialogue or dread it, you’ll probably agree it’s an essential part of fiction. Unfortunately, dialogue is also easy to get wrong. Whether you’re a new writer or an established one, you’ll want to watch out for these mistakes.”
iWriteReadRate.com presents Cornerstones Literary Consultancy Critique Feedback & Writing Advice – Traum by Martin Hyde (VoteForMyeBook August Comp Winner) posted at The iWriteReadRate Blog, saying, “This post is to share the mini-critique and writing advice from leading UK Literary Consultancy, Cornerstones, in relation to Martin Hyde’s ebook, Traum. Martin won our first VoteForMyeBook.com competition in AugustHere’s the feedback and response from Cornerstones and Martin. Great advice from the experts…”
Steven Saus presents HOWTO Evaluate a Market (with Walkthrough) posted at ideatrash, saying, “If you’re looking for someplace to help with your book (or to sell your short fiction to, or to use as an outlet), you still have to evaluate the market or outlet the same way. I had a friend ask about one such opportunity – and I walk through the process of evaluating that market.”
Alexander M Zoltai presents More Help for Researching Writers posted at Notes from An Alien, saying, “Awesome Researching Resources – with a cool video :-)”
JW Manus presents Scan, OCR and Restore Backlist Books posted at JW Manus Ebooks=Real Books, saying, “Scanning and restoring backlist books is a daunting task that looks hard and time-consuming, or very expensive. For the DIY indie author, the task is time-consuming, but it’s not hard and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Some tips and resources to help self-publishers get the best results.”
Nick Daws presents Why Writers Should Always “Give it a Week” posted at Nick Daws’ Writing Blog
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 November 25, 2012 and the deadline for submissions will be November 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
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