Welcome to this issue of the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival. This issue is for July, 2016. 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
Alexander von Ness presents Book Cover Redesign as Marketing Tool posted at Jane Friedman saying, “Even a simple redesign of a book cover can create miracles marketing-wise. Some authors have even requested redesigns of over ten books after seeing how much a book cover redesign can increase sales.”
Joanna Penn presents How To Create An Ebook Boxset Or Bundle And Why You Should posted at The Creative Penn, saying, “Box-sets can be a great opportunity for authors to collaborate with other authors to reach a different audience, or maximize point of sale revenue from one customer with their own series or themed box-set. Ebook box-sets are a real advantage for indie authors, but many authors are still hesitating, so here’s why box-sets are so great and how you can create them yourself.”
Robin Cutler presents How Indie Authors Can Get Their Books Into Libraries posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks Distribution Expert, Robin Cutler of Ingram Spark, on what indie authors need to know and do, to get their books into libraries.”
Book Design and Production
Cathi Stevenson presents Make Your Back Cover Text Reader Friendly (Infographic) posted at Book Cover Express Indie Publishing Blog
Frances Caballo presents How to Use Pinterest to Boost Your Website’s SEO posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks’ new Social Media Expert reveals how Pinterest can be more than just a fun place to share eye candy, with solid tips on how to make it work for better SEO.”
Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. presents 10 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Self-Publishing Your Non-Fiction Book posted at Kunz On Publishing, saying, “If you have any hope of your book becoming popular and selling, it must look and read like a professionally designed and edited book. By this I mean that your book must physically look great, inside and out, and the content must be well presented, easy to follow, and well-thought-out. All of this might sound obvious at first glance, but it takes a lot of work and planning to make it all come together properly. And, unfortunately, your book might never find an audience because of these fatal mistakes.”
Ebooks and Ebook Readers
Carla King presents Use Calibre to Create EPUB & MOBI Versions of Your Book posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “Another step by step how-to from BookWorks’ Tech Expert”
Indie Author
Karl Drinkwater presents Review Into The Welsh Government’s Support For Publishing And Literature In Wales posted at Karl Drinkwater, saying, “Possibly useful for other indie authors who may be dealing with discrimination and withheld services in their own jurisdictions.”
Natasha Smyth presents The curious work habits of 18 famous writers posted at Global English Editing, saying, “Writing is an extremely personal and introspective endeavor, so it’s no wonder that these great writers felt entitled to indulge some of their more peculiar desires when it came to putting pen to paper.”
Robin Storey presents Five Top Benefits Of Being a Mature Age Author posted at Storey-Lines, saying, “There are definite advantages to being an author of ‘mature’ years, and in this blog post indie author Robin Storey lists some of them.”
Zara Quentin presents Where were you a year ago? The benefits of aspirational goal-setting posted at Zara Quentin, Author
Marketing and Selling Your Books
Alexander Zoltai presents #BookPromotion on #Wattpad posted at Notes from An Alien
Chris Well presents What Authors Can Post Online (Without Driving Away Followers) posted at Build Your Brand with Chris Well, saying, “If you keep yammering about yourself and your book, the audience will just tune you out. A great rule of thumb is for 80-percent of your messages to cater to the needs and interests of your target audience. Then–after you’ve earned it–the remaining 20-percent of your posts can toot your own horn. But what are those messages? What do you blog about? What do you talk about on social media? What do you share with your email list? In this article, I outline five types of messages that will build your brand, prove that you’re the go-to expert, and draw them closer to you as a person…”
Clare Whitmell presents The Power Of Your Email List posted at PublishingSpark, saying, “Imagine the feeling of sitting back and watching the sales flood in for a book you’ve only just launched – and all you did was send a quick email. Sound too good to be true? Not a bit of it. This is what thousands of best-selling authors do all the time. The secret is their author mailing list.”
Dave Chesson presents Book Title Generators: Free Tools To Help You Pick A Winning Title posted at Kindlepreneur, saying, “Coming up with a great title can be hard. Luckily there are some amazing free tools out there that help boost author creativity by providing proven genre specific title recommendation. Plus, there is even a book title tool that will tell you the likelihood that your book will be a bestseller by using previous book data. So, check out the list of top title generation tool and improve your book title now.”
Erica Verrillo presents How to Use Pinterest to Build an Audience (For Writers) posted at Publishing … and Other Forms of Insanity, saying, “Pinterest has great marketing and platform-building potential. The trick is learning its strong points and mastering the “search mindset.” Here are all the tools you need to build an audience. (And have fun while you’re at it!)”
Frances Caballo presents Book Marketing Tips from Industry Experts posted at Social Media Just for Writers, saying, “What book marketing tips do you follow religiously? Are you having success? If you struggle with book marketing, don’t feel alone in your struggle. A lot of authors wish they could be selling more books. If you have a beautiful author website, you regularly update your blog, and you’re fairly active on social media, you’re probably wondering: What gives? I decided to contact some expert book marketers to glean their advice and this is what you’ll read below is their best advice.”
Holly Evans presents How To Choose Ebook Promotions Sites That Are Worth Your Money. posted at Chaos Fox Writing, saying, “It can be incredibly difficult finding ebook promotion sites that are worth spending hard earned pennies on. This guide helps authors sort the wheat from the chaff.”
Jason Kong presents Why Free is Still a Smart Marketing Strategy for Fiction Writers posted at storyrally, saying, “If you’re wondering whether not charging for selected stories is benefiting your promotional campaign, you’re not alone.
With all the free writing flooding the internet, it’s harder to stand out. Even if someone downloads your free eBook, your fiction is competing with all the other stories on that person’s digital reader.
Given the ubiquity of free, it’s reasonable to question whether the market is saturated, thus reducing the effectiveness. I believe free still works. Here’s why.”
Jordan Smith presents Does an Author Really Need Goodreads? posted at Fix My Story, saying, “In this article, I talk about why Goodreads is a great choice for indie authors to do some book marketing, plus I suggest several ways you can use Goodreads to market your books.”
Kate Tilton presents How to Market Your Books and Attract New Readers With a Blog posted at Kate Tilton, Connecting Authors & Readers, saying, “This fun infographic offers tips on how to use a blog to market your book and attract readers.”
Kate Tilton presents How To Use Snapchat To Build Your Unique Readership posted at Kate Tilton, Connecting Authors & Readers, saying, “Use these five tips by Nick Rojas to connect with readers on Snapchat.”
Laurie Boris presents Why I Still Won’t Follow You on Twitter posted at Indies Unlimited, saying, “I thought your readers might be interested in a few social media etiquette tips, from a longtime Twitter user. Thank you!”
Randy Stapilus presents Audiobooks for Indie Authors – Part 2 posted at BookWorks
Self-Publishing Success
Alexander von Ness presents Secrets of Million Dollar Self-Publishers posted at Nessgraphica
Helen Sedwick presents 5 Legal Terms Every Author Should Know posted at BookWorks Blog
Jordan Smith presents Delay the Gratification of Launching Your Book posted at Fix My Story, saying, “I can’t believe the number of indie authors I’ve watched launch a book with zero planning. In this article, I talk about why you should wait to launch your book until your marketing plan is in place, and some goals for creating your launch plan.”
Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. presents Jump-Start Your Self-Publishing Business In 10 Steps posted at Kunz On Publishing, saying, “These ten steps will help you painlessly jump-start your new self-publishing business. Although most of these steps are not difficult to accomplish, I believe that they will help you quickly lay the foundation for a successful first book.”
Penny Sansevieri presents How to Create a Website That Works in 10 Easy Steps posted at BookWorks Blog, saying, “BookWorks Marketing Expert, Penny Sansevieri, shares her top 10 tips for creating an awesome website that will gain more readers and sell more books.”
Writing Tools and Tips
Belinda Kroll presents How to Choose a Title posted at Belinda Kroll, Books for Kids & Teens, saying, “A fellow writer asked me how I decide to title my fiction books. Let me tell you, this is probably the hardest part of writing for me, especially as an independent author. Here were my answers to his questions…”
C. S. Lakin presents How to Tap into Your Passion Every Time You Write posted at Live Write Thrive, saying, “Sometimes that transition from idea to execution causes problems. At times the story seems to be hovering over some lost horizon. You could be wandering a bit lost, and as the cliché goes: you can’t see the forest for the trees. Just how do we get our terrific ideas to “fly” in a cage of words? We do so by tapping into our passion. Passion for our topic and passion for shaping words.”
C. S. Lakin presents The First 10 Scenes You Need to Plot for Your Novel posted at Live Write Thrive, saying, “These are the first “10” scenes in my 10-20-30 Scene Builder concept. These scenes are best when developed first, before layering in other scenes in your novel. Novel writing is hard and complex, so having a scene layering system can add helpful structure to the process. And yes, this series gives you a number of helpful, downloadable charts you can print out and use for any novel you are working on!”
Deanna Cabinian presents How to Make Sure Your Manuscript Is In Great Shape Before Sending it to an Editor posted at Deanna Cabinian, saying, “With the right preparation you don’t have to fear getting the dreaded editorial letter.”
K.M. Weiland presents 5 Secrets of Complex Supporting Characters posted at Helping Writers Become Authors, saying, “All you need to create complex supporting characters are the answers to these five important questions about each of your minor characters.”
Katie McCoach presents How to Prep for a Writer’s Conference posted at KM Editorial, saying, “If you plan to attend a writer’s conference in the near future, take advantage of these tips to put your best forward and get the most out of the experience.”
Lana Pecherczyk presents Create Sizzling Conflict Between Your Hero and Heroine – A to Z of Romance Writing posted at Author Zoo, saying, “This post comes with free downloadable worksheets and is part of a series on romance writing.”
Tamara Dever presents 14 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block posted at TLC Graphics: The Designer Writes
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, Plus-1 it on Google+, Link to it!
The next issue is August 28, 2016 and the deadline for submissions will be August 15, 2016. Don’t miss it!
Here are all the links you’ll need
- Have something to share with our community? Submit your article here
- The original announcement post
- Carnival of the Indies web page
- Bloggers, grab your official Carnival of the Indies Badges here
- Follow Carnival of the Indies on Twitter to get deadline reminders
- Subscribe to The Book Designer Blog
