Self-Publishing: Carnival of the Indies Issue #119

By Joel Friedlander

Welcome to this issue of the Carnival of the Indies blog carnival. This issue is for August, 2020. 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

James Moushon presents Authors: The Task of Finding Readers – A Study posted at HBS Author’s Spotlight, saying, “Authors: The Task of Finding Readers – A Study – Over 30 Outstanding Authors Share Their Experiences. All authors can learn something from this study. As they say “This is great stuff. As authors try to gain traction in today’s marketplace. The secret beside writing good books is to find readers and establish relationships.””

Jay Artale presents How to Improve your Book’s Readability with Self-Editing posted at Birds of a Feather Press, saying, “How to self-edit your nonfiction book to improve the readability by using Scrivener’s text to speech function, and ProWritingAid’s readability by paragraph report.”

Dave Chesson presents What to Write About on Your Author Blog (with Blog Topics Inside) posted at IndieReader.

Book Design and Production

Alexander von Ness presents Book cover re-designs: A pro offers 7 before and after examples posted at BuildBookBuzz.

C. S. Lakin presents Book Cover Design Ideas: 7 Proven Tips for Creating Yours posted at The Self-Publisher, saying, “No doubt you’ve heard the old adage: “A picture’s worth a thousand words.” This is so true—a singular image can inspire activism and outrage, trigger tears of pain or compassion, or make us laugh uproariously. Iconic images linger long in the collective memory of a society—and can even change us profoundly. As a self-publishing author, your aim might not be to change the world with your book cover, but, aware of the power of imagery, a new adage might be fitting: “A picture’s worth a thousand sales.” We want our books to sell—whether our primary objective is to make money or not.”

Indie Author

Darcy Pattison presents Indie Publishing: Learning to Trust Yourself Again posted at Indie Kids Books.

Kyoko M presents Hindsight is 20/20: My Seventh Year in Self-Publishing posted at She Who Writes Monsters, saying, “I recap what I have learned during my seventh year as a self-published author.”

Lisa Poisso presents How long should you query your manuscript? posted at Clarity, saying, “Nothing sells a novel like the next novel. If all you have on tap is a freshman effort you slaved over for ten years, that doesn’t bode well to anyone looking for someone who can keep the hits coming.”

Lois Hoffman presents Is Affiliate Marketing the Next Thing for Writers? posted at The Happy Self-Publisher, saying, “Affiliate marketing is an arrangement where you are paid a commission for promoting the products and services of another person or company. Three key parties are involved in affiliate marketing. They are the merchant or advertiser (the product or service owners), the affiliate or the publisher (you, the writer), and the buyer or consumer. The merchant pays you commission resulting from bringing a customer their way to make a purchase.”

Nate Hoffelder presents (Ten) Great Twitter Chats for Writers posted at Nate Hoffelder, saying, “Want to hang out with other writers? Here are ten great Twitter chats where you can work on your craft, and learn more about the industry.”

Sarah Bolme presents You Can’t Avoid Criticism posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, “If you do anything publicly—author a book, speak to a group, write a blog post or article, post on social media—someone is going to disagree with you. There is always someone in a crowd who is a naysayer.”

Terry Whalin presents The Power of Words posted at The Writing Life, saying, “Prolific writer and editor Terry Whalin reminds us that our words have power to heal or to harm.”

Marketing and Selling Your Books

Amy Edelman presents Giving Readers What They Want – The Strategy that Leads to More Book Sales posted at IndieReader.

Belinda Griffin presents How to market a book even if you HATE marketing! posted at SmartAuthorsLab.

Dave Chesson presents HOW TO CHANGE YOUR KINDLE KEYWORDS AND WHY YOU SHOULD posted at Kindlepreneur, saying, “Did you know you can change your book’s keywords anytime you want? It usually takes Amazon just 24 hours to reflect changes you make, and with the right keyword strategy, you can revive a book that hasn’t been getting consistent sales.”

Gladys Strickland presents Free Social Media Scheduling Tools for Authors posted at Creatively Sustainable, saying, “Market your writing with regular updates on social media. I share the free tools I use and how I use them to schedule content to various social media channels.”

Nate Hoffelder presents 6 Mistakes Authors Make with Their Websites posted at Ingram Spark blog, saying, “Here are six technical mistakes commonly found on author websites.”

Nate Hoffelder presents Website changes that can lead to finding new clients posted at An AMerican Editor, saying, “Here are six simple changes you can make to your website to get more paying clients.”

Nellie Neeman presents Staring Down The Great Book Marketing Challenge posted at Nellie’s Notes, saying, “NELLIE’S NOTES will offer tips, encouragement, and first-hand experience, helping new writers navigate their way to self-publishing success.”

Sabrina Ricci presents Guest Post: How to Use Guest Appearances and Interviews in Tandem with your SEO posted at Digital Pubbing, saying, “You’ve written your book, you’ve reviewed it a million times and you finally published it.”

Sarah Bolme presents How Effective Is Your Website? posted at Marketing Christian Books, saying, “Your website is important. It is the face that you present to the world. Your readers judge you and your books by your website. In fact, the people who visit your website will form their opinion within 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) of viewing your web page.”

Self-Publishing Success

Connie B. Dowell presents Writer Beware and Avoiding Scams with Richard C. White posted at Book Echoes, saying, “Guest Richard C. White talks about red flags for authors to avoid scams and evaluate what services are worthwhile and what to avoid.”

Geoff Hughes presents How much does it cost to self publish a book posted at The Write Stuff.

Writing Tools and Tips

Deborah Jay presents Writers, are you easily distracted? Try the ‘bubble’ technique. posted at Deborah Jay Author, saying, “As an author who is also a sports professional, I find many performance techniques can be transferred between the two disparate professions.”

Louise Harnby presents How to show the emotions of non-viewpoint characters posted at The Editing Blog, saying, “Non-viewpoint characters have emotions too. But how do we show them without head-hopping? The answer lies in mastering observable behaviour.”

Louise Harnby presents How to use reflexive pronouns in fiction posted at The Editing Blog, saying, “Himself, herself, myself, themself/selves … check the usage of pronouns in your fiction. You might just be overworking them, such that you’re stating the obvious, modifying the pace, and reducing tension.”

Pam Firth presents Passive voice: When is it the better choice? posted at Devilish Details: Fiendish Tips for Writers and Editors, saying, “Academic style guides such as APA’s Publication Manual often recommend active voice in scholarly writing, but when is passive voice the better choice?”

Phyllis Zimbler Miller presents Writers Modeling Behavior On and Off the Page posted at Joylene Nowell Butler, saying, “I wrote this blog post because I think writers have a special responsibility to promote public safety behavior.”

SUSANNE LAKIN presents The Challenge of Creating Powerful Settings posted at Live Write Thrive, saying, “Setting is so often overlooked or pushed to the background in fiction. But it is, perhaps, one of the most powerful elements of a story. If you aren’t thinking carefully about the settings in your story, I hope you’ll think again. Setting isn’t just where your overall story is set, it’s all those locations you set invidual scenes in. We spend a lot of our time at work and home, and occasionally at those restaurants and coffee shops, but that is ordinary life. And while we want to show our characters in their ordinary lives (at least sometimes), readers don’t want “boring.” So the challenge for novelists is to come up with settings that are interesting.”

Zara Altair presents On-Site in Your Story Settings posted at Write Time, saying, “Tips to add setting details to make your story come alive and keep readers engaged.”

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 September 28, 2020 and the deadline for submissions will be September 15, 2020. 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